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Based on seventeen months of ethnographic research among Indonesian eldercare workers in Japan, this book is the first ethnography to research Indonesian care workers' relationships with the cared-for elderly, their Japanese colleagues and their employers.

This volume of essays explores the history of the US tax mission to Japan during the occupation following World War II. Under General MacArthur, economist Carl S. Shoup led the mission with the charge of framing a tax system for Japan designed to strengthen democracy and accelerate economic recovery. The volume examines the sources, conduct and effects of the mission and situates the mission within the history of international financial and fiscal reform. The book begins by establishing the context of progressive social investigations of taxation, including Shoup's earlier tax missions to France and Cuba. It then goes on to explore the Japanese background to the Shoup mission and the process by which American and Japanese tax experts shaped their recommendations. The book then assesses and explains the mission's accomplishments in the context of the political economies of the United States and Japan. It concludes by analyzing the global implications of the mission, which became iconic among international tax reformers.

This is the first book to examine in-depth Japan's relations with Africa. Japan's dependence on raw materials from South Africa made it impossible for Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s to support other African states in their fight against the minority government and its policy of apartheid. Kweku Ampiah's detailed analysis of Japan's political, economic and diplomatic relations with sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to the early 1990s makes it clear that Japan was lukewarm in the struggle against apartheid. Case studies of Tanzania and Nigeria dissect Japan's trade, aid and investment policies in sub-Saharan Africa more widely.

\"As we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the ASEAN-Japan Dialogue Partnership, the essays in this book remind us, and amplify the ASEAN-Japan relations. The complexities of this relationship, including the external influences which have impinged on its development over the years, are cogently discussed and recorded for the younger generation and students of ASEAN-Japan ties. The intricacy and spread of ASEAN-Japan cooperation mechanisms are also well highlighted in this book, while several thought-provoking commentaries on the future of this four-decade old partnership give pause to the readers. Many of the challenges that exist in this relationship originated from domestic political dynamics in the ASEAN countries and Japan, as well as from the neighbouring states and key trading partners.\" Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, Former ASEAN Secretary General \"The monograph on ASEAN-Japan relations is the intellectual highlight of the 40 years anniversary of ASEAN-Japan cooperation. ASEAN has become an indispensable partner and friend of Japan and its role as the hub of cooperation, development and stability in the region will without doubt become even more important after the establishment of the ASEAN Communities in 2015. The monograph containing contributions of the most renowned and respected experts on ASEAN provides us with enlightening overview, inspiration as well as guidance for our future common path. I would like to recommend this monograph to everybody interested in the further deepening of the ASEAN-Japan relations.\" Ambassador Yoshinori Katori, Ambassador of Japan to Indonesia, Former Ambassador in charge of ASEAN

Despite the enduring importance of the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the broader relationship between the two countries is today beset by sobering new difficulties. In this comprehensive comparative analysis of the transpacific alliance and its political, economic, and social foundations, Kent E. Calder, a leading Japan specialist, asserts that bilateral relations between the two countries are dangerously eroding as both seek broader options in a globally oriented world. Calder documents the quiet erosion of America's multidimensional ties with Japan as China rises, generations change, and new forces arise in both American and Japanese politics. He then assesses consequences for a twenty-first-century military alliance with formidable coordination requirements, explores alternative foreign paradigms for dealing with the United States, adopted by Britain, Germany, and China, and offers prescriptions for restoring U.S.-Japan relations to vitality once again.

After centuries of virtual isolation, during which time international sea travel was forbidden outside of Japan's immediate fishing shores, Japanese shogunal authorities in 1862 made the unprecedented decision to launch an official delegation to China by sea. Concerned by the fast-changing global environment, they had witnessed the ever-increasing number of incursions into Asia by European powers—not the least of which was Commodore Perry's arrival in Japan in 1853–54 and the forced opening of a handful of Japanese ports at the end of the decade. The Japanese reasoned that it was only a matter of time before they too encountered the same unfortunate fate as China; their hope was to learn from the Chinese experience and to keep foreign powers at bay. They dispatched the Senzaimaru to Shanghai with the purpose of investigating contemporary conditions of trade and diplomacy in the international city. Japanese from varied domains, as well as shogunal officials, Nagasaki merchants, and an assortment of deck hands, made the voyage along with a British crew, spending a total of ten weeks observing and interacting with the Chinese and with a handful of Westerners. Roughly a dozen Japanese narratives of the voyage were produced at the time, recounting personal impressions and experiences in Shanghai. The Japanese emissaries had the distinct advantage of being able to communicate with their Chinese hosts by means of the \"brush conversation\" (written exchanges in literary Chinese). For their part, the Chinese authorities also created a paper trail of reports and memorials concerning the Japanese visitors, which worked its way up and down the bureaucratic chain of command. This was the first official meeting of Chinese and Japanese in several centuries. Although the Chinese authorities agreed to few of the Japanese requests for trade relations and a consulate, nine years later China and Japan would sign the first bilateral treaty of amity in their history, a completely equal treaty. East Asia—and the diplomatic and trade relations between the region’s two major players in the modern era—would never be the same.

Since the early 1990s, Japan has played an increasingly important and influential role in Africa. A primary mechanism that has furthered its influence has been through its foreign aid policies. Japan’s primacy, however, has been challenged by changing global conditions related to aid to Africa, including the consolidation of the poverty reduction agenda and China’s growing presence in Africa. This book analyzes contemporary political and economic relations in foreign aid policy between Japan and Africa. Primary questions focus on Japan’s influence in the African continent, reasons for spending its limited resources to further African development, and the way Japan’s foreign aid is invested in Africa. The context of examining Japan’s foreign aid policies highlights the fluctuation between its commitments in contributing to international development and its more narrow-minded pursuit of its national interests. The contributors examine Japan’s foreign aid policy within the theme of a globalized economy in which Japan and Africa are inextricably connected. Japan and many African countries have come to realize that both sides can obtain benefits through closely coordinated aid policies. Moreover, Japan sees itself to represent a distinct voice in the international donor community while Africa needs foreign aid from all sources. 1. Introduction: The Global Politics of Japanese-African Relations Howard P. Lehman 2. History of Japanese ODA to Africa Makoto Sato 3. The Asian Economic Model in Africa: Japanese Developmental Lessons for Africa Howard P. Lehman 4. The Ambiguous Japan: Aid Experience and the Notion of Self-Help Motoki Takahashi 5. International Debt Management: Japan’s Policy to Africa Jun’ichi Hasegawa 6. Policy Coordination Among Aid Donors: Japan’s Position from a European Perspective Nobuyuki Hashimoto 7. Japan and the Poverty Reduction Aid Regime: Challenges and Opportunities in Assistance for Africa Motoki Takahashi Howard P. Lehman received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1987 and has been teaching at the University of Utah since 1986. His publications include a book on economic development and many articles on South Africa, foreign debt negotiations, and African interest groups. \"The volume is a very useful addition to the recent publications about Japan’s relations with Africa, especially in the manner in which some of the chapters contend with policy issues about development.\" - Kweku Ampiah, Pacific Affairs: Volume 85, No. 1 - March 2012

Future Oil Demands of China, India, and Japan examines how Chinese oil energy will likely shape future Sino-Indian and Sino-Japanese relations under conditions of dependency and non-dependency, and whether competition or cooperation for scarce energy resources will result. The author lists and describes three possible Chinese oil energy futures or scenarios (Competitive Dependency, Competitive Surplus, and Cooperative Surplus) using Scenario Analysis and the PRINCE Method to subsequently estimate their associated likelihoods. Further, this book discusses and evaluates their strategic implications for India and Japan and estimates the most likely oil energy future. This book argues that China’s rising dependence on imported oil, along with its adroit use of soft power, economic prowess, strategic engagement of the world as an alternative model of political and economic development, military modernization, and rapid economic growth can only mean that it will alter the global status quo and become the dominant actor in world affairs in the near future. India and Japan will be less influential economically because China is skillfully harnessing and strategically exercising the elements of national power (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic) to acquire scarce oil energy resources in the Near East, Western Hemisphere, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This pioneering work examines Japan's economic activities in Singapore from 1870 to 1965. Drawing upon a wide range of published and unpublished sources, the authors shed new light on issues such as: * prostitution * foreign trade by Kobe's overseas Chinese * fishermen in the inter-war period * Japanese economic activities during the Pacific War * Japanese involvement in Singapore's post-war industrialisation plan * the Lee Kuan Yew regimes policy towards Japan * the 1960s Japanese investment boom This important work challenges commonly-held views on Japan's economic advance into Southeast Asia in general and Singapore in particular.