From early in 1945, Okinawa's geopolitical location at the southern border of ‘Japan proper’ made it an obvious and immediate target for the Allies' invasion of the mainland of Japan. In the most intensive land attack launched against Japan by the United States, the so-called ‘typhoon of steel’ rained down on Okinawans for months as the Japanese military dug in for a war of attrition.

This paper examines US, Japanese and European political economy approaches to China and their effect on US-Japan and US-European Union (EU) relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less concern are preoccupied with calculations of wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan than to the EU and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe and Japan are not that different. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world and outflank the US-Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China, although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.

I had warned that a major earthquake would strike the Chuetsu region around Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, and about the fundamental vulnerability of nuclear power plants.

The 6.8 magnitude temblor of July 16 caused considerable damage to the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), proving me right.

This paper presents the results of a survey conducted on Japanese municipal governments regarding their attitudes and policies towards foreign residents. While assimilation and exclusion were historically the only approaches the Japanese authorities took in handling immigrants (mostly Korean former colonials), the reality of ever-increasing immigration heralds the task of integration. A national government is generally the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to immigration policy, including matters of integration. Yet most pressure to perform better is framed in terms of immigration control. The Japanese government, following European examples, perceives control and integration as the two pillars of its immigration policy, but the latter task needs more local involvement than the former. Therefore it is meaningful to focus on local-level immigration policy, which inevitably focuses more attention on immigrant integration.

Upon my inauguration in February 2003, I laid out three major national policy goals: Establishment of participatory democracy, balanced development of society, and the opening of a new era for a peaceful and prosperous Northeast Asia. This third objective has served as the backbone of my government's foreign policy – an attempt to build a Northeast Asian community through a new regional order of cooperation and integration that transcends old antagonisms and conflicts among countries in this region. I believe this policy is vital in ensuring our survival and enhancing our prosperity.

It is a question that puzzles much of the world: Why does Japan thumb its nose at one of the environmental movement's few lasting achievements—the ban on commercial whaling? As Japan's whaling fleet ploughs the Antarctic in search of minke and endangered fin, David McNeill talks to politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and environmentalists and finds that far from weakening in the face of worldwide condemnation, the campaign to overturn the ban is gathering strength. February 2007, indeed, sees an important attempt by Japan to bypass what it perceives as the paralysis of the International Whaling Conference (IWC), when Tokyo plays host to a gathering dubbed the Conference for the Normalization of the International Whaling Commission. Despite being boycotted by New Zealand, Britain, the United States and around 20 other countries, many fear that this conference could seal the fate of the IWC.

Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China — Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater.

Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. A new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city's water table.

This year's March First Day speech by South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun was reported on in Japan, as well. In Japan, the day was marked by a serious set of events surrounding a rally by Chongryun, or Chosen Soren, the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. The group's commemoration of Korea's March First, 1919 Independence Movement against Japanese colonization was to have been held in an outdoor theater in Hibiya Park on March 3. But the government of Tokyo, which had given the group a permit on January 25, suddenly changed its mind and revoked the permit on February 16. The reason it gave was that right-wing groups registered protests about the planned celebration with the government, saying that Tokyo should not grant permission to a group associated with North Korea to hold a public assembly when North Korea has abducted Japanese citizens. Supposedly, the authorities were worried about an opposing protest and could not guarantee the safety of participants.

This is the second article of a three part series introducing historical museums in Japan and their role in public education on issues of war, peace, war crimes and reconciliation. The first article is Takashi Yoshida's “Revising the Past, Complicating the Future: The Yushukan War Museum in Modern Japanese History.” The final article is by Mr. Kim Yeonghwan, the former associate director of Grassroots House Peace Museum who describes the peace and reconciliation programs that the Museum sponsors.

KOODANKULAM, Tamil Nadu—Even as the Indian government gropes in the dark for a coherent policy on energy and the environment, it is pressing hard for a highly unpopular nuclear power project here, close to the peninsula's southern tip.

The project, which involves building six Russian-designed reactors of 1,000 Megawatt (Mw) capacity each, will be India's biggest nuclear power station.

Another day, another unnecessary loss of lives: 24 people killed and 10 still missing in floods and landslides on the small island of Tahuna off Indonesia's Sulawesi. The date is January 12, 2007.

Following the recent trends of globalization and regionalization, the idea of Asia has been revived in political, economic, and cultural fields. This essay examines some of the multiple uses of the idea of Asia in modern East Asian and especially Chinese history. It consists of four parts. Part One discusses how the idea of Asia developed from modern European history, especially the nineteenth century European narrative of “World History,” and points out how the early modern Japanese “theory of shedding Asia” derived from this narrative. Part Two studies the relationship between the idea of Asia and two forms of Narodism against the background of the Chinese and Russian revolutions. One, exemplified by Russian Narodism, attempted to use Asian particularity to challenge modern capitalism; the other, represented by Sun Yat-sen, attempted to construct a nation-state on the basis of a socialist revolutionary program, and to develop agricultural capitalism under the particular social conditions of Asia. Part Three considers the differences and tensions between the “Great Asianism” of Chinese revolutionaries such as Sun and the Japanese idea of Toyo (East Asia), and discusses the need to overcome the categories of nation-state and international relations in order to understand the question of Asia. Part Four discusses the need to go beyond early modern maritime-centered accounts, nationalist frameworks, and Eurocentrism in reexamining the question of Asia through historical research by focusing on the particular legacies of Asia (such as the tributary system) and the problems of “early modernity.”

By some accounts, the location of America's capital was decided at a secret dinner party that Thomas Jefferson held in 1790 at his New York City residence. There, through the age-old practice of logrolling, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton hatched a plan to build the nation's capital in Virginia. “Madison agreed to permit the core provision of Hamilton's fiscal program to pass; and in return, Hamilton agreed to use his influence to assure that the permanent residence of the national capital would be on the Potomac River” (Ellis 2001, 49).

East Timor is an ill-starred land that has endured more than its share of violence, neglect and deprivation. Since February 2007 there has been a renewed surge in violence, initially due to gang turf battles and increasingly aggressive clashes between gangs and international peacekeepers. After the Australian police shot three protesting IDPs (internally displaced people) near the airport on February 23rd, killing two of them, street confrontations and demonstrations grew more menacing. At the request of President Xanana Gusmao, on March 4th Australian troops surrounded and tried to capture a renegade soldier, Major Alfredo Reinado, killing five of his troops but failing to capture the fugitive who had escaped from prison last summer. Subsequently, death threats were made against the president, his relatives had their houses attacked and ransacked, and anti-Australian sentiments have surged. With the prospects for a restoration of peace uncertain, international peacekeepers, once warmly welcomed, are now the target of violent elements. It is hard to imagine a less promising environment for the upcoming presidential elections.

On 13 February 2007, a historic deal was struck in Beijing commencing the process of the denuclearization of Korea, comprehensive regional reconciliation, ending the Korean War, and normalizing relations between North Korea and its two historic enemies, Japan and the United States. The agreement is complex, and its implications are enormous, not just for the peninsula. The following paper offers a preliminary analysis.

Pachinko refers to the peculiarly Japanese amusement arcade game that was supposedly modelled on the ‘Corinthian’, a US pinball machine, imported to Japan in the 1920s. Pachinko machines closely resemble pinball machines, though they are somewhat smaller and have a vertical, as opposed to horizontal, playing surface. Pachinko machines are played almost exclusively in specialist pachinko parlours, where the compactness of the machines is an important factor, as we shall see. In 2005, there were an estimated 17.1 million pachinko players, providing revenue of just over 28.7 trillion yen (US$250 billion). It is difficult to think of another developed society in which gambling is as universally accessible and widely practiced on a daily basis by such a significant portion of the adult population.

Deborah Milly cautions that in establishing strict immigration regulations, governments run the risk of paradoxically contributing to irregular immigration. She identifies three general types of problems in government policies by comparing trends in Japan with South Korean, Spanish, and Italian responses to irregular immigration. To mitigate these problems, nongovernmental advocacy groups have an important role to play.

Japan is pursuing policy directions that combine a hard line on prosecuting illegal immigration with cautious encouragement of immigration by select groups. A recent document developed by the Ministry of Justice under former Deputy Minister of Justice Kono Taro advocates broadening opportunities for legal migration by moderately-skilled workers who do not qualify under current standards for highly-skilled professionals. These workers would be allowed to enter for work only in designated industries where the Japanese labor force is inadequate, providing they met certain conditions such as Japanese language proficiency. The proposed changes would specify a range of rights for legally-resident foreigners and provide social security coverage, while prosecuting irregular immigration. These changes, while limited, would be a step in the direction of rectifying failings in Japan's current immigration regime, which relies on trainees and ethnic Japanese from overseas as unofficially recognized foreign labor sources. The extent to which foreign residents' rights are addressed in the document is also important. However, since both this proposal and existing immigration policy take a stern approach on monitoring foreigners and prosecuting irregular immigration, Japanese policymakers would do well to consider the dynamics of systems used elsewhere. The experiences of others suggest that without careful construction, government policies contribute to the emergence of irregular immigrants. Further, effective policies require incorporating the voices of civil society groups that serve immigrant.

Italian authorities investigate Roman antiquities in Japanese museums, just as Japan launches a global cultural offensive.

Winter 1697: After four days and nights aboard a junk crossing the treacherous waters of the Taiwan Strait, Chinese traveler Yu Yonghe excitedly spotted the peaks of Taiwan's mountains on the horizon. In sight at last was the frontier island that he had longed to see since the Chinese conquest of Taiwan fourteen years earlier. As Yu wrote in his travel diary:

The Asian/Pacific region, currently home to six hundred million older people, is the most rapidly ageing world region, with twenty percent of its projected population over sixty by 2050, which will at that date account for two-thirds of the world's two billion elders. Indeed, UN projections predict that by 2040 there will be more individuals aged over sixty than under fifteen in the region and Asia will have followed Europe in becoming the world's second so-called ‘mature’ region. Key here is the speed at which this transition is occurring. While it took the EU 15 (the 15 member states of the European Union prior to enlargement) some 120 years to go from being a young to mature population (with maturity being achieved in 2000), such a shift in the proportion of young and old will have occurred in Asia in less than 25 years. While the predicated increase in the percentage by 2025 of people over sixty for the EU 15 is around 33%, it is a staggering 400% for Indonesia, 350% for Thailand, and up to 250% for India and China. It is this rapidity of demographic ageing which will be central to the policy changes needed within the region.