Word: japanism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...very interested in these young people. They continue to challenge and struggle. They operate in humble circumstances but they have a pioneering spirit and try to steadily change the country with their ideals. Japan's past generations depended on their corporate lifestyle and allowed the Liberal Democratic Party to stay in power for decades while it ensured employment and economic growth. No longer assured of that work and pay, Japanese youth are anxious about the future. They must support themselves without the sense of security that existed in the past. The election is their triumph - not just that...
...After Japan's momentous election on Aug. 30, when the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) hammered the long-serving Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), both American and Japanese commentators picked up on a remark by Prime Minister - in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama that there needed to be more "balance" in the U.S.-Japan relationship, read an article in which Hatoyama criticized the U.S. and wondered about the solidity of the alliance between Tokyo and Washington. Then Hatoyama called U.S. President Barack Obama and told him that of course - of course! - the alliance was the bedrock of Japanese foreign policy, and everyone relaxed...
...this happy conclusion is way too neat. There are genuine issues with the U.S.-Japan alliance, and they need to be taken seriously. (See the new activism of Japan's youth...
...first place, the DPJ's interest in finding a new balance is not just a matter of Hatoyama's speeches. Ichiro Ozawa, the veteran politician who is now the party's general secretary, has argued for decades that Japan should be a "normal" country, with its own foreign- and domestic-policy priorities, set in relation to its own interests. Ozawa is not anti-American; when I spoke to him earlier this year, he stressed that the U.S.-Japan alliance is "the most important relationship for Japan." But at the same time, Ozawa insisted that in "global disputes," Japan should take...
...Second, the article by Hatoyama that caused so much fuss does not read like an Op-Ed dashed off by a summer intern. It is a thoughtful and quite radical analysis of how globalization and the financial crisis have changed the landscape in which Japan and the U.S. find themselves. Hatoyama said that Japan had been "buffeted by the winds of market fundamentalism in a U.S.-led movement that is usually called globalization," and criticized a "way of thinking based on the idea that American-style free-market economics represents a universal and ideal economic order." "The influence...