Japan Europe Research Articles

Asia and Europe in Japan’s Alignment Policies: Drivers, Strategic Expectations and Future Outlook

This article examines Japan’s security alignments with key Asian and European partners, notably Australia, India, the UK, France and the EU itself. The articles explores Tokyo’s strategic expectations with regard to each of the five partnerships, as well as probing the likely future evolution of these alignments by providing a comparative perspective. Japan’s alignments with Australia and India conform with and supplement the US-Japan alliance, addressing Japan’s primary geostrategic concerns in the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean region. Tokyo’s security partnerships with the European partners, and the EU, are more recent and not rooted in any US-led alliance in Asia. The degree of traditional kinetic military power these European players can bring to Asia is very limited. However, the pace with which Japan’s new European alignments are quickly moving beyond the non-traditional security areas to encompass more traditional defence and military-security fields attests to their potential of evolving in the future into mechanisms able to perform a broad range of security functions in response to complex security threats. The boundaries between these two categories of partnerships are likely to be further blurred, providing Japan with various mechanisms at different levels to shape and influence the regional and global security environment.

Europe and Japan

This article traces the historical evolution of the images of Europe in Japan. While the length of Japan’s interactions with Europe do not compare to those between China, Korea, and Japan, the Europeans have nevertheless played a significant role in the process of constructing a Japanese identity. While Europe initially played a part in consolidating ethnocentric notions of Japanese superiority, since the expansion of European International Society in the late-nineteenth century, Europe has played a role as a “positive” other that Japan has frequently sought to emulate and mimic, even at the height of Japan’s rebellion during the Asia-Pacific War of 1931-1945. This dynamic has persisted to this day, even under the shadow of American hegemony and Japan’s incorporation into this order after 1945.

Takeshi KOJIMA, European Construction and Belgium: Socio-economic historical studies about European integration, Nikkei Hyoronsha, 2007.

This book aims to historically trace Belgium's efforts to deal with and role in the integration of Europe after World War II, and to provide a detailed clarification of the origin of the European Union (EU). According to the author, most past studies seem likely to be inclined toward the role of large European countries in integrating Europe whereas the efforts of small countries like Belgium is dismissed.This book mainly clarifies two points. Firstly, it discusses the origin of the EU. Further, it examines the efforts at economic cooperation undertaken by the Benelux, such as that exemplified by the Ouchy Convention (1932) and Customs Union (1948), and proves that it was such instances of cooperation that eventually paved the way for the European Economic Community (EEC). The Benelux took up the initiative to successfully build a unified European nation on the basis of their past experience. While the Schuman Plan (1950) is conventionally considered to be the origin of EU in terms of supra-nationalism, the Beyen Plan, which eventually lead to the founding of the EEC, also played an important role in the origin of EU in terms of inter-governmentalism. Secondly, this book clarifies the role of the small country in the European integration. While it is true that large countries such as Germany and France have led the integration, the author believes that the role of the small countries should not be overlooked. In fact, at present, EU consists of many small member states.The author, the first historiographer to study the integration of Europe in Japan, makes a contribution to European integration historical studies by publishing a single work that uses primary materials. I think that the author's focus on Belgium is crucial because there are not many such studies even in Europe. Further, with this work, I expect that such historiographical analyses will continue to progress in Japan.

Effects of Combined Teleconnection Patterns on the East Asian Summer Monsoon Circulation: Remote Forcing from Low- and High-Latitude Regions

Using the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA-40) data, we examined two summertime teleconnection patterns, the Europe-Japan (EJ) and the Pacic-Japan (PJ) patterns, which prevail over northern Eurasia and the western North Pacic, respectively, and high lighted the effects of the combination of the two on the East Asian summer monsoon variability on a high frequency (HF) component (sub-monthly timescales) and a low-frequency (LF) component (longer than about one month).The combination of positive EJ type 2 (EJ2+), which particularly accounts for the variability of the Ok hotsk high among the two types of EJ pattern (EJ type 1 and EJ type 2), and negative PJ (PJ-) patterns establishes a noticeable tripole structure in the mid-tropospheric geopotential height eld of East Asia that is characterized by two positive anomalies over the Okhotsk Sea and the western North Paci c to the north of the Philippines and a negative anomaly over Japan. It is found that the combination of both pat terns, EJ2+/PJ-, leads to a larger surface temperature decrease in the northeastern part of East Asia than a single teleconnection pattern alone, having a substantial impact on the East Asian summer monsoon circulation. The LF-combination also induces signicant cool sea surface temperature anomalies in the vicinity of Japan. In the HF-combined case, the time evolution of a positive height anomaly over the Ok hotsk Sea considerably differs from that of the LF-combined one. The HF-anomaly is extremely displaced eastward to the Aleutian Islands a few days after the peak day and occupies part of a newly organized wavetrain pattern across the central North Pacic. Further development of the wavetrain pattern may be attributed to anomalous convective heating related to enhanced synoptic-scale disturbances to the east of Japan.Both the LF-EJ2+ and LF-PJ- patterns tend to appear frequently during the post-1980 period, and, as a result, the number of LF-combined cases may have increased in the last two decades. Exceptionally cool summers with signicant amounts of rainfall, particularly in Japan, such as the 1993 and 2003 summers, often arise from such an LF-combination.

A Japanese Herbal in the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine: A Contribution to the History of the Transfer of Scientific Knowledge from Europe to Japan

A Japanese Herbal in the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine: A Contribution to the History of the Transfer of Scientific Knowledge from Europe to Japan

Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan (review)

Reviewed by: Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan Marcia Yonemoto (bio) Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. By Olof G. Lidin. NIAS Press, Copenhagen, 2002. xiv, 304 pages. £45.00, cloth; £17.99, paper. In this recent study, Olof G. Lidin is interested in beginnings, specifically in exploring various perspectives on the first encounter between Europeans and Japanese in the mid-sixteenth century. He discusses in considerable detail the arrival of the first Portuguese merchants in Japan and their introduction of the new Western technology of firearms. He discusses more briefly the coming of Christianity via the teachings of Portuguese missionaries. Lidin pays particular attention to primary texts, both Japanese and European, that describe these early encounters and he offers partial and complete translations of several key Japanese and Western-language accounts. Ultimately, [End Page 196] he is concerned with the emergence of a new Japanese consciousness of the world outside of Asia: "Japan's first encounter with Europeans was epoch-making in both Japanese and world history. It meant first of all that Japan's second internationalization began and that the process started that has continued until this day. Before, Japan had been a part of the East Asian world with China at the centre; now it became a part of the whole world" (p.34). Lidin begins his investigation in the place in which the Japanese-European encounter began: Tanegashima, the largest of a chain of twelve islands off the southern tip of Kyushu (there are helpful maps included in the text to orient the reader). In the first chapter, Lidin recounts, in detailed and fairly straightforward terms, the arrival on Tanegashima of two Portuguese traders in the eighth month of 1543 and the dramatic consequences of this event, the first of which was the introduction of the gun. The two merchants had with them several muskets, which they demonstrated for and eventually sold to the local daimyo, Tanegashima Tokitaka. By coincidence, Tanegashima was an island rich in iron ore and thus had a long tradition of metalworking. One of the skilled smiths on the island, a man named Yaita Kinbee Kiyosada, was charged by the Tanegashima lord with the task of making a copy of the Portuguese musket, which he apparently accomplished within months. News of the musket spread rapidly, largely due to the fact that the Tanegashima lords had traditionally maintained a tributary relationship (solidified by marriage ties) with the Shimazu, the powerful lords of nearby Satsuma, who had contact with domains throughout the archipelago. By 1544, muskets were being manufactured in Sakai and in the Kii peninsula and as any fan of Japanese historical dramas knows, by the 1570s musket corps had become decisive and highly destructive forces in the final battles of the Warring States period. Lidin adds texture to this narrative of encounter by including translations from the Teppōki (Record of the musket, 1606) and the Tanegashima kafū, both of which describe in some detail the local reaction to the European visitors and their firearms. The awe with which the Japanese regarded the new guns is evident in the words of Nanpo Bunshi, author of the Teppōki: "One shot from this object can make a mountain of silver crumble and break through a wall of iron. Someone with aggression in mind toward a neighbouring country would lose his life instantly when hit....The many ways this object can be used in the world cannot possibly be counted" (p.38). The text is also full of memorable images like that of Tanegashima officials attempting to communicate with the Chinese navigators of the junk bearing the Portuguese by sketching Chinese characters in the sand with sticks. The compilers of the Tanegashima kafū, by contrast, utilize the spare descriptive language characteristic of genealogical records to focus, in the portion of the [End Page 197] text translated here, on the role of the young Tanegashima daimyo Tokitaka in acquiring, reproducing, and spreading the new technology. The translations of the two texts, which comprise chapters two and three, are followed by a rather digressive discussion of the history of the Tanegashima family as revealed in the Tanegashima kafū(chapter four). Certainly the family history...

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE; Extraction of Major Teleconnection Patterns Possibly Associated with the Anomalous Summer Climate in Japan

Four teleconnection patterns that are possibly associated with the anomalous summer climate in Japan and the surrounding regions, were extracted by applying empirical orthogonal function and regression analyses to stream function anomalies. The two teleconnection patterns prevailing over northern Eurasia, especially in early summer, called the Europe-Japan (EJ) 1 and EJ2, are linked with the variability of the Okhotsk high. The third teleconnection pattern, called the West Asia-Japan (WJ), is a stationary wave-train pattern along the upper-level subtropical jet from West Asia to the central North Pacific, which is possibly excited by the anomalous convective heating of the Indian summer monsoon. The final teleconnection pattern is identified with the Pacific-Japan (PJ), found by Nitta. Teleconnection indices that account for the variability of those patterns are also defined on a monthly basis. The PJ and WJ patterns, which are more influential teleconnection patterns than the others, are closely related to the summer temperature anomalies, especially in northern and western Japan, respectively. EJ1 and EJ2 were amplified in several extreme summers, and they played a vital role in the cool summer of 2003, along with PJ. A combination of two or three teleconnection patterns was also responsible for the occurrence of the recent extreme summers. Monitoring the major teleconnection patterns is very useful for understanding and forecasting the anomalous summer climate in East Asia.

Study of the Accident Environment During Sea Transport of Nuclear Material: Probabilistic Safety Analysis of Plutonium Transport from Europe to Japan

AbstractThis study describes and analyses the safety of a large number of plutonium transport operations for the international transport of plutonium by maritime cargo vessels for selected routes. The analysis centres on conventional cargo vessels and their accident history in order to provide an estimate of the probability of accident occurrences for such vessels. This is an ultraconservative study since the radioactive materials described in this study will, in all likelihood, be transported in purpose-built ships that incorporate many safety features not found in regular cargo vessels. Follow-on studies can use the information developed in this study in order to estimate the probability of accident occurrences involving purpose-built ships. The accident probabilities developed in this study, for conventional cargo vessels, provide a conservative bounding estimate of the probabilities for accidents involving purpose-built ships. This study estimates the safety of transporting plutonium from Europe to Ja...

95/05317 From Europe to Japan

95/05317 From Europe to Japan

The study of the medieval history of Europe in Japan

The historical method born in Europe was transplanted to Japan by Ludwig Riess, who taught at Tokyo University for fifteen years from 1887 to 1902. The study of European history as an academic pursuit started in earnest under his direction and teaching, and the first generation of medievalists taught and trained by his pupils started their careers in the 1920s. Other independent or subsidiary centres of medieval studies multiplied after this and there are more than ten universities at present where not only the teaching of the medieval history of Europe, but also the training of medievalists are actively pursued. At an earlier stage, topics from social and economic history, and agrarian history in particular, were preferred. From the late 1960s onwards topics gradually diversified, and constitutional and political subjects, and especially urban history, attracted more attention from students than they had done until then. In recent years works on social history have been appearing, and there is hope that Japanese students working on medieval Europe will contribute more actively to the international academic community in this field in the near future.

Study of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in Japan

(1969). Study of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in Japan. Canadian Slavonic Papers: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 156-166.