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The Current State of Contemporary Chinese Studies in Japan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Ryosei Kokubun
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Extract

Sino-Japanese ties have been expanding since formal diplomatic relations were established in 1972. Recently, both governments organized a China–Japan Friendship Committee for the 21 st Century, a Sino-Japanese version of the U.S.–Japan Wiseman's Group, which has played an important role in cementing links between the United States and Japan through the years. The new China–Japan Committee is jointly headed by Tadao Ishikawa, president of Keio University and a scholar of Chinese politics, and by Wang Zhaoguo, the 45 yearold head of the general office of the Chinese Communist Party. This committee holds annual meetings to explore Sino-Japanese relations in depth. In addition, since 1982, a China–Japan Civilian Meeting has been convened, alternately in Tokyo and Beijing, bringing together over 100 Chinese and Japanese businessmen, politicians and scholars to survey Sino-Japanese relations. Finally, since 1980, at an annual ministerial meeting, the top ministers of each government review their activities.

Type
Research Note
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 107 , September 1986 , pp. 505 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1986

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References

1. Plans to set up this committee were first discussed when Hu Yaobang visited Japan in November 1983, and was formally established when Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone visited China in March 1984.

2. The Meeting was originally proposed in January 1982, when the vice-chairman of the Diet, Haruo Okada, visited China. Meetings were held in Tokyo in 1982 and Beijing in 1984.

3. The Silk Road is a series of long documentary films by the NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai), the Japanese public broadcasting network. There are also a large number of the Silk Road – related publications, including photographs, essays, etc. A main product of the joint film ventures was Incompleted Play, a story about the friendship between two weiqi(Go) players from China and Japan during the rise and fall of Japanese militarism, which was produced in 1982 to mark the 10-year anniversary of Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization.

4. Chosashitsu, Naikaku Soridaijin Kanbo (the Secretariat of the Cabinet, Publicity Section), Gekkan yoron chosa (Monthly Public Opinion Research)(Tokyo. 11 1983Google Scholar , the section of Gaiko (Diplomacy)).

5. K, John. Fairbank, Masataka Banno and Sumiko Yamamoto, Japanese Studies of Modern China: A Bibliographical Guide to Historical and Social Science Research on the 19th and 20th Centuries (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar ; Kamachi, Noriko, Fairbank, John K. and Ichiko, Chuzo, Japanese Studies of Modern China Since 1953: A Bibliographical Guide to Historical and Social Science Research on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, Supplementary Volume for 1953–1969 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Skinner, G. William and Tomita, Shigeaki (eds.), Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography: 3, Publications in Japanese, 1644–1971 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar .

6. The first was edited by Takeji Sasamoto and Tamio Shimakura in 1981 (Tokyo), the second by Tamio Shimakura and Katsuji Nakagane in 1980 (Tokyo) and the third by Katsuhiko Hama in 1978 (Tokyo).

7. Those documentary collections were published from 1968 to 1975.

8. The Political Structure of Contemporary China was edited by Eto, Shinkichi and published in 1982 (Tokyo)Google Scholar , and China's Diplomacy was edited by Okabe, Tatsumi and published in 1983 (Tokyo)Google Scholar .

9. For example, Asia Quarterly translated and reprinted Tang Tsou, Marc Blecher and Mitch Meisner, “The responsibility system in agriculture: its implementation in Xiyang and Dazhai,” originally published in Modern China, Vol. 8, No. 1 (January 1982) (Asia Quarterly, August 1982), and Tsou, Tang, “Back from the brink of revolutionary-‘feudal’ totalitarlianism,” originally published in Nee, Victor and Mozingo, David (eds.), State and Society in Contemporary China (Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1983)Google Scholar (Asia Quarterly, September 1983).

10. For example, the Radiopress obtained and published full texts of Yaobang's, Hu speech at the Politburo meeting in November 1980, and the “CCP No. 23 Document,” which contains speeches by leaders at the sixth plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress in June 1981 and was partly published on Ming Pao in Hong KongGoogle Scholar .

11. The title is Gendai chugoku kakumei juyo shiryoshu (Important Documentary Collections of Contemporary Chinese Revolution) (Tokyo: Daito Bunka University)Google Scholar .

12. , Kamachi, , Fairbank, , Ichiko, Japanese Studies of Modern China, has a more precise explanation about the study groups in Japan (pp. xvi–xvii)Google Scholar .

13. Burenzu (Brains), Tokyo, No. 566 (23 11 1983), p. 2Google Scholar . This is a kind of trade paper among the shosha.

14. Ibid. p. 4. There are also 12 Japanese bank offices in Beijing as of March 1984.

15. Seeibid. p. 46, for the number of Chinese students in Japan.

16. For a list of friendship associations, see Kenkyujo, Chugoku (the China Research Institute), Shin chugoku nenkan (Yearbook of New China) 1983 (Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten), pp. 310–12Google Scholar .

17. Nitchu Shuppan is also very active in book publications, having published about 40 books on contemporary China. These include some translations from Chinese, such as documents of the democratic movement; and western language books, such as Barnett, Doak, China Policy: Old Problems and New Challenges (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1977)Google Scholar , Leys, Simon, Chinese Shadows (New York: Viking Press, 1977)Google Scholar , Bennett, Gordon and Montaperto, Ronald, Red Guard: The Political Biography of Dai Hsiao-ai (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1971)Google Scholar , etc.

18. Published by Ronsetsu Shiryo Hozonkai (Centre for Materials Preservation) (Tokyo).

19. I counted and compared the number of articles in the New York Times and in Asahi shimbun in 1982, using The New York Times Index 1982: A Book of Record (New York) and the indexes of the Asahi shimbun shukusatsu-ban (reduced-size edition) (Tokyo), 01–12 1982 (12 vols.)Google Scholar . Regardless of quality and length, there were roughly 400 articles on China in the New York Times, and about 1,300 in the Asahi shimbun, excluding sports, cooking and travel. It should be noted that in 1982 the United States was concerned with arms sales to Taiwan and Japan with the textbook and returned orphans issues.

20. Nakajima, Mineo, “Gendai chugoku no jitsuzo o motomete” (”Searching for the real feature of contemporary China”), Ajia kuotari (Asia Quarterly), 08 1982Google Scholar .

21. “Nanaju nendai nihon ni okeru hatten tojo chiiki kenkyu: chiiki-hen” (”Japanese studies during 1970s on developing countries: Part I, Area Studies”), Ajia keizai Tokyo, Vol. 19, No. 1–2 (01–02 1978)Google Scholar .

22. The former was published by Chuo Koron Bijutsu Shuppan (Tokyo), in 1980, and the latter was published by Kyuko Shoin (Tokyo) in 1979.

23. Published by Ryukei Shosha in 1982.

24. The former is published by the National Diet Library (Tokyo) but the latter is published by Nichigai Associates (Tokyo).

25. Shuppan nenkan is edited and published by News-sha, Shuppan (Tokyo)Google Scholar , and The Year's Books is edited by Kyokai, Nihon Toshokan (Association for Japanese Libraries) (Tokyo)Google Scholar and published by Toshokan Ryutsu Centre (Centre for Book Circulation) (Tokyo). Toho, by Shoten, Toho (Tokyo)Google Scholar, which is one of the biggest Chinese book shops in Japan, is also useful for new publications in China.

26. See supra, fn. 21, p. 58.

27. See for example, Kawazoe, Noboru and Inumaru, Giichi, Chugoku no bunka daikakumei (China's Cultural Revolution) (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1968)Google Scholar ; Takahashi, Yuji and Yonezawa, Hideo, Bunka dai-kakumei to motakuto shiso (The Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong's Thought) (Tokyo: Nitchu Shuppan, 1973)Google Scholar .

28. I looked at a section on new publications on China in Toho (Eastern Book Review), –see supra, fn. 25.

29. Katsuji Nakagane, “Jinmin kosha to community” (“People's communes and the community”), in Jinmin kosha seido no kenkyu (see supra, fn. 6). He has finished a monograph on the kyodotai (community) in Manchuria using quantitative analysis: Kyu-manshu noson shakai keizai kozo no bunseki (An Analysis of the Socio-economic Structure in the Former Manchurian Village), No. 19, Aziya Seikei Gakkai (The Japan Association for Asian Political and Economic Studies), 1981Google Scholar .

30. Some interviews have been printed: Nakagane, Katsuji (ed.), Kokuryuko-sho jinmin koshain tono mendan kiroku (Interviews with Members of the People's Communes in Heilongjiang), 3 Vols., internal documents of Ajia Keizai Kenkyusho (Institute of Developing Economies) (Tokyo)Google Scholar .

31. For example, Chugoku koji (Orphans from China) (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbun 1982)Google Scholar ; Takekawa, Hideyuki, Kaerimichi wa tokkata (A Long Way Home) (Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbun, 1982)Google Scholar .

32. On 17 March 1984 a verbal note on Japanese orphans in China was exchanged between both countries, denning such problems as the channels of search, governmental commitments, support for adoptive parents in China, etc.

33. I used Zassi kiji sakuin: jinbun shakai-hen (Japanese Periodicals Index: Humanities and Social Science) to count the number of articles (see supra, fn. 24).

34. Chugoku: chiiki keizai no hyoka (China: Assessment of the Local Economy) Tokyo: Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), 1984Google Scholar ; Chugoku engan juichi-shoshi no keizai (Economy of Eleven Provinces and Cities in China's Coastal Line), JETRO, 1983Google Scholar ; Chugoku: sho-betsu keizai chiri (China: Economic Geography of Each Province), JETRO, 1981Google Scholar ; and , Shimakura and , Maruyama, Chugoku keizai no dilemma (Dilemma in the Chinese Economy) (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1983)Google Scholar .

35. Moriyama, Akio, “Amerika no gendai chugoku kenkyu: gaikan” (“Contemporary China studies in the United States: varied approaches towards Chinese politics”), in Gendai chugoku seiji no kozo (Structure of Contemporary Chinese Politics)–see supra, fn. 8, p. 336Google Scholar (p. 13 in English summaries).

36. Shinkichi Eto, “Chugoku seiji ni okeru hado rizumu” (“Wave rhythms in Chinese politics”), in ibid.

37. Inoguchi, Takashi, “Chugoku no betonamu kansho: 1789 to 1979 (China's intervention in Vietnam: 1789 and 1979,” Aziya kenkyu (Asian Studies), Tokyo, Vol. 27, No. 2, 07 1980Google Scholar .

38. Funabashi, Yoichi, Naibu (Neibu) (Tokyo: Ashahi Shimbun-sha, 1983)Google Scholar ; Tsuji, Kogo, Tenkanki no chugoku (China in Transition) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1983)Google Scholar . See also Ishikawa, Sho, Peking tokuhain no me (View of a Correspondent to Beijing) (Tokyo: Aki Shobo, 1977)Google Scholar , and Shin chugoku jijo (New China's Situation) (Tokyo: Nihon Jitsugyo Shuppan, 1979)Google Scholar ; Nakano, Kenji, Hada de kanjita shin chugoku (China: A Deep Impression) (Tokyo: Nihon Jitsugyo Shuppan, 1980)Google Scholar ; Nogami, Tadashi, Gendai chugoku no tankyu (Search for Contemporary China) (Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1981)Google Scholar ; Ito, Tadashi, China Watching (Tokyo: CBS SONY, 1981)Google Scholar , China Review (Kyoto: PHP, 1982)Google Scholar , and Chugoku no ushinawareta sedai (China's Lost Generation) China Watching II (Kyoto: PHP, 1982)Google Scholar ; Tobari, Haruo, Kakumei kaku-kakumei kaku-kaku-kakumei (Revolution, Re-revolution) (Tokyo: Nitchu Shuppan, 1982)Google Scholar .

39. The Japanese title is Chugokujin (The Chinese) 2 vols., translated by Sato, Ryoichi and published by Tsushin, Jiji (Tokyo) in 1983Google Scholar . Heng, Liang and Shapiro's, JudithSon of the Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983)Google Scholar has been also translated into Japanese.

40. Kondo's book was published by Shincho-sha (Tokyo) in 1984, Yamamoto's book was published by Iwanami Shoten (Tokyo) in 1980, and Saijo's books were published by Chuo Koron (Tokyo) in 1978 and 1980.