After the recent executions of Japanese citizens, Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa at the hands of Daesh (also known as ISIS), there has been some diversity in response from Japanese society. Scott Musgrave, Alchohonaa’s East Asia Editor explains..
Part three of Scott Musgrave’s East Asia series focuses on Japan. In this article we delve deeper into the bigger issues facing Japan and go beyond the state’s most well known role as a strong US ally and ‘regional balancer’ to explore the revival of the right wing politics in Japan and its broader impact on the domestic and regional political landscape.
Ever since the dreadful case of rape of a 23 year old girl in the capital of the biggest democracy in the world in 2012, the security and position of women in the global south are being discussed vividly, as the development of a nation in the contemporary times not only depends upon its economic power but also on its human development index. However, what is often ignored is that the local day to day traditions are the evidence of a woman’s position in a society as the same cannot improve overnight. This article makes an analysis of the position of women in one of the relatively dominant and better off Asian nations:Japan, and shows that economic empowerment is not often the measure of social conditions, specially when it comes to women. It is the social traditions, which define this crucial parameter and hence only a change in our thought process will help.
Part two of Scott Musgrave’s East Asia series focuses on South Korea. Here, the Republic’s views on foreign policy, politics of nationalism and geopolitics are explored. It is found that patterns between the perception of threat, US engagement and domestic unrest and how they correlate to when nationalist sentiments are at their loudest. It is shown that domestic political ambition plays a very important role in the diplomatic relationship with Japan.
This is the first part of a four part series where Alochonaa East Asia Editor, Scott Musgrave looks at the tide of hostility in East Asia between Korea, China and Japan. Scott argues that it is the engagement, or the lack of engagement of the US, that affects how these states interact with each other, particularly in regards to Japan and the Republic of Korea.
Zubair Ahmed proposes the urgent need for Japan to reform its corporate culture, where ‘morale’ and ‘loyalty’ are prized attributes of Japanese employees. Moral ethics take precedence over salary expectations in Japan, and as a result this situates Japan far behind its Western counterparts where employee productivity is most valued. In the view of the author, unless Japan promptly reforms it’s employer-employee relations in terms of salary packing, it is only a matter of time before Japanese employee’s revolt.
Alochonaa (Dialogue) 