This article makes use of network analysis to examine the establishment of the War Convicted Benefit Society (Sensō jukei-sha sewa-kai), an influential advocacy group in the popular movement that pushed for amnesty for Japanese war criminals from 1952 to 1958. By graphing the networks created by members of the Society, I demonstrate that early Occupation policies, precisely those that convicted and purged these old elites and resulted in the detention of many of them in Sugamo prison, actually created a new network of conservative power figures by linking the otherwise unconnected old mid-rank military network and the old colonial/political elite network to rally around their common experience of being “prosecuted.”

About 16,500 people were sterilized under the now-defunct Eugenic Protection Law (1948-1996) of Japan, whose aim was to “prevent the birth of eugenically inferior offspring, and to protect maternal health and life”. Kita Saburō (pseudonym), was one of the victims. He was sterilized in 1957, at the age of fourteen, while residing at a facility for troubled youths called Shūyō Gakuen in Sendai. This article introduces Kita's testimony about his sterilization, and offers possible explanations of why Kita, who had no disability, was forcibly sterilized.

The interview was conducted on September 12, 2019 in Kita's house in Nerima ward, Tokyo. Interview and translation by Astghik Hovhannisyan.

The paper examines Japan's capital city of Tokyo's “Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy.” Our work shows that Tokyo's strategy is particularly important in light of the 2030 Agenda's emphasis on greenhouse-gas emissions reduction, equitable sustainability, and building holistic resilience against all hazards. The data indicate that Tokyo's ambitions are built on a track record of global leadership in resource efficient water systems, transit networks, and other critical infrastructure. Moreover, Tokyo is part of Japan's zero-emission communities, smart cities, all-hazard resilience, and other multilevel and silo-breaking collaborative platforms. Our analysis also makes recommendations for bolstering Tokyo's strategy, to enhance co-benefits from integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation, in addition to strengthening pandemic response.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has been widely criticized for ineptitude in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Keen to host the Olympics in 2020, he put public health at risk. Strong international criticism finally forced the IOC and Abe to accept the inevitable and defer the Olympics until 2021. Now both parties are now trying to claim credit for making this decision. The Japanese policy of limiting testing kept policymakers and citizens in the dark and handicapped responses to the outbreak. As the number of infections surges, the government is playing catch up. The combination of an accelerating COVID-19 outbreak in Japan and imminent global economic recession will hit Japan hard and could lead to Abe's ouster. For now, there are growing concerns that he may exploit this crisis to advance his political agenda of constitutional revision.

Abe Shinzo has exercised extraordinary influence over the Japanese state. On 20 November 2019, as he passed his 2,587th day in office (over eight years) he became modern Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister. But what are the sources of this longevity and what will be the consequences for Japan and the Asia-Pacific? Probably few, even among his close supporters, suggest that he has been exceptionally popular. His parliamentary dominance rests on a combination of political apathy, absence of credible opposition, and a well-funded political party machine honed by more than half a century of Cold War and post-Cold War parliamentary dominance. From a narrow electoral base, during his second term of office that followed the general election of December 2012, Abe moved to concentrate an unprecedented measure of control over the levers of state, nominating his close associates to special policy advisory committees and to head the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, the National Security Council, the Bank of Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the national broadcaster (NHK). He also paid close attention to the cultivation of the major national media groups. In October 2017 the support of just 17.9 per cent of eligible voters (48.2% of the vote) in the small seat electorate division was sufficient to secure the Abe camp 61.1% of the parliamentary seats. In September 2018 Abe extended his party leadership position to three terms (nine years from 2012) and so anticipated steering the country through the 2020 Olympic Games and beyond to the adoption of a new constitution before retiring in glory late in 2021. Coronavirus upset that design by causing the Olympics to be held over for at least a year, but early signs were that Abe would turn that delay to his political purposes.