1,721,120 research outputs found
“Greening” Speculative Urbanism?Space Politics and Model Circulation in South Korea and Vietnam’s Special Economic Zones
Get PDFAs products of the waves of deregulation and liberalization of trade and investments in the region in the 1980s and mid-1990s, special economic zones (SEZs) have emerged as an important tool of economic governance in East and Southeast Asia. Recently, governments and investors around the region, have favored multi-purpose SEZs conceived for land and real estate development which exhibit several similarities such as eliciting tourism as the main driver of local development and a declared “eco” and “green” configuration. The Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Van Don SEZ in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) are two illustrative cases of urban policy diffusion as a complex phenomenon combining the ROK’s increased international activism and SRV’s own institutional structure and preferences in terms of development goals. Based on a close reading of reports, official documents, qualitative interviews and site visits, this article will further contribute to the debate on the complexity of urban policy diffusion in contemporary East and Southeast Asia
Minaccia, fascinazione, opportunità. La “costruzione” della Cina in Giappone tra società civile e politica
Get PDFSulla copertina del rapporto annuale del Ministero della difesa giapponese del 2021, o terzo anno dell’era Reiwa, si staglia nero il profilo dipinto a china di un guerriero a cavallo (kibamusha 騎馬武者) con arco. Il dipinto sulla copertina del Libro bianco della difesa attinge a piene mani dal repertorio della storia nazionale giapponese. In particolare, pare rievocare il lungo “medioevo” dell’arcipelago, epoca di conflitti brutali tra signori della guerra e incubatore della premodernità e delle trasformazioni della fine del XIX secolo. Un periodo segnato anche da scontri epocali con altre potenze regionali. Ma quanto quest’immagine assertiva rispecchia una percezione di minaccia concreta da parte della Repubblica Popolare Cinese (RPC), diffusa nella popolazione civile? Quanto questo desiderio di rivalsa e di protagonismo internazionale è in realtà solo uno schema elitario, un accesso di hỳbris di stato che ignora, con i suoi piani di semplificazione della complessa realtà che ci circonda
Yoshinori Yasuda, Mark J. Hudson. Multidisciplinary Studies of the Environment and Civilization: Japanese Perspectives
Get PDFTowards European “Smart Communities”? EU’s Energy Preoccupations and the Lesson of Post-Fukushima Japan
Get PDFWhile Japan notoriously suffers from a structural lack of primary energy sources while being prone to natural disasters, it has been able to attain an unprecedented industrial development. The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis of 2011 pushed successive national governments toward comprehensively reviewing its energy strategy, with substantial progress being made. The policies adopted by Japanese authority since 2011 point to the materialisation of community-based power networks, which, if adopted on a wider scale, might contribute to enhanced energy self-sufficiency and security. In the light of decarbonisation strategies adopted by both the EU and Japan and of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, this issue is even more urgent. For these reasons, increased communication and coordination on energy and urbanisation issues between EU and Japan is highly desirable
Tracing the Roots of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy: Anxiety and Opportunism in Foreign Policy Narrative Construction in Japan from the late 1970s to the mid-2000s
No full textIn recent years, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept has gained popularity and created a new geographical reality, the Indo-Pacific. Despite its relatively successful performativity in this regard, this strategy, mostly aimed at containing China, originates in Japan’s continuous sense of anxiety caused by the progressive end of Cold War strategic and ideological arrangements since the late 1970s. Clarifying the causes and modalities of recurring narrative changes since, based on previous studies on ontological security, this article seeks to contribute to the understanding of anxiety as a major driver of changes in Japan’s self-representations. To this end, several previously announced grand strategies, such as Hashimoto Ryūtarō’s “Eurasian” or “Silk Road” diplomacy and Ōhira Masayoshi’s 1980 plan to establish a system of comprehensive security and create a Pacific Community, will be discussed. Based on official documents and biographical materials it will be showed that these ideas and policy proposals were in fact instances of Japanese leaders and
policymakers’ anxiety reduction strategies and attempts at building a national image against the backdrop of a transformed or rapidly transforming international environment at the end of the Cold War
Sengo Nihon no Anzen Hoshō: Nichibei Dōmei, Kenpō 9 jō kara NSC made (Japan’s Postwar National Security: From the US-Japan Alliance and Article 9 to the NSC)
No full textWith the release of the three new national security documents (the National Security Strategy [kokka anzen hoshō senryaku] [NSS, hereafter], the National Defense Strategy [kokka bōei senryaku], and the Defense Capability Development Plan [bōeiryoku seibi keikaku]) by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in mid-December 2022, Japan’s security policy has once again come under the spotlight. The documents heralded a historic change in Japan’s defense posture since the end of World War II. In particular, the government of Japan formally departed from the long-standing “basic defense force concept” (kibanteki bōeiryoku kōsō) which has restrained the use of its military and which was established by the Miki Cabinet in 1976 against the backdrop of the US–USSR détente (100; Takahashi 2016: 55).
In the context of these changes, the book Sengo nihon no anzen hoshō: Nichibei dōmei, kenpō 9 jō kara NSC made (Japan’s Post-war Security: from the US–Japan alliance and Article 9 to the NSC) by Chijiwa Yasuaki is particularly worth reading. A researcher at the National Institute of Defense Studies (NIDS, Bōei kenkyū jo) and an expert on military history, Chijiwa has examined the evolution of concepts, ideas, and the role of specific intellectual entrepreneurs in the development of postwar Japan’s security policy. He does so in detail and with clarity, using examples and metaphors that make his book potentially accessible to a wider audience in Japan. The book is divided into six chapters, the first five of which deal with a specific pillar of Japan’s postwar security posture until December 2022. First, the US–Japan alliance; second, Japan’s postwar Constitution and Article 9; third, the former National Defense Program Outline (NDPO), currently known as the National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPGs); fourth, the US–Japan Defense Guidelines; and fifth, the National Security Council (NSC)
Giappone: posizionamento in politica estera dopo il primo anno di Kishida
Get PDFAll’inizio del 2023 il Giappone ha assunto la presidenza del G71 e, nel mese di gennaio, del Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite, in un momento di transizione epocale negli ordini regionali e internazionali e nel pieno della crisi politica aperta a febbraio 2022 dalla tentata invasione dell’Ucraina da parte della Russia. Parallelamente, con le sue iniziative, il governo di Tokyo ha accelerato processi di evoluzione istituzionale in materia di difesa. Non è un caso, infatti che quando nell’ottobre del 2021 fu eletto presidente del Partito Liberal Democratico e capo del governo, l’attuale primo ministro giapponese Kishida Fumio - già ministro degli Esteri e della Difesa nel lungo secondo mandato di Abe (2012-17), abbia promesso ai suoi elettori e ai cittadini giapponesi che il suo governo avrebbe perseguito politiche in materia di sicurezza e diplomazia tese a garantire la “totale protezione” dei suoi concittadini
Eric Tagliacozzo: In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama
Get PDFClassic Atlantic-centred world maps tend to relegate the Southeast Asian region to the right side of the chart, splitting the Pacific Ocean in two and pushing the Indian Ocean to the periphery as well. Inevitably, even on the more equally scaled Gall-Peters projection, the Asian continent – spanning from the Bosporus to Japan, and, in its southern quarter, from the Horn of Africa across the water mass of the Indian Ocean up to the shores of the Malay peninsula and Indonesian archipelago – appears marginal. Such graphic renditions have failed to elucidate the centrality of Asia, with its seas and oceans, on the world scene both in modern and ancient times. Global historical literature is not dissimilar in this sense. As opposed to terrestrial histories of the continent, very few scholars have, in fact, ventured to foster a new understanding of the role of “Asian waters” in the history of Greater Asia.
In this regard, Eric Tagliacozzo’s In Asian Waters is an impressive effort to fill the aforementioned gap in the literature. The book’s narration spans the prehistory, Middle Ages, premodernity and, in greater detail, modern era of Asia’s seas, occasionally venturing into more contemporary issues. This wideranging historical discussion is arranged in six parts and 14 chapters. Each part discusses a specific rubric: transregional maritime connections, state and non-state perspectives on the sea, religions, urban development, Asia’s maritime environments and technologies
Em’power’ing chihō?: The Adoption of the SDGs Framework Its Consequences on Local Governance
Get PDFSince 2015, the UN-sponsored Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a dominant policy framework in Japan. Its adoption has favored the strengthening of international partnerships and has influenced trends in policymaking domestically, in the so-called regions (chihō) particularly with regards to initiatives at the urban planning and management level. The SDGs framework and its standardized measuring indicators have in fact come to encompass previously devised policies in respect of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based ecologically sustainable urbanism (smart city). Considering these facts, what makes a city smart today? How do previously widespread ideas on smart cities (SCs) interact with new frameworks such as that of the SDGs? How, in other words, do international commitments affect local policymaking? This article will offer a preliminary multilevel analysis focusing on both national and local policymaking level to show how the SDGs framework has become all-encompassing and comprehensive. Furthermore, the adoption of said framework appears consistent with long-standing national level policies intended to foster local government (jichitai)’s autonomy and financial self-sufficiency. With the adoption of the SDGs framework, jichitai have increasingly leveraged on their capacities to (a) use a common language (that of the SDGs) to comply with the central government’s directives; (b) create a place identity through the implementation of specific policies in respect of technology or welfare; and (c) foster partnerships with private actors
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