Monday in Washington, February 25, 2019

ADVANCING ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE ACROSS ASIA. 2/25, 9:30 – 11:00am. Sponsor: Asia Foundation. Speakers: Kim DeRidder, Director of Environment Programs, Asia Foundation; Moderator: Kim McQuay, Managing Director, Program Specialists Group, Asia Foundation.

COMPETING WITH RUSSIA "SHORT OF WAR": HOW THE US AND NATO HAVE COUNTERED RUSSIAN COERCION PANEL DISCUSSION. 2/25, 9:30-11:00am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Stimson Center. Speakers: Thomas Wright, Director, Center on United States and Europe, and Senior Fellow, Project on International Order and Strategy, Brookings; Michael Kofman, Research Scientist, CNA Corporation, and Fellow, Kennan Institute, Wilson Center; Barry Blechman, Co-founder, Stimson Center, and Distinguished Fellow, Defense Strategy and Planning program, Stimson Center; James Siebens, Research Associate, Defense Strategy and Planning program, Stimson Center.

POLITICS, TALIBAN NEGOTIATIONS & NUCLEAR SECURITY IN PAKISTAN. 2/25, Noon-1:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU. Speaker: Hassan Abbas, Professor of International Security Studies, Chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies, National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs.

DEFENDING RULE OF LAW NORMS: A CONVERSATION WITH ROD ROSENSTEIN. 2/25, Noon-1:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: CSIS; Defending Democratic Institutions. Speakers: Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General; Suzanne Spaulding, Senior Adviser, Homeland Security, International Security Program, CSIS.

THE SECOND TRUMP-KIM SUMMIT: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN, AND SOUTH KOREA. 2/25, 12:30-2:00pm, Lunch, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Center for American Progress (CAP). Speakers: Neera Tanden, President and CEO, CAP; Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives; Taisuke Mibae, Visiting Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council; Jung H. Pak, Senior Fellow and SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies, Brookings; Soojin Park, Public Policy Fellow, Wilson Center; Moderator: Michael Fuchs, Senior Fellow, CAP.

*EU STRATEGY IN AN AGE OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION. 2/25, 3:00-4:15pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Carnegie Endowment. Speakers: Sven Biscop, Professor, Ghent University, and Director, Europe in the World Program, Egmont-Royal Institute for International Relations; Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director, Transatlantic Security Program, Center for a New American Security; Benjamin Haddad, Director, Future Europe Initiative, Atlantic Council; Moderator: Erik Brattberg, Director, Europe Program, and Fellow, Carnegie Endowment.

*MAKING THE DIGITAL ECONOMY WORK FOR EVERYONE. 2/25, 5:00–7:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Speakers: Hubertus Heil, German Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs; Liz Shuler, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO; Moderator: Thea M. Lee, President, EPI.

Media ethics betrayed in Japan

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by Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, a former columnist of The Japan Times and author of Japan (Polity 2019).

East Asia Forum, 12 February 2019

Imagine that the editorial page of The New York Times suddenly shifted dramatically rightward and columnists critical of US President Donald Trump were ousted and replaced by sycophantic pundits. Then a tape emerges of the editor justifying these changes as intended to counter accusations that the newspaper is anti-American and the sacking of Trump debunkers as designed to boost government ad revenue and snag an interview with Trump. This is essentially what recently happened at The Japan Times.

In June 2017, public relations firm News2u purchased The Japan Times, Japan’s oldest and most circulated English-language newspaper. The new management jettisoned the newspaper’s previous critical editorial stance in favour of lauding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies. The Japan Times now embraces Abe’s revisionist history, which promotes a vindicating and exonerating narrative of Japan’s wartime past.

Based on information from an insider’s tape, on 25 January 2019 Reuters reported that Executive Editor Hiroyasu Mizuno insinuated during a staff meeting that criticising Abe’s policies and revisionist views on history conveyed an anti-Japanese bias. He said, ‘I want to get rid of criticism that Japan Times is anti-Japanese’ — akin to arguing that criticising Trump makes The New York Times anti-American. According to that logic, much of the Japanese population must be anti-Japanese since polls suggest support for Abe’s signature policies hovers between 25–30 per cent.

At the same meeting, a senior manager clearly stated on tape that termination of my own column (which was often critical of the Abe administration) had already produced an upside, boosting revenues from government-sponsored content and scoring an interview with Abe.

Reuters drew attention to Mizuno’s unsuccessful efforts in mid-2018 to convince his editorial team to soften its criticism of Japan’s wartime misconduct, annotating several articles to make his point. According to copies of his notes, he ‘objected to calling comfort women “victims” or mentioning that they included girls; questioned referring to Japan’s occupation of Korea as “brutal”; and criticized the paper’s reporting and stories by wire services, including Reuters, as generally “pro-Korea” and not adequately reflecting Japan’s view’.

The latter is a misleading claim, as there is no monolithic Japanese view of history as it varies across the political spectrum. The Japan Times has shifted from the Asahi newspaper’s left-of-centre stance to the deep right at the Sankei end of the spectrum.

Having failed to sway his team, Mizuno proceeded to ignore their objections, inserting a note at the end of an article on 30 November 2018 about the Seoul–Tokyo fracas over forced labour. The note announced that The Japan Times would no longer use the terms ‘comfort women’ and ‘forced labour’. In doing so, Mizuno overturned the terminology long used at the newspaper and most English-language media, including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian.

Mizuno’s brief note explains that the newspaper will now refer to comfort women as ‘women who worked in wartime brothels, including those who did so against their will’. And Korean workers will be referred to simply as ‘wartime labourers’, omitting any reference to coercion.

The note angered many Japan Times reporters and staff, forcing Mizuno to hold a meeting to clear the air (at which the tape featuring his controversial remarks was made). After the meeting on, 6 December 2018, Mizuno acknowledged and expressed his regret that the note ‘damaged the relationship of trust that we have developed with our readers, our writers and our staff’.

Mizuno told Reuters that he is not opposed to ‘appropriate’ criticism. But the editorial shift seems to exclude hard-hitting commentary. New columnists act as cheerleaders for Abe, while an acerbic political reporter who asked awkward questions at press conferences was shifted from the Prime Minister’s beat. Blogosphere reactionaries are triumphant, claiming victory now that The Japan Times has capitulated and is endorsing euphemisms about the comfort women system of sexual slavery and forced labour.

The bombshell Mizuno tape has tarnished The Japan Times’ brand. The tape suggests that the newspaper’s editor lacks integrity and journalistic ethics, having traded both for government ad money and access to Abe. The Japanese media has also picked up the story, amplifying the reputational damage. Transactional journalism of this sort overshadows the excellent reporting and features that make The Japan Times so valuable. Whether or not one agrees with the new terminology on comfort women and forced labour, the revelations are devastating public relations for a venerable newspaper now owned by a PR firm.

Although the newspaper’s physical circulation is just 45,000 copies,The Japan Times plays an outsized role in global perceptions of Japan because of the internet. This is precisely why a cabinet minister reportedly asserted at a late-2016 meeting that something had to be done about The Japan Times’ critical coverage, which was undermining the government’s pro-Abe public diplomacy.

After the ownership change, The Japan Times began fawning over Abenomics and the Prime Minister’s right-wing agenda. The evident willingness to kowtow to power, rather than speak to it, highlights the larger problem of self-censorship in Japan and a beholden media reliant on access journalism.

Japan Times staff have been in damage control mode since the Reuters story broke. It appears unlikely that there will be any reversal of the new editorial direction despite internal discord and the embarrassing revelations. Management is likely hoping to brazen out the scandal and continue milking the government for sponsored content and crumbs of access as it rides the lucrative 2020 Olympic wave

In memoriam

Ruth Muroff Kotler March 10, 1919-February 19, 1984

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AFFAIR IN TOKYO

a measure of a man

Both the Asahi Shimbun, a left-leaning daily newspaper, and the Yomiuri Shimbun, a right-leaning paper, cited anonymous Japanese government sources who said that Mr. Abe had nominated Mr. Trump for the prize last fall at the behest of the White House. According to a U.S.-Japan diplomatic source cited by Mainichi on February 19th, President Trump himself reportedly asked Abe to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize during a teleconference on Aug. 22 last year.

From Dan Sneider, Stanford University and APP Member

TOKYO REPORT, For The Nelson Report

President Donald Trump has somehow managed, without a moment's thought, to engineer a new political uproar in Japan - the Nobel Prize Affair. Last Friday, in the stream of (un)consciousness that took place in the Rose Garden, the President was being pressed to defend the lack of any visible progress since his past summit with Kim Jong Un. In reply, he revealed that Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo had given him a copy of a letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In classic humble fashion, Trump told the reporters:

So Prime Minister Abe gave me - I mean, it's the most beautiful five letter - five-page letter. Nobel Prize. He sent it to them. You know why? Because he had rocket ships and he had missiles flying over Japan. And they had alarms going off; you know that. Now, all of a sudden, they feel good; they feel safe. I did that.

This revelation went off like a small bomb in the Prime Minister's Office and the Japanese Foreign Ministry where they were under the mistaken impression that there is anything resembling a secret in the Trump White House. Of course, it is no secret that Prime Minister Abe has taught a master class to other world leaders in how to use flattery and abject servitude towards President Trump to keep the America First wolf from the door.

But this display of servility went well beyond previous limits. And it had the added twist of undermining the desire of Abe and the Japanese government to warn Trump against further concessions to North Korea at the second summit in Hanoi. It also hardly jibes with Japanese unhappiness with the empty results of the first meeting in Singapore and the constant warnings about the ongoing threat from North Korea.

So, it was not a surprise that opposition party members of the Diet jumped all over this Nobel Prize Affair and tried to pin down the PM on what actually happened. The leader of the Democratic Party for the People, the second largest opposition party, peppered him questions [at the Monday, February 19th Budget Hearing] about Trump's statement.

Abe could not lie - that option may exist for Trump but not for a Japanese leader - so he gave the artful non-answer, non-denial.

I would like to refrain from commenting on the matter based on the Nobel Committee' policy of not identifying nominators and nominees for at least 50 years," Abe told a House of Representatives Budget Committee session on the morning of Feb. 18. But he added, covering his posterior, "I'm not saying it's not true [that I nominated Trump for the prize].

Democratic party leader Tamaki Yuichiro immediately drew the obvious conclusion that Abe in fact had nominated Trump and went after that decision with clear purpose. "If you believe the current situation in Northeast Asia is peaceful, I think it's a problem," Tamaki said. "Nothing has been resolved. None of the abduction, nuclear and missile issues were resolved," including those involving short- to medium-range ballistic missiles that are capable of directly hitting Japan, Tamaki said. "We cannot help but say you are looking at the situation too optimistically. On top of that, it would send a terribly inaccurate message to the world," Tamaki argued.

The opposition leader then pointed to the rather obvious contradiction between Abe's nomination of Trump and the government's push to purchase multi-billion-dollar missile defense systems from the U.S. on the grounds that Japan is facing an "imminent threat" from North Korean missiles. 

Constitutional Democratic Party Diet member Ogawa Junya laid out the list of Trump's retreat from international agreements, from the Paris climate agreement to the abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal and the INF treaty. "It's shameful for Japan" to nominate such a person for the Nobel Peace Prize, Ogawa said in the Diet.

Japanese officials were scrambling to carry out damage control. Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga claimed this was only a recognition that Trump's leadership led to the talks on "denuclearization." Behind the scenes, officials leaked to Japanese media the idea that they were only responding to informal requests from the White House to nominate Trump. Some have linked this to the meeting last September in New York when Abe was trying to hold off pressure for a trade deal.

Even veteran Japanese journalists are not sure what the truth is in this matter. "It might have been a case that someone in the White House or someone close to POTUS might have mentioned the idea during the preparation with Tokyo for the Trump Tower summit in September, but nobody can tell whether or not it was authorized in the administration," one senior journalist at a major Japanese daily told me. But the idea that this came from the Americans might just be a case of the Japanese trying to "diffuse the humiliation" of the Trump revelation.

For the opposition, this affair takes definite second place to the larger scandal in Japanese politics of the falsification of government labor statistics (don't ask me to explain this one). But this is by no means over in Tokyo. The Diet will be debating foreign and security policy more fully in the budget committee on Wednesday and the press will keep digging into this. Of course, the man who kicked it all off last Friday not only has no idea what he did - he probably couldn't care less.

One footnote - not to be outdone by the Japanese, South Korean President Moon Jae-in's spokesman jumped on the bandwagon. Trump, he told reporters "is more than eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize."

Monday in Washington, February 11, 2019

INDIA'S INTER-STATE WATER WARS: CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, AND CURES. 2/11, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Scott Moore, Senior Fellow, Penn Water Center; Kartikeya Singh, Deputy Director & Senior Fellow, Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies.

JAPAN’S ROLE IN ASIA’S CONNECTIVITY: INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE AND DIGITAL GOVERNANCE. 2/11, 2:00-4:00pm. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Kohei Toyoda, Director for International Coordination, Trade Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan; Nancy Lee, Senior Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development; Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, Director, European Centre for International Political Economy, and Senior Fellow, London School of Economics; Joshua P. Meltzer, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Brookings; Shin Oya, Senior Consulting Fellow, Asia Pacific Initiative, and Chief Representative for Strategic Research, Japan Bank for International Cooperation; Moderator: Mireya Solís, Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, Brookings.

IS BIGGER BETTER? CONCENTRATION, COMPETITION, AND DEFENSE CONTRACTING OUTCOMES. 2/11, 3:00-4:30pm. Sponsor: International Security Program, CSIS. Speakers: Frank Kendall, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Barry Lynn, Executive Director, Open Markets Institute; Marjorie Censer, Editor, Inside Defense; Pierre Chao, Founding Partner, Renaissance Strategic Advisors; Andrew Philip Hunter, Director, Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group and Senior Fellow, International Security Program, CSIS.

CONFRONTING AUTHORITARIANISM. 2/11, 6:00-8:30pm. Sponsors: Embassy of Canada; National Endowment for Democracy. Speaker: Anwar Ibrahim, President, People's Justice Party of Malaysia.

Monday in Washington, February 4, 2019

DMGS-KENNAN DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS SERIES: THE IMPACT OF SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA'S ELITES. 2/4, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsors: Wilson Center; Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security. Speakers: Nigel Gould-Davies, Associate Fellow, Chatham House; Daniel Ahn, Senior Consulting Economist, U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Professorial Lecturer, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Advisor, Rapidan Energy Group.

AMERICA'S BORDER WARS. 2/4, 1:00-3:00pm. Sponsor: Cato. Speakers: Vicki Gaubeca, Director, Southern Border Communities Coalition; Terry Bressi, Chief Engineer of the Spacewatch Project, University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab; Chris Montoya, 21-year Customs and Border Patrol veteran; moderated by Patrick Eddington, Policy Analyst in Homeland Security and Civil Liberties, Cato.

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SOFTWARE SECURITY INITIATIVES FOR THE US. 2/4, 1:00-3:00pm. Sponsor: Technology Policy Program, CSIS. Speakers: William Stephens, Director, Counterintelligence, Defense Security Service, Department of Defense; Tommy Ross, Senior Director, Privacy, BSA | The Software Alliance; Roberta Stempfley, Director, CERT Division, Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute; Allan Friedman, Director of Cybersecurity Initiatives, National Telecommunications Information Administration; Derek Weeks, Vice President, Sonatype Inc.; Chris Nissen, Director, Asymmetric Threat Response, MITRE Corporation; Moderator: Harvey Rishikof, Visiting Professor of Law, Temple University

BANKERS, BAILOUTS, AND THE STRUGGLE TO TAME WALL STREET. 2/4, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: Wilson Center. Speakers: Kathleen Day, author, Professor of financial crises, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, business journalist, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. P

Monday in Washington, January 28, 2018

CONVERSATION WITH THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS. 1/28 9:00-10:00am. Sponsor: Brookings. Speaker: Admiral John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy; Moderator: Michael E. O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, and Director of Research, Foreign Policy, Brookings.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE 2019 STATE OF THE UNION. 1/28, 10:00-11:15am. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: E.J. Dionne Jr., W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings; John Hudak, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Effective Public Management, Brookings; Vanessa Williamson, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings; Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, and Editor-in-Chief, Lawfare, Brookings; Moderator: Molly E. Reynolds, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings.

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BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO: CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING AS AN ANTITRUST REMEDY. 1/28, 11:45am-1:30pm. Sponsor: Hudson. Speakers: Commissioner Noah Phillips, Federal Trade Commission; Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, Hudson.


TAXING WARS: THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR FINANCE AND THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY. 1/28, Noon-1:00pm. Sponsor: Heritage Foundation. Speaker: author Sarah Kreps is an Associate Professor of Government and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell University.

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BOOK LAUNCH: THE STATE STRIKES BACK: THE END OF ECONOMIC REFORM IN CHINA? 1/28, 12:15-1:30pm. Sponsor: Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). Speaker: author, Nicholas R. Lardy, Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow, PIIE. Streaming Only.

ACTORS AND CONTROL: THE STRUGGLE FOR HISTORY AND MEMORY IN RUSSIA. 1/28, 2:00-3:00pm. Sponsor: Wilson Center. Speaker: Ivan Kurilla, Professor, History and International Relations, and Director, Department Development Partnership Program, European University at St. Petersburg, Russia.

GLOBAL STATUS OF CCS: IS US TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP AT RISK? 1/28, 3:00pm. Sponsor: Atlantic Council; Global CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) Institute. Speakers: keynote: Steven Winberg, Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy, US Department of Energy; Jeff Erikson, General Manager, Global CCS Institute; Lynn A. Brickett, Project Manager, National Energy Technology Laboratory; Daichi Nakahara, Vice President, Director of Operations, IHI INC. PPED; Kurt Waltzer, Managing Director, Clean Air Task Force; Geir Westgaard, Vice President, Political & Public Affairs, Equinor; moderator: David Livingston, Deputy Director for Climate & Advanced Energy, Global Energy Center; Atlantic Council.

TECH AND THE FUTURE OF NATIONAL SECURITY. 1/28, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: School of Foreign Service, GU. Speakers: Palmer Luckey, Founder, Anduril Industries; Trae Stephens, Chairman, Anduril Industries; Toni Gidwani, Director of Research, ThreatConnect.

Monday in Washington, January 14, 2019

US-INDONESIA BUSINESS FORUM. 9:00am-12:30pm. Sponsor: Embassy of Indonesia; Indonesian Ministry of Trade. Speakers: H.E. Budi Bowoleksono, Ambassador of Indonesia to the US; H.E. Enggartiasto Lukita, Indonesia Trade Minister.

HOW CHINA AND THE U.S. ARE ADVANCING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. 10:00-11:00am. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Nicol Turner Lee, Fellow, Governance Studies, Center for Technology Innovation; Ryan Hass, David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center; Robb Gordon, Group Counsel and Director, China Legal Team. Moderator: Darrell M. West, Vice President and Director, Governance Studies Founding Director, Center for Technology Innovation.

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THE FUTURE OF U.S. POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN. 10:00-11:30am. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Stephen Hadley, Former National Security Adviser; Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence; Madiha Afzal, Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Global Economy and Development. Moderator: Michael E. O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Director of Research, Foreign Policy, The Sydney Stein, Jr. Chair.

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FROM HITLER’S GERMANY TO SADDAM’S IRAQ: THE ENDURING FALSE PROMISE OF PREVENTIVE WAR. 1/14, 12:30-2:00pm. Sponsor: New America. Speakers: author, Scott A. Silverstone, Class of 2016 Future of War Fellow, New America, Professor of International Relations, United States Military Academy at West Point; Peter Bergen, Vice President, Global Studies & Fellows, New America.

A NEW ERA OF REFORM: WHAT THE NEW CONGRESS CAN LEARN FROM THE WATERGATE ERA AND SINCE. 1/14, 12:30-2:00pm. Sponsor: New America. Speakers: Historians and authors of Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer.

REBOOTING THE INNOVATION ECONOMY. 1:00-2:30pm. Sponsor: RTI International, the CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development. Speakers: Gary Shapiro, President and CEO, Consumer Technology Association; Shaarik Zafar, Public Policy Manager, Facebook; Sara Lawrence, Program Director, Economic Development, RTI International; Nate Tibbits, Senior Vice President, Global Government Affairs & Public Affairs, Qualcomm.

Monday in Washington, January 7, 2019

Washington returns. Most of the government that does work critical to foreign policy is furloughed. The 116th Congress has begun and the many new members are beginning to learn what matters.

FALLING APART? POLITICS OF NEW START AND STRATEGIC MODERNIZATION. 2:00-3:30pm. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Frank A. Rose, Senior Fellow, Security and Strategy, Brookings; Rebecca Hersman, Director, Project on Nuclear Issues, CSIS; Madelyn R. Creedon, Former Principal Deputy Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings; John R. Harvey, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, Department of Defense; Prof. Matthew Kroenig, Associate Professor, Georgetown University, Deputy Director, Scowcroft Center, Atlantic Council.

Human Rights Day and Japan

December 10th was the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (#StandUp4HumanRights!). It is International Human Rights Day.

Human Rights Day is also when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. This year it is of special interest to those who care about the Comfort Women as the honors went to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict and the UN Security Council held an Arria-formula meeting on "Raising the effectiveness of atrocity crimes prevention: role of the United Nations Security Council and its Members".

Few appreciate the role of Asian states and diplomats in forming the Universal Declaration and modern human rights principles. Recent scholarship has highlighted extensive involvement in the 1940s by Asians in identifying war crimes and demanding accountability. Dan Plesch's work on the UN War Crimes Commission (1943-48) [Human Rights after Hitler] outlines how Chinese and Indian lawyers and officials were deeply involved before 1948 in defining crimes against humanity.

The new book by Robin and Bertrand Ramcharan, Asia and the Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes how the values of the Universal Declaration are very much Asian values and that the future of the world must continue to be inspired by those values. [Springer Press has made the introductory chapter from this book available free on December 10th]

This contradicts the excuses behind the human rights violations in Burma, China, Vietnam, and North Korea. The scholarship also challenges Japanese PM Abe's rationale for revising Japan's "imposed" constitution. From his many statements, he believes the charter's provisions concerning human rights do not accurately reflect the history, culture and tradition of Japan. Concerned critics fear Abe and elements in the LDP want the references to individual liberties removed and replaced with greater loyalties to the state.

The LDP draft published in 2012 confirms as much. Japanese legal expert Larry Repeta analyzes the changes proposed and how they will upend Japanese democracy in Japan's Democracy at Risk – The LDP's Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change (July 22, 2013).

This focus on traditional Japanese values leads critics to worry that a vital supporter of the liberal international order does not actually believe in the universal nature of human rights as a practical matter. Most Westerners belief Constitutional change is only about Japan's war-fighting abilities. This is merely a backdoor. Japan's conservatives, who are currently running the country are most concerned with rejecting the individual liberties and human rights embodied in the current constitution.

Whereas it remains to be seen if Abe can fundamentally alter Japan Constitution, he has succeeded in adjusting the language both Japanese citizens and foreigners use in describing the history of Imperial Japan. On December 1, all the state-involved news agencies, such as JiJi, Kyodo, and NHK as well as MOFA publications and the English-language Japan Times no longer say "comfort women" or "forced laborers." It is now "women who worked in brothels" and "wartime laborers.

These changes not only erase the actual wartime language used by Imperial Japan..."comfort women" is not something imposed postwar by us... it can be argued that the new language somehow sanitizes the imagery of these wartime tragedies and abuses, and thus flies in the face of every aspect of today's Nobel Peace Prize award.

Human rights are tools that human beings designed to protect ourselves from the arbitrary exercise of power. They are not culture specific. Yet with the proposed changes to the Constitution, the Abe government now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of apparently denying a key human element of the liberal international order.

Working to preserve the histories of the Comfort Women, forced laborers, and all of Imperial Japan's victims is important in that it reminds the Japanese people of the consequences of believing that they are unique and do not share values with others. It is less about those harmed than about the abyss that Japan can again fall. It is about democracy under attack and the values of individual dignity it can protect.

Not all in the LDP want to Constitution revised. In fact, the 10th was also the last day of the current Diet session and the party did not submit any constitutional revisions for consideration.

But if Abe continues to revise Japan's wartime past and cleanse the language used to describe the war, his patience might pay off.

For a good history of how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights came to be, see: A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Mary Ann Glendon.

Resolution of the Association of German Historians on Current Threats to Democracy

Where are Japan's historians?

Resolution of the Association of German Historians (VHD, Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands) on Current Threats to Democracy

passed at the association members’ meeting in Münster, 27 September 2018

In Germany as in numerous other countries, excessive attacks on democratic institutions are currently threatening the foundations of the political order. As historians, we feel it is our duty to warn against these threats. Dispute is essential in a pluralistic society, but it must follow certain rules if it is not going to undermine democracy itself.

Historiography as a scholarly discipline has the task of analyzing historical developments in order to contribute to a better understanding of contemporary issues and to explore the complexity of their causes. Given that politics seems to be increasingly driven by the volatility of public opinion polls and ever faster-paced media dynamics, we would like to stress that only thinking in longer-range time periods can guarantee the future of our political system in the long run.

We therefore consider the following basic attitudes for democratic interaction in politics and society essential:

For historically sensitive speech, against discriminatory terms
Political discussion in a democracy involves pointed language that clearly expresses one’s own position but does not deny other people fundamental respect. Today’s derogatory descriptions of politicians as “enemies of the people” or the media as producers of “fake news” employ the same kind of anti-democratic language that was used in the interwar period. We also have many historical examples of the dangerous effects of using disparaging terms to exclude perceived “others” on the basis of their religion, their ethnic background, their gender or their sexual orientation.
For parliamentary democracy and a pluralistic culture of debate, against populism
In pluralistic democracies, public policy is the result of open debates in which a variety of political opinions and social interests are expressed. A unified will of the people that can be discerned by those regarding themselves as “called” is, in contrast, a fiction, used by people in political debates primarily for the purpose of making themselves invulnerable. In the Weimar Republic, the idea of “the people’s will” smoothed the way to power for a movement whose “Führer” saw himself as the incarnation of that will.

For unified European action, against nationalist unilateralism
Given the many violently waged intra-European conflicts of the past, European unification based on a commitment to pluralistic democracy and inalienable human rights is one of the most significant accomplishments of the 20th century. While the legitimacy of individual national interests is undisputed, unilateral nationalist actions threaten this historical achievement. Exclusively national problem-solving strategies cannot meet the political, humanitarian, ecological and economic challenges of the globalized present. Also, in light of colonial violence committed by Europeans in other parts of the world, it is crucial to acknowledge our shared responsibility for the consequences of our policies in regions outside of Europe.

For humanity and the rule of law, against the slander of migrants
Migration is a historical constant. Despite all the problems it entails, on the whole it has benefited societies – including Germany’s. It is therefore important to work toward proactive, pragmatic policies concerning migration and integration that respect both human and international rights. It is essential that the constitutionally guaranteed right to political asylum and the duty to provide help in humanitarian crisis situations be applied in a way that falls to Germany not only because of its economic power but also for historical reasons.

For critical engagement with the past, against the political misuse of history
The Federal Republic of Germany today is a stable democracy. One of the reasons why is that the German people, after considerable resistance at first, now for the most part deal with the history of National Socialism in a self-critical and reflective way. Our own discipline, too, was slow to embrace this process. In any case, a responsible approach to the past has as its prerequisite the findings of historiography, a field that must also be willing to be self-critical and that in principle is independent of political influence. Its information is based on research into historical sources and is open to critical discussion. Only in this way will it be possible to remain mindful of the historical bases of our democracy and defend them against “alternative facts.”