http://www.japanfocus.org/ The Inadvertence of Benedict Anderson: Engaging Imagined Communities Radhika Desai Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism London: Verso, 2006, second revised edition (first published 1983, revised edition, 1991). xv + 240 pp. ISBN 9781844670864 Like celebrities who ‘need no introduction’, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (hereinafter IC) should need no review. After all, it is one of the most widely cited works in its field and such academic ubiquity is surely review enough. Indeed, no single phrase occurs as widely and frequently in the literature on nationalism as ‘imagined communities’. That it is not always attributed to its original creator is testimony to its pervasive acceptance and adoption. However, I am probably not alone in having long felt a certain unease with IC: not on individual points, though many of these have been criticized (see Özkırımlı,...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3085 Militarism and Anti-militarism in South Korea: “Militarized Masculinity” and the Conscientious Objector Movement. Vladimir Tikhonov (Pak Noja) Korea – “a national defense/conscription state" It is a well-known fact that warfare and obligatory military service system long played decisive role in the formation of modern nation-states, first in Europe and later elsewhere in the world. While externally the military prowess of a given state was (and still is) decisive for defining its place in a competitive international system explicitly based upon an equilibrium of military force and hegemonic interstate relations [1], internally conscription-based national armies formerly served as main pillars of the state, linking conscript-age able-bodied males with the nationalist ethos [1] and acculturating them to views and practices often referred to as “militarized masculinity culture”. “Militarized masculinity”,...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3087 The Rising Importance of Chinese Labour in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region John Walsh Migration is, fundamentally, a response to the uneven distribution of resources around the world or the variability of the environment, however broadly defined. [1] People move from one place to another place to take advantage of a better climate, possible access to better quality agricultural land, better-paying or more numerous jobs, freedom from oppression or discrimination and so forth. The phenomenon has dimensions such as degree of permanency and degree of voluntarism. In reality, it comprises a large number of categories and sub-categories and, as in the case of many of those Chinese people considered in this paper, people can pass through several categories as the result of changes in their own status and in that of the broader political context. Chinese have been migrating to and from the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMSR), an area comprised of Thailand, Burma [Myanmar], Laos, Cambodia,...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3088 US Bases and Empire: Global Perspectives on the Asia Pacific Catherine Lutz Much about our current world is unparalleled: holes in the ozone layer, the commercial patenting of life forms, degrading poverty on a massive scale, and, more hopefully, the rise of concepts of global citizenship and universal human rights. Less visible but equally unprecedented is the global omnipresence and unparalleled lethality of the U.S. military, and the ambition with which it is being deployed around the world.  These bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over.  Their presence is meant to signal, and at times demonstrate, that the US is able and willing to attempt to control events in other regions militarily. The start of a new administration in Washington, and the possibility that world economic depression will give rise to new tensions and challenges, provides...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3086 Justice for Some. Crime, Victims and the US-Japan SOFARape victim fights for redress against US military and its Japanese hostDavid McNeillAround the nondescript Tokyo suburb where she lives with her three children, Jane is a well-known face.  Foreign in an area crowded with Japanese, she has taught English for years here among neighbors who greet her warmly on the street.  Few know that her life is consumed by a fight against a powerful military alliance and a secret agreement that she says allows its crimes to go unpunished.  Jane speaks at the Foreign Correspondents Club TokyoIn a room cluttered with the detritus of her seven-year struggle, she tells her story, which began with a violent sexual assault.  On April 6, 2002, Jane was raped by an American sailor in a car park near the US Navy Base at Yokosuka south west of Tokyo.  Shocked and bleeding, she ended up in the small hours inside the local police station, where what she calls her second...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3083 The Axis of Vaudeville: Images of North Korea in South Korean Pop Culture Stephen Epstein Summary This paper examines how South Korean understanding of what it means to be—or to have been—a citizen of the DPRK has evolved during the last decade. How does South Korean popular culture reflect that evolution and, in turn, shape ongoing transformations in that understanding? These questions have significant policy implications and take on a heightened salience given the recent deterioration in relations that has taken place under the Lee Myung Bak administration: is the South Korean imagination being enlarged to make room for an inclusive but heterogeneous identity that accepts both parts of the divided nation? Or, conversely, is a hardening of mental boundaries inscribing cultural/social difference in tandem with the previous decade’s (anything but linear) progress in political/economic rapprochement? In examining these questions, I sample key discursive sites...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3081 After the Whirlwind: Post-Nargis Burma, the 2010 Elections and Prospects for Reform Jeff Kingston These are tough times for the people of Burma. They have endured decades of economic mismanagement, low living standards and brutal political oppression under an incompetent and negligent military that shows no signs of relinquishing its grip on power. Indeed, as the country approaches elections in 2010, the regime has cracked down on those it targets as opponents, imposing prison terms of up to 65 years on relief workers, comedians, writers, intellectuals, monks and others engaged in peaceful demonstrations or relief activities. No challenges to the junta are allowed and even local disaster relief workers are subject to arrest for embarrassing the regime. Those who joined peaceful demonstrations in the Saffron Revolution of 2007, or tried to help the survivors of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, have been singled out by the military junta for sentences that in many cases ensure the imprisoned will...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3077 A Solution to the Whaling Issue? Former MOFA spokesman speaks out. David McNeill and Taniguchi Tomohiko Regular as the tides, the whaling controversy comes to revisit Japan.  Once again, the nation’s fleet ploughs the waters of the Antarctic on its annual “scientific whaling” expedition, a controversial euphemism for what much of the world views as commercial whaling in disguise. This winter, the fleet plans to harpoon 935 minke and 50 fin whales.  Again, the chorus of disapproval has been predictable.  As the whalers battle militant conservationist group Sea Shepherd, which harries the fleet every year, Japan’s diplomats work to sooth diplomatic feathers.  Video of Sea Shepherd confronting the Japanese whaling fleet Feb 6, 2009. In June, the International Whaling Commission will host its annual meeting; a tired, irritable ritual stubbornly deadlocked between pro- and anti-whaling camps. Over two decades...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3070 Somali Piracy, International Customary Law, and the Dispatch of Japan’s MSDF Alex Calvo The high occurrence of pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia has prompted an increase in the number of nations planning to send naval units to fight them. In the Asian continent, India has become the first to sink a pirate vessel, South Korea has announced the deployment early in spring of the 5,000 ton-class KDX-II destroyer Gang Gam-chan, and China is sending two destroyers and a supply vessel. [1] While these three countries have shown no qualms about deploying their navies in the Gulf of Aden, Japan has once more embarked on a painful debate on the legality of such a move, with the government looking for a legal basis on which MSDF units might be deployed and a number of commentators doubting this would be possible without either a constitutional amendment (or of the official government interpretation of the Constitution’s war-renouncing Article Nine) or the passage...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3060 East Asian Regionalism and its Enemies in Three Epochs: Political Economy and Geopolitics, 16th to 21st Centuries Mark Selden   Précis: This paper examines the dominant forces at play in East Asia in an effort to chart regional dynamics within a global non-Eurocentric framework in the course of three epochs.* In the first era, spanning the 16th to the early 19th century a China-centered tributary trade order provided a geopolitical framework within which private trade could also flourish. At its height in the 18th century, as East Asia linked to a wider regional and global economy, core areas achieved high levels of peace, prosperity and stability. The second period is notable for dislocation, war and radical transformation spanning the years 1840-1970. In this era profound transformations were the product of system disintegration, colonial rule, world wars, and anti-colonial wars and revolutions. With the collapse of the regional order, bilateral relations, colonial...http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/3061