The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Newsletter
 
Newsletter No. 3. 2012   

January 16, 2012   
New Articles Posted
Quick Links
In This Issue
Greetings!

Thank you to the many who supported our campaign. We're pleased to report that your response to our fundraising appeal has been successful and Asia-Pacific Journal available to all readers at no charge. We've  reached our target of $10,000.

We take a certain pride in our coverage of events in Fukushima and Tohoku over the last year and urge you to have a look at what we've done. Your support allows us to continue to expand post-3.11 coverage of Japan and the Asia-Pacific in the coming year as Japan continues to face the gravest challenges since its defeat in war nearly seven decades ago. Of course, it remains possible to contribute if you've not already done so. Click on the above hot link, or go to our   
home page.

Library subscriptions, permitting unlimited duplication of Focus articles, are available at $40/year to institutions. If you use Focus in courses, please contact us about an institutional subscription at our website. You can also support the Journal by buying books through our Amazon account by clicking on a book cover on our home page or in an article. A small payment for any book ordered (not just those listed here) when placing your order is credited to the Journal.

Our home page has two new features. One is a regularly updated guide to the more than 100 articles we have published on the 3.11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power meltdown which is transforming Japanese politics and society, and is reshaping issues of nuclear power and energy policy in that nation and globally. Articles are arranged topically. In addition, we have added a guide to some of the most important, and liveliest, online and print sources on 3.11 including blogs and websites. Secondly, the list of articles now indicates all articles available in Japanese translation or original, as well as other languages. Please draw the attention of colleagues and friends to our comprehensive coverage of 3.11.

Many of our most important and widely read articles appear in What's hot and they bring a diversity of sources and reports from Ground Zero in Tohoku and Tokyo. "What's hot" offers breaking stories and provides information beyond the headlines, to cast them in broader perspective. What's hot is regularly updated, at times on a daily basis, and we invite you to consult it and contribute to it. Find it at the top of the homepage.

We encourage those who wish continuing coverage of the earthquake and aftermath to follow Fukushima on Twitter and the English and Japanese coverage at the Peace Philosophy Facebook page:

  

More than 5,000 people now subscribe to Focus including 1,800 who follow us  through Twitter or Facebook, and their numbers are growing steadily. Please consider joining them by clicking at the appropriate link on our home page:    

 

Growing numbers of colleges and universities are subscribing to the journal for use in classes. If you or colleagues wish to incorporate Asia-Pacific Journal articles into courses, please encourage your library to join subscribers on three continents by taking out a subscription to the journal. The rate is $40/year for unlimited access to, and reproduction of, all articles. Please contact your reference librarian and provide us with an e-ddress to contact and send an invoice. Please send the information to info.japanfocus@gmail.com.

We invite authors, publishers and directors to bring their books, films and events on East Asia and the Pacific to the attention of our readers. See the home page for information about presenting relevant books and films at our site and for examples of authors, publishers and filmmakers who are presenting their work at the Journal. 

Thanks to readers who subscribe or become sustainers of the Journal, and who order books and other items through Amazon via our website. A small portion of the sales of books and any other products purchased when accessing the Amazon site through one of the book logos on our home page go to the Journal at no cost to you.   
Contact Japan Focus by email at info@japanfocus.org

To access our full archive with more than 2,000 articles, and to view the most widely read articles through their titles or via our index, go here. 
  
Subscription information
Thank you for your support of our $10,000 fundraising appeal which has enabled us to continue to make Asia-Pacific Journal available to all at no charge and to continue to expand post-3.11 coverage of Japan and the Asia-Pacific and to operate for the coming year.  If you missed the chance to join supporters, authors and readers who find the journal useful by making a contribution to support technical upgrades, defray technical, mailing and maintenance fees, and help us to expand outreach, it is not too late. As we have expanded our output since the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami, our costs have risen sharply. Recommended support level: $25 ($10 for students and residents of developing countries); $40 for institutions including libraries, research centers, government offices. If you experience difficulty in subscribing, write to us with the error message at info@japanfocus.org 

Hiroshi ONITSUKA, Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence

 

This article examines the problems associated with the fact that Japanese nuclear power plants have multiple reactors within one plant and are concentrated in specific regions.  It analyzes the situation from international, domestic, and local perspectives, revealing features of Japanese state-local relations.

The crisis of the crippled nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi has continued for nine months and will continue for some time to come.  One of the reasons that this has been such a protracted crisis is that four nuclear reactors within close proximity of each other were damaged simultaneously, making efforts to repair any one of them extremely difficult.  Fukushima Daiichi was equipped with six reactors (operation had been suspended at two of its reactors on March 11, 2011), and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), together with the local government of Futaba Town, where the fifth and sixth reactors are located, had been planning to add two more reactors.  Japanese nuclear power plants are characterized by having multiple reactors within one plant, and being concentrated in specific regions.  The concentration of plants on the coastline of Fukushima Prefecture (two plants and ten reactors) and the Wakasa Gulf Coast of Fukui Prefecture (four plants and 13 reactors) has earned the two regions the nickname "Genpatsu [nuclear power plant] Ginza"1.  At the site located between Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, Niigata Prefecture, TEPCO has what is, with seven reactors, the world's largest nuclear power plant complex (See Map).  This geographic concentration of nuclear reactors significantly increases the probability of a crisis occurring when any of those regions are struck by natural disasters.  Given the risks that they present, why do Japanese nuclear power plants have these features?


Hiroshi Onitsuka is an independent scholar who specializes in the history of modern Japan, especially local public finance, and in Japanese emigration to Manchuria.
Contact: hiroshionitsuka@hotmail.com

Recommended citation: Hiroshi ONITSUKA, 'Hooked on Nuclear Power: Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 2, No 2, January 13, 2011.

 

Read more . . .
Matthew Penney, Business as Usual - Controversy Flares Over Japanese Nuclear Exports


Even as the Japanese public turns against nuclear power at home, the Japanese government and corporations such as Toshiba are moving swiftly to expand the country's nuclear business by exporting reactor technology abroad.
 
In a December 10 editorial, the Mainichi Shimbun said that an agreement for nuclear power cooperation and export to Jordan, Vietnam, Russia, and South Korea was based on a decision that "... came too hasty and has not been thought through."
 
The Mainichi editors are concerned that the agreements have no details about how nuclear power stations will be regulated and safety ensured. There are worries that an accident involving Japanese nuclear technology abroad could further undermine international confidence in Japanese technology and industry already shaken by the 3.11 earthquake tsunami and nuclear disaster. This article reviews and assesses Japanese press accounts to the government attempt to sell nuclear technology.

Matthew Penney is an Assistant Professor at Concordia University and an Asia-Pacific Journal Coordinator.

Recommended citation: Matthew Penney, 'Business as Usual - Controversy Flares Over Japanese Nuclear Exports,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 3 No 3, January 16, 2012.


John Price, Racism, Canadian War Crimes, and the Korean War: Shin Hyun-Chan's Quest for Justice


Scholars and journalists in Korea and the United States have worked hard over the past 15 years to bring to light the mass killings of civilians that occurred during the Korean War. These stories, including that of the strafing of civilians at No Gun Ri, have challenged the hegemonic narrative of the 'good war' that has dominated south Korean and US accounts of this tragic past. In the following revised excerpt of a chapter from his new book, Orienting Canada: Race, Empire and the Transpacific (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), Canadian historian John Price documents the story of Mr. Shin Hyun-Chan, a survivor of a Canadian war crime committed during the Korean war. In investigating the Shin case the author uncovered numerous other war crimes committed by Canadian forces in Korea, including rape and murder. In almost all cases where the perpetrators faced court-martials, they were found guilty but then exonerated upon return to Canada. Reporters in Korea at the time pointed to racism as endemic and a contributing factor. But the Canadian military, supported by religious leaders, refuted the accusations and buried the stories. The case reveals much about the politics of impunity as practiced by both the American and Canadian military during and after the war. And of the politics of impunity wherever Status of Forces Agreements protect foreign military forces from prosecution on the ground. As in the US, the Canadian military continues to refuse to accept responsibility for this and other war crimes. Sixty years later, however, the truth is finally coming out. Mr. Shin has recently retained legal counsel to press his case with the Canadian government. The case illustrates the importance of expanding research on war crimes committed during the Korea War beyond the US and South Korean archives. It also raises important dimensions of law and justice in an era in which Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA) insulate US and other foreign military forces from domestic courts where soldiers are stationed on foreign soil, whether in war or peace.


John Price is associate professor of Japanese history at the University of Victoria and director of the E.H. Norman Digital Archive project. His new book, Orienting Canada: Race, Empire and the Transpacific (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011) will be the subject of discussion and debate at H-Diplo in early 2012.
 
Recommended citation: John Price, 'Racism, Canadian War Crimes, and the Korean War: Shin Hyun-Chan's Quest for Justice,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 3 No 2, January 16, 2012.