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Japan
< Resources for Researchers Top
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Starting Points
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JIAP Resource Guides
- Information Resources on the Japanese Economy
Prepared by the Japan Information Access Project, 04/2002
Resource Guide
- Information Resources on Energy Security In Japan
Prepared by the Japan Information Access Project, 05/1998
Resource Guide
- Information Resources on Telecommunications In Japan
Prepared by the Japan Information Access Project, 04/10/2002
Resource Guide
-
Information Resources on Japanese Political Reform
Prepared by the Japan Information Access Project, 04/22/2002
Resource Guide
-
Information Resources on the Yakuza
Prepared by the Japan Information Project, 03/11/2003
Resource Guide
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Culture & Society
- General
- Japan Zone
Travel guide, information on Japan and Japanese culture
- Tokyo Food Page
Guide to Japanese cuisine and eating in Tokyo, with recipes, culinary travel tips, restaurant listings and more; famous Japanese pizza link
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Economy
- Banking/Monetary Policy
2003
-
Bank of Japan Governor Fukui speech on Monetary policy at the Spring Meeting of the
Japan Society of Monetary Economics
, 06/01/2003.Full text of his speech
- Business/Management
- Nippon Keidanren (J,E)
- Keizai Doyukai [Japan Association of Corporate Exectives] (J,E)
2003
-
"Japan Inc Feels Crushing Weight of History; Modern Japan Suffers from Huge Bad Debts, Mistrust of Stock Markets and a Corporate Sector That Is All But Cut Off From Shareholder Pressure,"
Randall Morck (Professor, University of Alberta Business School;) Nasao Nakamura, (Professor, University of British Columbia Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration)
FT7/3/03, p9. "Stock markets seem better suited than banks to financing [value-added tech and services ventures]. Japanese investors were badly burnt and are unlikely to entrust
their savings to stocks again without reassurances that shareholder returns figure in management decisions. This sounds distressingly like succumbing to shareholder pressure -
at long last (maybe)."
http://www.ecgi.de/families/
-
"Epidemic Takes Toll on Japanese Profits,"
FT6/23/03, p6. According to JETRO survey, more than 60% of Japanese companies operating in 12 East Asian countries experienced declining profits due to SARS.
http://www.jetro.go.jp/it/e/press/2003/jun20.html
1998
-
"Strategic Roles and Performance of Japanese Subsidiaries,"
by Takehiko Isobe and David B. Montgomery, GSB Research Paper #1507, Stanford, July 1998. "The study found that the more Japanese nationals there were working in an overseas
subsidiary, the less profitable it was. It seems self-evident that the most nimble players in any market would be local managers who have the connections and know-how to
capitalize on the quirks of their own market. After all, American firms have long tried to entice good Japanese nationals to run their Tokyo subsidiaries. The obvious question:
Why have Japanese companies populated their overseas outposts with so many people from the home office?"
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/community/bmag/sbsm9812/faculty_research_subsid.html
- Policy for Economic / Management
- Tax
2003
-
"Text: U.S. and Japan Reach Agreement on New Income Tax Treaty, June 10 news release from U.S. Treasury Department,"
US State Dept, 6/11/03. "The United States and Japan have reached an "agreement in principle" on the text of a new income
tax treaty between the two nations, according to a June 10 news release from the U.S. Treasury Department. The proposed
tax treaty, the release said, "provides for substantial reductions in the withholding taxes imposed on cross-border
dividends, interest, royalties and other income, including the complete elimination of source-country withholding
taxes on royalties, certain interest, and certain inter-company dividends."
http://lists.state.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-USIAINFO.EXE?A2=ind0306b&L=WF-EASIA&P=R9379
- U.S. Policy
2003
-
"Text: Snow Urges Flexible Approach to Reviving Japan's Economy,
Treasury Secretary Snow's June 10 speech to Japan Society [JIAP member]," US State Dept, 6/11/03. U.S. Treasury Secretary
John Snow called on Japan to adopt a more flexible approach to reviving its economy, which, as he noted, "
has struggled for a decade." In a June 10 speech to the Japan Society in New York, Snow pointed to the U.S.
example in deregulating its transportation industry in the 1970s and '80s, selling the overvalued assets of the
savings and loans in the 1980s, as well as dealing more recently with problems stemming from the bursting of the
stock market bubble of the '90s, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and corporate scandal."
http://lists.state.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-USIAINFO.EXE?A2=ind0306b&L=WF-EASIA&P=R9054
-
"Text: Expert Says U.S. Does Not Face Same Deflation Threat as Japan, Federal Reserve vice chairman June 11 talk to Japan Society,"
US State Dept, 6/11/03. "Japan's economic woes of the past decade are of a different order from the current economic travails of the United States, according to the Vice
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Roger Ferguson. In a June 11 speech to the Japan Society
in New York, Ferguson said the United States is better situated to confront the challenge of an emerging
deflation than Japan was at the start of the last decade. Ferguson added that despite strong doses of monetary
and fiscal stimulus to the Japanese economy, the world's second largest economy remains "mired in a mild,
yet protracted, deflationary slump." Japan, he said, "appears to have become a society in which economic agents
-- banks, insurance companies, corporations, and households -- have lost their appetite for risk."
http://lists.state.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-USIAINFO.EXE?A2=ind0306b&L=WF-EASIA&P=R8583
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Foreign Policy
- Japan-U.S.
2003
- "Does Irrelevancy Await Japan?" By Brad Glosserman (Pacific
Forum, CSIS) Japan Times, 7/4/03. "Japan-U.S. relations are at a postwar high, "the best they have ever
been," report policymakers on both sides of the Pacific and longtime observers of the relationship. Credit
growing realism in Japan about security issues, unprecedented decisions in Tokyo and a remarkable
personal relationship between the leaders of the two countries. But Japan's current activism is unsustainable.
The country has neither the interest nor the resources to continue on its current trajectory."
http://taiwansecurity.org/News/2003/JT-070403.htm
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Freedom of Information Access
-
Freedom of Information Access (FOIA) in Japan, 05/2002
- Administrative Management Bureau (in Somusho)
(J)
- Promotion of Disclosure of Administrative Information
(J)
- Law Concerning Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs
(J)
(E)
- Main Points of the Law Concerning Access to Information Held by
Administrative Organs
(J)
(E)
- The Law regarding to the Law related to the implementation of the
Law Concerning Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs
(J)
- Mechanism of Information Disclosure System
(E)
- Usage Data (4/1/01-9/30/01)
(J)
- Opinions for the Establishment of Disclosure Law
- Introduction(J)
- Plan of the Law(J)
- Concepts(J)
- Information Clearinghouse Japan
(J)
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Law
- Information
Protection Law
2003
- "Diet
Enacts Personal Information Protection Laws," Japan
Foreign Press Center, 6/2/03. Five bills stipulating
how personal information should be handled by private
companies and public administrators to protect the rights
of individuals were enacted into law when they passed
the House of Councillors on May 23. The bills had the
backing of the three ruling parties and other members
of the upper house. The newly enacted laws oblige organizations
handling personal information to specify the purposes
for which the information will be used and to notify
the individual that personal data has been acquired.
They also prohibit the forwarding of information to
third parties without the consent of the individual
concerned. Violators will receive a warning from the
competent minister and be subject to penalties. Summary
of the bills
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Politics
- Political
Parties
- Ruling
Coalition (July,2003)
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Public
Opinion
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Science
& Technology
- 2003
- Reform
of the Japanese System for Competitive Research Funding
Suggestions NSF Tokyo Report Memorandum #03-06, 6/19/03.
This report follows up our office's report TRM#02-06.
CSTP (Council for Science and Technology Policy) compiled
"Suggestions on Reforming Competitive Research Funding
System" on April 21, 2003. These notes represent a compilation
of the outcomes from ten meetings and hearings subsequent
to the CSTP's interim report. [The itemized recommendations
for a new competitive funding scheme that are summarized
in this report will not be unfamiliar, or seem new, to
American researchers. The lack of disciplinary programs
within funding agencies in Japan has often caused difficulties
in initiating talks on cooperative projects between the
Unites States and Japan. The following reform would enhance
the cooperation between the two countries.http://www.nsftokyo.org/rm03-06.html
- Intellectual
Property
- "Government
Announces Draft Plan to Strengthen Intellectual Property
Rights," Japan Foreign Press Center, 7/3/03. "On June
20 the government announced a draft of its Intellectual
Property Promotion Plan, which has the goal of raising
the international competitiveness of Japanese industry
by strengthening the protection of patent rights and promoting
content industries. Background factors necessitating such
a plan include the lengthy nature of Japan's patent examination
process compared with that of other countries and the
recent spate of cases in which employees have sued their
companies seeking compensation for patents resulting from
their inventions. The main points of the government's
draft plan are: (1) speeding up the patent examination
process; (2) establishing a high court to deal exclusively
with lawsuits relating to intellectual property; and (3)
urging companies to conclude contracts with employees
ahead of time specifying the value of inventions. The
government intends to work out details after the Intellectual
Property Policy Headquarters, which is chaired by Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi, officially decides on the
plan. http://www.fpcj.jp/e/shiryo/jb/0337.html
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Security
- Council
on Security and Defense Capabilities Report
- Japan's Vision for Future Security and Defense Capabilities,
Office of the Prime Minister, October 4, 2004. View
the report by clicking here.
- Constitution
of Japan, 1947
- The
Modality of the Security and Defense Capability of Japan.
- [Nihon no Anzen Housho to Boeiryoku no Arikata] Prime
Minister’s Advisory Group on Defense Issues, August
12, 1994. (Higuchi Report) ) as translated in Appendix
A, p. 22 in , Patrick Cronin and Michael Green, eds.,
Redefining the U.S.-Japan Alliance: Tokyo's National
Defense Program. National Defense University, McNair
Paper # 31, November 1994.
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/macnair/mcnair31/mcnair31.pdf
- National
Defense Program Outline (NDPO)
- Mid-Term
Defense Build-up Plan (FYl996-FY2000)
- Japan
Self-Defense Forces
- National
Emergency Bills
-
"Diet Enacts Three National Emergency Bills",
Japan Foreign Press Center, 6/13/03. Official Summary.
On June 6 the House of Councillors passed three laws
concerning Japan's response to a military attack from
abroad: the Law Concerning Measures to Ensure National
Independence and Security in a Situation of Armed Attack,
the Law to Amend the Self-Defense Forces Law, and the
Law to Amend the Security Council Establishment Law.
The package of emergency legislation passed by an overwhelming
majority with the support of the three parties in the
ruling coalition, as well as the opposition Democratic
Party of Japan and Liberal Party. A legal framework
to respond to military emergencies has been established
26 years after the cabinet of then Prime Minister Takeo
Fukuda began studying the idea of contingency legislation
back in 1977. In addition to the constitutional concerns
raised, another roadblock in the enactment of these
laws was the strong aversion to the creation of a "wartime
order" among citizens with bitter memories of war. For
many years, debate itself was considered taboo. The
passage of the three emergency laws means that Japan's
security policy has entered a new stage.http://www.fpcj.jp/e/shiryo/jb/0333.html
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U.S.
Policy
- 2003
- Transcript: Amb. Baker Lauds Japan's New Active Role
in the World, Howard Baker Jr.'s June 30 speech in Tokyo,"
US State Dept, 7/1/03. "There has been "a remarkable evolution
of the public debate about Japan's role in the world,"
says U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker, Jr. In a June
30 speech to the International Friendship Exchange Council
in Tokyo, Baker said the 1991 Gulf War, the September
11 terrorist attacks on the United States, and the North
Korean threat have all contributed to increased public
awareness of the possible threats to Japan. But Japan's
reassessment of its international role, the ambassador
said, "is mostly due to the growing realization that this
nation is a great power with worldwide interests."http://lists.state.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-USIAINFO.EXE?A2=ind0307a&L=WF-EASIA&P=R1265
2000
- Armitage Report:The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership, INSS Special Report, October/2000
- Report (E)
- The Armitage Report: A Policy Bibliography
Prepared by the Japan Information Access Project, 01/2002
Resource Guide
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War Crimes
- Comfort Women
2003
- "Text: Resolution Calls for Japanese Apology to World War II Comfort Women, H. Con. Res. 226 says Japan should pay reparations to victims",
US State Dept, 6/25/03. "A Vietnam era Marine Corps veteran is calling on the Japanese government to issue "a clear and unambiguous apology" for its policy of enslaving young women to serve as
"comfort women" for Japanese troops during World War II. Representative Lane Evans (Democrat of Illinois) submitted House Concurrent Resolution 226 (H. Con. Res. 226) to the House of Representatives
June 23." http://lists.state.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-USIAINFO.EXE?A2=ind0306d&L=WF-EASIA&P=R6895
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Whaling
- 2003
- "World Panel Will Now Act to Conserve the Whale Population", NYT6/17/03, A11.
International Whaling Commission (IWC) votes to create a new committee to help protect international whale populations.
Japan disputed the decision and threatened to withdraw its support from organization. SEE
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Women & Children
- Equality
2003
- "Japan's Gender Ranking Slips Amid Rise In Slurs On Women,", National
FT7/9/03, A7. The United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) releases 2003 Human Development Report, calling on countries to meet
several goals by 2015. The report measured gender equality among countries and called for improvements. 1.Iceland, 2.Norway,
3.Sweden, 4.Denmark, 5.Finland, 10. US, 44. Japan (dropping 12 places since 2002).
http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/
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