SAVE the Institute of Museum and Library Services

American Library Association 
statement on 
White House assault on the 

Institute of Museum and Library Services

March 15, 2025A

WASHINGTON – An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency for America’s libraries. The following statement was made by the American Library Association:

Americans have loved and relied on public, school and academic libraries for generations. By eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Trump administration’s executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted of American institutions and the staff and services they offer:

• Early literacy development and grade-level reading programs
• Summer reading programs for kids 
• High-speed internet access
• Employment assistance for job seekers 
• Braille and talking books for people with visual impairments
• Homework and research resources for students and faculty
• Veterans’ telehealth spaces equipped with technology and staff support
• STEM programs, simulation equipment and training for workforce development
• Small business support for budding entrepreneurs

To dismiss some 75 committed workers and mission of an agency that advances opportunity and learning is to dismiss the aspirations and everyday needs of millions of Americans. And those who will feel that loss most keenly live in rural communities. 

As seedbeds of literacy and innovation, our nation’s 125,000 public, school, academic and special libraries deserve more, not less support. Libraries of all types translate 0.003% of the federal budget into programs and services used in more than 1.2 billion in-person patron visits every year, and many more virtual visits.

ALA implores President Trump to reconsider this short-sighted decision. We encourage U.S. Congressmembers, Senators and decision makers at every level of government to visit the libraries that serve their constituents and urge the White House to spare the modest federal funding for America’s libraries. And we call on all Americans who value reading, learning, and enrichment to reach out to their elected leaders and Show Up For Our Libraries at library and school meetings, town halls, and everywhere decisions are made about libraries.

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The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent federal agency that supports libraries and museums in all 50 states and U.S. territories through grantmaking, research and policy development. IMLS administers both federal grants to states, which determine how funds are spent, and discretionary grants to individual library entities.

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Tracing the decline of a beautiful Japan

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By Michael Hoffman, author of In the Land of the Kami: A Journey into the Hearts of Japan and Other Worlds

THE JAPAN TIMES, June 17, 2017

Two irreconcilable views of patriotism were given their classic expressions by two Englishmen: Lord Byron, the poet (1788-1824), and Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer and jack-of-all-literary-trades (1709-84). Byron said, “He who loves not his country can love nothing.” And Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s patriotism is unabashed and fervent. He is doing all in his very considerable power to transmit it, via education, to the nation at large. His first stint as prime minister produced a revision to the Fundamental Law of Education in 2006 that charges schools with cultivating in children “an attitude that respects tradition and culture, and loves the nation and homeland that have fostered them.” He vowed at the time to “push ahead with education rebuilding that will … nurture people with vision and hope and build a dignified and beautiful country.”

Japan’s beauty was beautifully sung by the country’s most ancient poets, those of the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries whose work was anthologized in the famous Manyoshu collection, dating to the latter half of the eighth century. Among the poets were emperors and subjects, courtiers and lowly soldiers, men and women. Their shared love for their country at times seems almost erotic. The very mountains love one another: “Mount Kagu strove with Mount Miminashi/ for the love of Mount Unebi.” And in any human love, the nation seems ever present, a silent but indispensable third party: “On the vast lake of Omi/ you boatmen that come rowing/ close by the shore,/ ply not too hard your oars …/ lest you should startle into flight/ the birds beloved of my dear husband!” So sang Empress Yamato-hime, consort of Emperor Tenji (reigned 661-71).

As the Manyoshu era faded, so did patriotism. Warriors supplanted aristocrats, military rule marginalized the Imperial house, and Japan itself, beginning in the late 12th century, crumbled into a chaos of warring feudal domains. Poetry persisted, but the self-sacrificing loyalty it celebrated was to one’s domain, one’s lord — not one’s country. There was no country.

Unification in 1600 under the Tokugawa Shogunate produced no upsurge of national pride. The official morality it enforced was Confucian — hardly a native plant. Modern Japanese patriotism is rooted in simmering opposition to Confucianism, tainted by its very foreignness, and to the shoguns, damnable as usurpers. (Buddhism, then in eclipse, scarcely counted.) Japan had an indigenous religion: Shinto, the “way of the gods.” And it had its rightful ruler: the sacred Emperor, descended from the Sun Goddess. Where were they? Shinto was nowhere, all but forgotten. The Emperor languished in dignified but impotent exile in Kyoto, the old capital.

Vanguard teacher of generations of patriots to come was Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801). Did he know what he would spawn, this most gentle and erudite of scholars? Among his intellectual progeny were the kamikaze pilots of World War II, who drew inspiration from his famous poem: “What is the spirit of Yamato’s (Japan’s) ancient land?/ It is like the wild cherry blossoms,/ radiant in the sun.” The kamikaze poet who wrote on the eve of his suicide mission, “If only we might fall/ like cherry blossoms in spring —/ so pure and radiant!” was surely thinking of him.

“Our august country,” wrote Norinaga, “is the august country of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami. It is the beautiful and magnificent august country superior to all other countries, so people’s hearts and actions, as well as the words they speak, are straightforward and elegant. In the past, the realm was governed peacefully and without incident, so that, unlike in other countries, there was not the least trace of anything bothersome or troubling. But then writing came over from China.”

Thus were the seeds of corruption sown. Japan ceased to be fully Japanese. It became quasi-Chinese. Following the way of the Chinese sages, it lost the way of the Japanese gods. Of them Norinaga wrote: “All things in this world, such as the changing of the seasons, the falling of the rain and the gusting of the wind, as well as the various good and bad things that happen to countries and people, all are entirely the august works of the gods. Among the gods there are good ones and bad ones. … They cannot be understood with ordinary reason. … The fact that many things go against ordinary reason, such as good people meeting misfortune and bad people prospering, is all because of the deeds of these gods. In foreign countries, though, there is no correct transmission of the age of the gods, so they do not understand this.”

In short: A “beautiful and magnificent august country” is one thing; the happiness of people is something else altogether and, in fact, quite beside the point. The gods are the gods — there is no holding them to account. The people’s lot — the people’s joy, if only they know it — is to know the gods as best they can be known, and to serve them as best they can be served. For Norinaga’s disciples of the first two generations after his death, that meant “revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians” — a truculent challenge to the tottering shogunate which, having usurped Imperial rule, now stood helpless against the ever more boldly intruding Western “barbarians.”

Norinaga with his writing brush, his disciples with their swords, would gladly have thrust Japan back to its Manyoshu past, if only they could. They couldn’t, of course. The Meiji Era (1868-1912) that began with an Imperial Restoration modernized, industrialized, capitalized and militarized Japan far more than it “restored” it, if restoration means return to a pristine state. Norinaga’s ideal was the misty “land of the gods.” Meiji’s was “rich country, strong army.”

And Abe’s? He, perhaps no less than his Meiji predecessors, is remaking Japan — into a “dignified and beautiful country,” he says, vague as always as to what he means; hopefully not a neo-“land of the gods.” “Land of the gods” makes for pretty mythology but — as history teaches at such cost — very ugly politics.

Is this the scandal where the LDP pushes Abe under the bus?

Japanese high-level crony capitalism from schools to the maglev trains that benefits personal friends, and not Abe's district or national voters. This is a change in Japan's political dynamics that could be trouble for the prime minister.

US-Japan Week

US-JAPAN WEEK IN WASHINGTON, DC

U.S.-Japan Relations after the U.S. Presidential Election

U.S-Japan Research Institute (USJI)

JAPAN’S TRADE POLICY IN AN ERA OF GROWING ANTI-GLOBALISM. 2/27, 2:00-3:30pm. Speakers: Vinod K. Aggarwal, Professor, Travers Family Senior Faculty Fellow, Department of Political Science, Director, APEC Study Center, University of California, Berkeley; Yukiko Fukagawa, Professor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University; Takashi Terada, Professor, Department of Political Science,  Doshisha University, Operating Advisor,  U.S.-Japan Research Institute; Shujiro Urata, Dean, Professor, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University; Moderator: Mireya Solís, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy StudiesPhilip Knight Chair in Japan Studies. 

PLANT SCIENCE RESEARCH FOR GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY. 2/ 27, 2:00-3:30pm. Speakers: Hiroshi Ezura, Professor, Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba; Jocelyn Kenneth Campbell Rose, Professor, Plant Biology Section, School of Integrative Plant Sciences, Cornell University; James J. Giovannoni, Professor, ARS/BTI, Ithaca NY, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Plant Biology, Cornell University; Tohru Ariizumi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba. 

ASIA AND THE WORLD AS SEEN BY BORDER STUDIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR US-JAPAN RELATIONS. 2/ 28, 10:00 –11:30am. Speakers: Edward Boyle, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law and Center for Asia-Pacific Future Studies, Kyushu University; Akihiro Iwashita, Professor, Hokkaido University/Kyushu University; Mikhail Alexseev, Professor, Department of Political Science, San Diego State University; Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria; Tony Payan, Fellow & Director, Rice University. 

U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION: NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE. 2/28, 1:30-4:10pm,. Speakers: James L. Schoff, Senior Fellow, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Shunji Yanai, Advisory Board, USJI / Former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Japan Embassy, U.S. / Judge, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea / University Professor, Waseda University; Michael H. Armacost, Advisory Board, USJI / Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the Philippines / Shorenstein APARC Fellow, Stanford University; Fumiaki Kubo, Director, USJI /Professor, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo; Masayuki Tadokoro, Professor, International Relations, Keio University; Aiji Tanaka, Operating Advisor, USJI / Professor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University; Jeffrey Hornung, Fellow, Security and Foreign Affairs Program, Sasakawa USA; Bruce Stokes, Director, Global Economic Attitudes, Pew Research Center. 

US-JAPAN ALLIANCE AFTER THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 3/1, 2:00-3:30pm. Speaker: Koji Murata, Operating Advisor, USJI, Professor, Faculty of Law Department of Political Science, Doshisha University; Benjamin Self, Vice President, Mansfield Foundation. 

INCLUSIVE AND EQUITABLE QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL IN THE CONTEXTS OF SDGS: INCLUDING CHILDREN WITH DISABILITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. 3/2, 10:00-11:30pm. Speaker: Miki Sugimura, Vice Chair, USJI, Vice President, Academic Exchange, Sophia University, Professor, Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Education, Sophia University. 

MIGRATION AND ANTI-GLOBALIZATION IN NORTH AMERICA: VIEWS FROM MEXICO AND JAPAN. 3/2, 2:00-3:30pm. Speaker: Fuminori Minamikawa, Professor, Faculty of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University; Mariana Gabarrot Arenas, Professor, Institute of Technology, University of Tec de Monterrey, Mexico. Moderator: Keiji Nakatsuji, Operating Advisor, USJI, Professor, Faculty of International Relation, Ritsumeikan University. 

IS SHINZO ABE’S JAPAN SPECIAL TO DONALD TRUMP’S AMERICA?. 3/2, 6:00-7:30pm. Speaker: Takashi Terada, Operating Advisor, USJI / Professor, Faculty of Law Department of Political Science, Doshisha University. [students only]

Monday in Washington, November 14, 2016

POLICY CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW US PRESIDENT. 11/14, 8:30am, Breakfast. Sponsor: Economists for Peace and Security. Speakers: Richard Kaufman, Bethesda Research Institute; Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research; Matias Vernengo, Bucknell University, Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives; Bill Goodfellow, Center for International Policy; Sherle Schwenninger, New America; Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute; Nancy Altman, Social Security Works; Pavlina Tcherneva, Levy Economics Institute; Stephanie Kelton, University of Missouri, Kansas City; James K. Galbraith, Economists for Peace & Security; Jeremy Richardson, Union of Concerned Scientists; David Colt, Efficient Resource Management; Eban Goodstein, Bard Center for Environmental Policy.

US CORPORATE TAX REFORM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM. 11/14, 9:00am-Noon. Sponsor: American Enterprise Institute (AEI); International Monetary Fund (IMF). Speakers: Vitor Gaspar, IMF; Kevin A. Hassett, AEI; Edward Kleinbard, University of Southern California; Thornton Matheson, IMF; Eric Toder, Urban Institute; Barbara Angus, House Committee on Ways and Means; Robert Stack, US Treasury; Michael Devereaux, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation; Michael Keen, IMF.

TWO-WAY STREET–25 YEARS OF US-CHINA DIRECT INVESTMENT. 11/14, 10:00am - Noon. Sponsor: Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University (GWU). Speakers: Thilo Hanemann, Author, Director, Rhodium Group; Daniel H. Rosen, Author, Founding Partner, Rhodium Group; Stephen A. Orlins, President, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

21ST CENTURY TECH TALENT AND THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC EDGE. 11/14, 10:00am-12:15pm, Breakfast. Sponsor: Scholl Chair in International Business, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); Smeal College of Business, Penn State University. Speakers: Charles Whiteman, Dean, Smeal College of Business, Penn State University; Fariborz Ghadar, Senior Adviser, CSIS, William A. Schreyer Professor of Global Management, Policies and Planning, Penn State University; Jim Boland, Chairman, Jobs Ohio, Vice Chairman Emeritus, Ernst & Young; Laura Kohler, Senior VP, Human Resources and Stewardship, The Kohler Co.; David Cranmer, Deputy Director, Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, NIST; Scott Miller, Senior Adviser and Scholl Chair in International Business, CSIS; Laura Dawson, Director of the Canada Institute, Wilson Center; Camille Mirshokrai, Managing Director, Accenture PLC; Alex Nowrahsteh, Immigration Policy Analyst, Cato Institute.

AMERICA’S NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHITECTURE: REBUILDING THE FOUNDATION. 11/14, 10:00am-12:15pm. Sponsor: Aspen Strategy Group. Speakers: Zoë Baird, CEO, President, Markle Foundation; Nicholas Burns, Goodman Family Professor of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard University; Michèle Flournoy, Co-Founder, Center for A New American Security; Steve Hadley, Former National Security Advisor for President George W. Bush; Jane Holl Lute, Under Secretary General, United Nations; Joseph Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard University.

THE WAY FORWARD FOR TRADE. 11/14, 11:00am-12:30pm. Sponsor: Cato Institute. Speakers: Ambassador Mickey Kantor, Partner, Mayer Brown, Former U.S. Trade Representative (1993–1996); Ambassador Susan Schwab, Professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, Former U.S. Trade Representative (2006–2009). Moderator: Daniel Pearson, Senior Fellow, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

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THE ART OF PEACE: ENGAGING A COMPLEX WORLD. 11/14, Noon-1:00pm. Sponsor: Heritage Foundation. Speakers: Author Juliana Geran Pilon, Senior Fellow, Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization; Colonel Michael R. Eastman, Executive Officer to the Commanding Officer of the Army Cyber Command; Helle C. Dale, Senior Fellow for Public Diplomacy, Heritage Foundation.

NEW AVENUES TO GOVERN CROSS-BORDER INFORMATION FLOWS. 11/14, Noon-2:00pm. Sponsor: Institute for International Economic Policy, Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University (GWU). Speakers: Sam Dupont, Director for Digital Trade, USTR; Michael Joseph Ferrantino, World Bank; Carl Schonander, Senior Director International Policy, SIIA; Deborah James, Director, International Programs, Center for Economic and Policy Research. Moderator: Susan Aaronson, Research Professor, Cross-disciplinary Fellow, GWU.

FREEDOM ON THE NET 2016. 11/14, 12:30-1:30pm, Lunch. Sponsor: Freedom House. Speakers: Sanja Kelly, Director, Freedom on the Net, Freedom House; Darya Luganskaya, Moscow-based Tech Journalist; 'Gbenga Sesan. Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria; Sally Shipman Wentworth, Vice President of Global Policy, Internet Society. Moderator: Daniel Calingaert, Acting President, Freedom House.

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BORDERLESS WARS: A LIVE GRAY ZONE PATH GAME. 11/14, 1:00-2:30pm. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Author Antonia Chayes, Professor of Practice of International Politics and Law, Fletcher School, Tufts University; Scott DePasquale, Senior Fellow, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council; Brian Michelson, US Army Senior Fellow, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council. Moderator: Ali Watkins, National Security Correspondent, BuzzFeed.

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION: WHAT PLACE IN U.S. DIPLOMACY. 11/14, 2:00-4:00pm. Sponsor: U.S. Institute for Peace. Speakers: William B. Taylor, Executive Vice President, U.S. Institute of Peace; Jill Welch, Deputy Executive Director, Public Policy, NAFSA; Amb. Richard LeBaron, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; Waidehi Gokhale, Chief Executive Officer, Soliya; Maria J. Stephan, Senior Policy Fellow, USIP; Daniel L. Buccino, Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Clinical Supervisor, Student Coordinator, Clinical Director, Mood Disorders Clinic, Bayview, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Hopkins Civility Initiative, Johns Hopkins University; Jeff Helsing, Associate Vice President, Applied Conflict Transformation, U. S. Institute of Peace.

A CONVERSATION WITH UN DEPUTY SECRETARY GENERAL JAN ELIASSON. 11/14, 5:00-6:00pm. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speakers: Jan Eliasson; Deputy Secretary General, United Nations; William J. Burns, President, Carnegie.

ENERGY AND CLIMATE POLICY PROPOSALS FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION. 11/14, 5:00-7:00pm. Sponsor: SAIS, Johns Hopkins. Speakers: David Goldwyn, President, Goldwyn Global Strategies; Robert McNally, President, Rapidan Group; Roberton C. Williams III, Senior Fellow and Director, Academic Programs, Resources for the Future and Professor, University of Maryland, College Park; Ben Longstreth, Senior Attorney, Climate and Clean Air Program, Natural Resources Defense Council.

PRISONERS OF WAR. 11/14, 6:45-8:45pm. Sponsor: Smithsonian Connections. Speaker: Judge Evan J. Wallach, an expert on war crimes and the law of war, Circuit Judge at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, fee.

Japan’s Double Standard on Freedoms and Rule of Law

PM Shinzo Abe is maintaining a double standard on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

By Aurelia George Mulgan
First Appeared in The Diplomat, April 20, 2016

A number of domestic and international developments have revealed a glaring disconnect between the Japanese government’s preaching and its practice on the issue of universal values.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proudly declared a values-based diplomacy for Japan in both his first (2006-07) and second administrations (2012-), emphasizing universal values such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. In January 2013, not long after the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regained power, he outlined the basic principles on which his government’s diplomacy would be based. One of these fundamental principles was the concept of “universal values.” A month later, he publicly repeated this commitment to “diplomacy that places emphasis on universal values.”

As a diplomatic tool, rhetoric such as “democracy, human rights and the rule of law” justifies the Abe government’s continuing alignment with Japan’s long-standing democratic allies and with other semi-democracies in Asia that share his strong reservations about China’s unpeaceful rise. It also pointedly excludes China by definition from any putative coalition of democratically aligned states.

On the other hand, several recent actions and policies of the Abe administration, particularly in the domestic domain, suggest that the prime minister’s declarations of a commitment to universal values are primarily a diplomatic device for international consumption. They do not represent a guide to the government’s stance at home on a number of key issues. Quite the contrary, the prime minister’s record clearly shows that his government is taking Japan in an authoritarian direction that is unprecedented in the postwar era. What is more, these steps seriously question Abe’s commitment to universal values.

Among a series of deleterious developments, the Abe administration’s record in dealing with the media demonstrates that it is falling well short of observing first principles of democratic accountability. Amongst the most egregious examples of media-muzzling are attempts to silence media critics, including creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation amongst journalists and other commentators who dare to question the government’s and ruling party’s policies, personnel and actions. In addition to the administration’s explicit actions to control the message, the 2013 State Secrets Law compounds the threat to freedom of news reporting by hanging over journalists’ heads like the sword of Damocles.

In the education sector, the Abe government has censored school textbooks, ensuring that the latest versions for students follow the government’s uniform line on history and territorial issues. The bottom of this slippery slope will land Japanese students in the same position as those in China, for whom only official accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre are available and who are taught that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist.

The Abe government has also heavied universities to rid themselves of humanities and social science departments, arguably, amongst other things, to discourage the training of students’ critical thinking skills, thus silencing another potential source of criticism of the government.

Yet another and possibly the most disturbing example is the proposed content of the LDP’s May 2012 draft revisions to the 1947 Constitution. In glaring contrast to the human rights Abe cites internationally as “universal,” the draft explicitly rejects this notion. It states that human rights derive from a country’s history, culture, and traditions, and are, therefore, qualified to the extent that they are influenced by these factors. Indeed, the maintenance of so-called “public order” is elevated over all individual rights, raising the question, “public order” as defined by whom? Presumably “the government of the day.” Instead of universal human rights, Japanese citizens will be given “duties and obligations” (unspecified) – no doubt, once again, to be defined by public authorities. At the same time, the prime minister has undermined the rule of law by claiming in the Diet to be the ultimate source of authority regarding interpretation of the Constitution, an act for which he will be judged by the electorate. In short, the meaning of the constitution is what the prime minister says it is, which would potentially remove the Japanese constitution’s safeguards against the rise of authoritarianism.

Last but not least is the Abe government’s flouting of the ruling of the highest court of the UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Japan’s whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. In March 2014, ICJ ruled that Japan’s Antarctic whale hunts were unscientific and ordered it to stop hunting. Only three months after this ruling, in June 2014, Prime Minister Abe told the Japanese parliament that he wanted to aim for the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research. He thus personally endorsed the resumption of commercial whaling, which Japan had been conducting on spurious scientific grounds under the politicized term “research whaling” (chōsa hogei) used ubiquitously by Japanese authorities and in the media.

Japan has since resumed lethal research whaling under the much publicized heading of NEWREP-A and stated that it will not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ on marine living resources, reflecting a clear double standard in its stance on the rule of law internationally. Nor does Japan recognize the Australian Antarctic Territory’s EEZ, or its Whale Sanctuary, or the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The reality is that Japanese whaling is neither scientific nor commercial. It is a government-subsidized and sponsored industry conducted for the benefit of the Japanese whaling industry-cum-lobby and is certainly not for the benefit of Japanese consumers. This lobby is headed by the semi-governmental Institute of Cetacean Research, charged with propagandizing the virtues of whaling and an affiliated organ (gaikaku dantai) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). Apart from providing plum positions for retired bureaucrats, many such groups play key roles in the ancillary apparatus of government intervention by undertaking regulatory and/or allocatory functions as well as participating directly in markets.

Whaling is defended against international attack on spurious cultural grounds, traditionally the last defense of the protectionists. The Japanese government tried the same defense of its rice industry at the Uruguay Round of the GATT, proselytizing the notion of rice as quintessentially a cultural good in Japan. Here it was considerably more successful, extracting a concession that allowed rice to be spared from tariffication under the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA).

Monday in Washington, April 11, 2016

THE FUTURE OF PERSONNEL POLICY AT DOD. 4/11, 10:00-11:00am. Sponsor: CSIS. Speaker: The Hon. Brad R. Carson, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

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THE SMARTEST PLACES ON EARTH: BOOK DISCUSSION. 4/11, 10:30-11:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Co-Authors Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC PROSPECTS: SPRING 2016. 4/11, 12:15-1:30pm. Sponsor: Peterson Institute for International Economics (IIE). Speakers: Paolo Mauro, IIE; Adam S. Posen, IIE; Nicholas R. Lardy, IIE.

FEMINISM FOR THE FUTURE: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINISM AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION. 4/11, 1:00-2:00pm, Arlington, VA. Sponsor: George Mason University (GMU). Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Enloe, Visionary Scholar in Feminist International Relations.

WHY THE U.S. IS THE CENTER OF SOFTWARE INNOVATION: A DISCUSSION WITH TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEUR ALAN DABBIERE. 4/11, Noon-1:30pm. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: Alan Dabbiere, Chairman, Wandering Wifi; Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute.

21ST CENTURY DEVELOPMENT: LEVERAGING DATA, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION. 4/11, 2:00-3:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Ann Mei Chang, Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director, U.S. Global Development Lab, USAID; Dr. John Boright, Executive Director of International Affairs, U.S. National Academies; Sonal Shah, Professor of Practice and Founding Executive Director, Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation, Georgetown University. Location: CSIS, 1616 Rhode Island Ave., NW. Contact: http://csis.org/event/21st-century-development-leveraging-data-technology-and-innovation.

THE FUTURE OF KURDISTAN IN IRAQ. 4/11, 2:00-4:00pm. Sponsor: SAIS, Johns Hopkins. Speakers: Minister of Foreign Relations of the Kurdistan Regional Government; Opening remarks and introduction: Sasha Toperich, Senior Fellow and Director of the Mediterranean Basin Initiative at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS Keynote Address: Falah Mustafa, Minister of Foreign Relations, Kurdistan Regional Government; Commentator: Daniel Serwer, Professor and Director, Conflict Management Program, and Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS; Moderator: Rebeen Pasha, WYLN Senior Fellow, Mediterranean Basin Initiative at the Center for Transatlantic Relations SAIS, and co-founder and President, American Friends of Kurdistan.

CAN INDIA EVER BECOME A GREAT POWER? 4/11, 3:00-4:30pm. Sponsor: Carnegie Endowment. Speakers: Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment; Devesh Kapur, Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania; Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India; Milan Vaishnav, Senior Associate, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment.

THE THIRTY-SECOND JIT TRAINOR AWARD FOR DISTINCTION IN THE CONDUCT OF DIPLOMACY. 4/11, 4:30-6:00pm. Sponsors: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy; Trustees of the Trainor Endowment. Speaker: Awardee The Hon. Dr. Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of Energy.

ORGANIZED CRIME AS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE AMERICAS. 4/11, 5:30pm. Sponsors: Women's Foreign Policy Group; NAFSA. Speaker: Joy Olson, Executive Director, Washington Office on Latin America.

USJI Week in Washington February 22-26, 2016

US-JAPAN RESEARCH

ESTABLISHING A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Emerging opportunities for international collaboration on SDG’s. 2/23, 10:30-11:50am, Washington DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute. Speakers: Fumiko Kasuga, Visiting Professor, Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science, University of Tokyo; Jon Padgham, Capacity Building Lead, Future Earth Secretariat hub in Colorado; Maria Uhle, Program Director, International Activities, Directorate, Geosciences, National Science Foundation (NSF); Moderator: Hassan Virji, Executive Director, International START Secretariat USA. Location: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Washington Office, 2001 L St., NW, Suite 1050.

REFUGEES UNWILLING TO RETURN: Cases of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Great East Japan Earthquake, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. 2/24, 10:00am-Noon, Washington DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Carl Bruch , Senior Attorney, Co-Director, International Programs, Environmental Law Institute(ELI); Nicholas S. Bryner, Visiting Associate Professor, George Washington University; Heather Croshaw, Visiting Attorney, Environmental Law Institute (ELI); Moderator, Mikiyasu Nakayama, Operating Advisor, USJI, Professor, The University of Tokyo. Location: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Washington Office, 2001 L St., NW, Suite 1050.


PLANT SCIENCE RESEARCH FOR GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY. 2/24, 1:00-2:30pm, Washington DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Jocelyn Kenneth Campbell Rose, Professor, Cornell University; James J. Giovannoni, Professor, Cornell University; Tohru Ariizumi, Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba; Moderator: Hiroshi Ezura, Professor, University of Tsukuba. Location: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Washington Office, 2001 L St., NW, Suite 1050.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY POLICIES IN EAST ASIA. 2/25, 10:00am-Noon, Washington DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Tomoaki Watanabe, Assistant Professor, Kyushu University; Nobuhiro Horii, Associate Professor, Kyushu University; Masaki Takahashi, Senior Power Engineer, World Bank; Joanna Lewis, Associate Professor, Georgetown University; David Livingston, Associate, Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program; Moderator: Toru Oga, Associate Professor, Kyushu University. Location: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Washington Office, 2001 L St., NW, Suite 1050.

REJUVENATING JAPAN'S ECONOMY AND INDUSTRIES - Abenomics in the Long Run. 2/25, 1:00-3:00pm, Washington DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Glen S. Fukushima, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, University Professor, Waseda University; Junichi Mori, Vice Chair, U.S.-Japan Research Institute, Professor, Vice President, International Relations, Kyoto University; Yoshinori Hara, Professor, Kyoto University; Moderator, Takashi Hikino, Associate Professor, Kyoto University. Location: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Washington Office, 2001 L St., NW, Suite 1050. Contact:

COMPETING OR COMPLEMENTING ECONOMIC VISIONS? REGIONALISM AND THE PACIFIC ALLIANCE, TPP, RECEP AND THE AIIB. 2/26, 10:30am-Noon, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI); Wilson Center’s Asia Program. Speakers: Mauricio Moreira, Principal Economic Advisor, Trade and Integration Sector, Inter-American Development Bank; Takashi Terada, Professor of International Relations, Doshisha University; Kent Huges, Wilson Center. Location: Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, 6th Floor Auditorium.

BUILDING THE TOMODACHI GENERATION: Engaging U.S. and Japanese University Students in Social Problem-Solving. 2/26, 10:00am-12:30pm, Washington DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Katsuichi Uchida, President, USJI, Assistant to the President, Global Affairs, Waseda University; Christopher Joseph Cook, Chief Compliance Officer, Keel Point Advisors. Location: Washington Center Residential and Academic Facility, 1005 3rd St., NE.

There will also be a series of events only open to students. Please check the homepage for details.