Xu Duo, Fox Fellow, Yale University
Feb 09, 2017
Japan’s APA boss Toshio Motoya provoked criticisms from China by placing his revisionist history book in APA guest rooms. In this book, he claimed the Nanking Massacre was faked. This represents part of a perceptible shift in Japan toward conservatism, and it implies some deeper and larger change in the country’s overall mindset on war history. While self-deprecation has long overstayed its time in Japan, and self-respect is something better and urgently needed, at the same time it would be in Japan’s very interests not to be embarking on the road of self-aggrandizement.
Liu Junhong, Researcher, Chinese Institute of Contemporary Int'l Relations
Feb 25, 2016
The U.S. push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership undercut the potential for closer China-Japan ties that might have unbalanced trilateral relations. Policy moves in China or Japan will affect ties among all three countries, which must approach their relationships in a balanced manner for regional and global stability and development.
Brahma Chellaney, Professor, Center for Policy Research
Jan 18, 2016
With Japan’s pride and nationalist impulse to play a bigger international role now rising, its domestic debate on national-security and constitutional reform is set to intensify. Although rising powers tend to be revisionist powers, a politically resurgent Japan, strikingly, is seeking to uphold the present Asian political and maritime order.
Stephen Harner, Former US State Department Official
Jul 02, 2015
Japan’s Abe government is appealing to the nationalistic Japan Restoration Party to revise the constitution to permit the assembly of an army. Lyle J. Goldstein’s book, Meeting China Halfway—How to Defuse the Emerging U.S.-China Rivalry has important suggestions for avoiding a Japan-China military conflict.
May 13, 2015
Interactions among China, Japan and the United States have gone far beyond the constraints of political stereotypes. The flow of capital, material, technology and people has brought the countries ever closer together. Embracing common interests, not “balancing power”, is the key to peace and prosperity for all three.
Fan Xiaoju, Associate Research Professor, CICIR
May 12, 2015
Abe’s visit to the U.S. stimulated Japan’s assertiveness while giving Tokyo a pass on taking serious responsibility for its colonial oppression and aggression against its Asian neighbors. The U.S. could do more to nudge its ally to acknowledge its history and to be a promoter of peace in the region.
Wu Zurong, Research Fellow, China Foundation for Int'l Studies
May 08, 2015
With US-Japan military cooperation as its main pillar, the deepening US military involvement in Asia goes against the world tide of peace and development, and against the will of the Asian people. The American government would do well to study the lessons of history as it cements its partnership with Tokyo.
R. Taggart Murphy, Author “Japan and the Shackles of the Past.”
May 07, 2015
"Albert Speer's Grandson Addresses Joint Session Of Congress." Can you imagine that headline? I can't either, particularly if Speer's grandson had devoted much of his life to rehabilitating his grandfather's image, was on record as being sympathetic to Holocaust deniers and had used his political base among Germany's neo-Nazis as the springboard to secure the prime ministership.
Stephen Harner, Former US State Department Official
May 06, 2015
Abe’s expansion of Japan’s military capabilities—even within the new “guidelines”—could allow later American administrations, realizing that U.S. strategic interest demand non-confrontational relations with China, to conclude that Japan does need or warrant defense by the United States.
George Koo, Retired International Business Consultant and Contributor to Asia Times
May 06, 2015
Japan’s PM Abe’s amnesia toward past military crimes and general xenophobia calls into question whether a U.S. alliance with Japan is in the U.S.’s best interest – especially in dealing with the challenges on the Korean peninsula.