There is a widely shared belief expressed in political literature that Japan is Russia's “traditional foe.” Japan's policy is very often pictured as a straight line of constant fighting against the “Russian bear” - much more so since that bear has been dyed red. Actually, however, the history of Russo-Japanese relations proves this assumption to be anything but correct.

Within the past decade a fresh interest has been shown in events within the countries of Burma, Siam, Malaya, French Indochina, the East Indies, and the Philippines – the region of Southeast Asia. Historians, anthropologists, economists, and political scientists as well as businessmen and newspaper columnists have shown a keen desire for more information and factual data regarding the peoples of this little-known portion of the Orient. To meet this demand books have been published in America and Europe which have brought to the consciousness of the people of this hemisphere the long-term significance of Southeast Asia and the intense drive which is in progress in the countries of that area for the attainment of independence and an honorable existence in the comity of nations. However, books, newspapers, and periodicals published in these countries are still coveted and are not easily obtained.

In contrast to the general tendency of resurgence of academic life in Germany, which has been reported from all the former academic centers and even from an additional one at Mainz, the pace of the recovery of German Sinology has been rather slow. Some of the main former seats of Far Eastern studies still remain unoccupied. The reason for this special development is, in the first place, lack of personnel. Of the old generation Alfred Forke, who held the chair of Sinology at Hamburg University for many years, and Erich Hauer2 died during the war. Otto Franke, the Nestor of German Sinology, died practically from hunger and exhaustion soon after the war. Several of the most promising German Sinologues have left Germany during the past fifteen years, mostly for political reasons. G. Haloun, Walter Simon, and Bruno Schindler are working in England; Balazs resumed his Sinological studies in France; Karl A. Wittfogel heads the Chinese History Project sponsored by the University of Washington at Columbia University; Ferdinand Lessing has been for more than ten years at the University of California, Berkeley, and Wolfram Eberhard, who taught at Ankara, Turkey, is now a member of the faculty at Berkeley too. Franz Michael joined the Far Eastern Institute at the University of Washington years ago, as recently did Erwin Reifler.