On September 29, 2007, 110,000 people demonstrated in Okinawa to protest textbook revisions announced by Japan's Education Ministry that would delete references to the Japanese military's coercive role in so-called “group suicides” (shudan jiketsu) of civilians during the Battle of Okinawa. Speakers at the protest included Okinawan survivors of the battle who had witnessed the military rounding up civilians at “assembly points” (referred to in war propaganda as “places of shattering jewels”), and distributing hand grenades to them with orders to kill themselves to avoid capture by advancing U.S. forces. Yoshikawa Yoshikatsu, a battle survivor from Kakazu Village, recalled, “After the mayor of the village yelled “Long live the Emperor! “(Tenno Heika banzai), hand grenades exploded all around us. I could hear the screams of the dying.” A few days after the protest, author Kamata Satoshi interviewed a battle survivor at her home on Tokashiki Island, another site of what Norma Field has more accurately termed “compulsory suicide.” “Kitamura Tomi remembered hearing shouts of ‘Long live the Emperor’ as grenades exploded all around her. When she became aware again of her surroundings, her eldest daughter, sitting beside her, and her husband's younger sister were both dead.”

Given the slow - albeit important – progress that has been made in the process of North Korean denuclearization, it is clear by now that the task of finding a final verifiable resolution will inevitably be handed over to the next U.S. administration. Simply there is too much work to be done and not enough time left for the Bush administration.

Sixty-six years after Japan's annexation of the former Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879, in the waning months of the Asia-Pacific War, the American military partitioned the Ryukyu Islands from Japan. The replacement of Okinawa Prefecture by US military rule in the Ryukyus from 1945 had profound implications, for residents of the occupied islands. A major repercussion of the military government's separation of the Ryukyus was the enforced isolation of the four main island groups from occupied Japan. The Ryukyuan-Japanese border severed longstanding administrative and economic links, while restrictive border controls prohibited free travel and interaction between the two sides. Another consequence of this imposed barrier was the socio-economic problem of how to provide for the livelihood and welfare of the island residents, who thereby became entirely dependent on the military government. These problems were compounded by the massive destruction, loss of life, and overall displacement of residents in the wake of war, especially in Okinawa.

In recent years, the mayors of cities hosting American bases in Japan, and particularly in Okinawa, propelled by powerful citizen movements, have resisted American plans for base reorganization that would expand the US military presence in their communities. In many cases, powerful pressure from Tokyo, in the form of threats to cut off development aid to local communities, and offers to buy off local opposition, have succeeded in dividing local communities and forcing local officials to yield to the power of the center. The Hiroshima-based Chugoku Shinbun here examines realignments involving Atsugi Air Base, Iwakuni Marine Base and Yokosuka Naval Base, three locales experiencing major upgrading of U.S. military power and changes in the structuring of U.S. forces in Japan. ms

In 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt dispatched vice president Henry A. Wallace to meet with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and offer him the “return” of Indochina to China. Chiang wisely declined the offer.

In this interview, Wang Jisi, Dean of International Studies at Beijing University and a leading Chinese specialist on international relations, tackles the question of the end of US hegemony and US-China relations. The interview, conducted prior to the October financial pandemic in the US and globally, and prior to the election of Barack Obama as president, ranges widely over China as a rising power, the United States and changing world dynamics. While rejecting the very premise of a US-China alliance, pointing to reactionary US policies in Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Noting US hypocrisy as in its embrace of Saudi Arabia while speaking of human rights, and pointing to fundamental US weaknesses, Wang nevertheless makes the case for US-China cooperation and challenges the view that the US is in ineluctable decline as a global power. ms

The demolition of a French empire at Dien Bien Phu is inspiration to a Taliban aiming to erode the resolve of the United States and its allies, writes Paul Rogers.

There have been many suggestions among media and military analysts since 2003 of possible parallels between the war in Iraq and the United States imbroglio in Vietnam that ended so humiliatingly in 1975. The argument is most prominently made by critics of both wars, though it has also been articulated by defence analysts and officials concerned that the US learns the “right” lessons from its costly Vietnam experience.

The US-Iraq agreement signed on November 27, 2008 at a moment when the world was mesmerized by the Mumbai bombing, is an extraordinary document, not only for the US-Iraq War, but in the history of the American empire of bases and that nation's numerous twentieth century wars. Going well beyond the commitments that either George W. Bush or Barack Obama offered, the agreement states unequivocally that “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011” (Art. 24.1). Moreover, “All United States combat forces shall withdraw from Iraqi cities, villages, and localities no later than the time at which Iraqi Security Forces assume full responsibility for security in an Iraqi province, provided that such withdrawal is completed no later than June 30, 2009,” (Art. 24.2).

The use and potential misuse of sovereign wealth funds in Asia has been newsworthy of late, especially because of their size and high profile investments. China and – and possibly Japan as well – look to parlay their governmentowned investment vehicles. With its small population base, and vast reserves of oil and natural gas, the small Southeast Asian nation of Brunei Darussalam, located on the northeastern side of the island of Borneo, has been able to lever its economy into providing an enviable standard of living for its population and mega-billions for its ruling Royal family.

The article posted here by Dai Qing appears in a December 2008 special issue on The Heritage of Beijing Water, guest edited for The China Heritage Quarterly by the Beijing-based writer, historical investigative journalist and water activist. The issue focuses on the aqueous heritage of China's capital city. Reflecting on the well-springs of the Olympic year and the bountiful supply of water during 2008, Dai Qing discusses the diminishing heritage of a resource that sustained the ancient city in the past, shaped much of its life, and determines its future. The issue features a map of Beijing Waterways and an important study, ‘Beijing's Water Crisis, 1949-2008’ with important contributions by Probe International, an independent Canada-based think-tank and environmental protection group.

I would like to provide some context for the article “Patients Adrift: The Elderly and Japan's Life-Threatening Health Reforms” by Hiratate Hideaki, recently translated from Shukan Kinyobi for publication in Japan Focus. Japan has a long and honorable tradition of muckraking reporting on its medical care system. To illustrate that point with a personal anecdote: My colleague Naoki Ikegami and I published a book about a decade ago called Japan's Medical Care (Nihon no Iryou, Chuuou Kouron Shinsho) itself a translation of a book we published in English called The Art of Balance in Health Policy: Maintaining Japan's Low-Cost, Egalitarian System (Cambridge University Press). Although it pointed out quite a few problems, the overall tone of our book was as positive as the English title indicates. Many Japanese readers told us it was the first time they had ever read anything good about their own medical care system. They were used to reading magazine articles and books full of pitiful anecdotes and unrelenting criticism.

Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro seems an unlikely champion of a multicultural Japan. His brief term of office is, after all, perhaps best remembered for the furore he evoked by a speech in which he described Japan as a “Divine Nation headed by the Emperor”. This echo of prewar nationalism stirred fears at home and abroad that senior Japanese politicians still subscribed to Shinto myths of a unique and racially superior Japan. Yet Mori today is an active participant in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's “Diet Members' League for Promoting Exchanges of Foreign Human Resources” (Gaikoku Jinzai Koryu Suishin Giin Renmei), an awkwardly-named body whose mission is to promote mass immigration by making Japan a magnet for skilled workers from around the world. (Akashi and Ogawa 2008, 69)

The lone survivor of a Japanese infantry unit in World War 2, Nishimura Kokichi promised his comrades he would bring their bodies back to Japan. Sixty years later, he is still trying to fulfill his pledge in a story of indomitable will and determination.

In Stockholm last fall, walking past a McDonald's, Tan Dun turned to me and said: “Some 20 years ago, I was still planting rice in China. And now I'm conducting orchestras in all the great concert houses of the world: La Scala, the Met, the Berlin Philharmonic. I still can't believe it.”

From Rarotonga, the Cook Islands. The sea is blue, beaches with golden sand boast palm trees bending almost to the water surface. Beneath barely detectable waves, marine life is fascinating and diverse. On hotel terraces, coconut juices cool the refined throats of jet setters. Traditional huts rub shoulders with some of the most expensive resorts in the world. 500 US dollars would hardly sustain a couple for more than a day here in one of the most expensive parts of the world. Together with neighboring French Polynesia, this has become one of the most expensive parts of the world.

At the beginning of the third week of September in Hanamaki our thoughts turn, with the hand of the clock, to another world. The autumnal equinox certainly reinforces this; for this is the season in Japan of recalling those who came before us, a time when many Japanese people choose to visit the gravesites of their ancestors.

As the US public is dimly aware, things are not going very well in Afghanistan.

The United Nation situation map for Afghanistan issued September 3 (the most recent available) paints a grim picture: The large swaths shaded with the purple diagonal lines are places where things are getting worse. This includes the entire area surrounding Kandahar on the Pakistan border in the south, as well as areas on the Pakistan-Tajikstan border in the Northeast and other areas on the Turkmenistan border to the Northwest.

The scientific term Minakatella longifolia G. Lister may be known only to biologists, but behind the story of this slime mold—and of how specimens came to be kept at the Natural History Museum in London—is the life of one of the most fascinating men of Japan's modern era: Minakata Kumagusu.

“So, how do you like Japan, Mr. Binney?'

The scene: a party at the Sumitomo Bank back in 1984 for the new manager of Chase Manhattan's Tokyo branch where I was then working.

Whoops. Most of us from Chase looked at the floor while our hosts tittered politely. Our manager should have said he enjoyed Asahi Beer, not Sapporo. Because Asahi was the Sumitomo group brewer and naturally the Sumitomo Bank served as the company's socalled “main bank”. At that time, Sumitomo Bank was regularly seconding its own people to the then-troubled beer maker including two of its presidents.

Introduction. All is not as it appears in Dili, that “pestilential place,” as described early last century by Joseph Conrad in his classic novel, Victory. The question posed by Bob Broughton is certainly valid, namely, how did one man – Alfredo Reinado – hold hostage the fortunes of this young nation? The answer is certainly murkier than the standard democratic elections narrative which, remarkably, saw in 2007 a constitutional crisis leading to the reversal of roles of the President and Prime Minister in East Timor. As Boughton highlights, it is important to pay attention to personalities and politics.