Couple of quick notes from across the sea…today is National Foundation Day in Japan. Calculations derived from the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki date the beginning of the Japanese imperial line and the founding of the Japanese nation to February 13, 661 B.C.E., with the Emperor Jimmu getting the credit for both occasions. While the early chapters of these two texts are generally considered mythological…what the heck, I’m in no position to argue. It’s like dating 5000 years of Chinese history back to the Yellow Emperor, if people believe it, that’s great, more power to ‘em.
The lunar calendar dates in the Kojiki were ‘confirmed’ by the Emperor Kammu in the 8th Century C.E. and after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when the Japanese government switched calendars, scholars fussed about and decided on the gregorian calendar date of February 11.
During the Meiji era, the day was proclaimed “Empire Day” in 1872, as a celebration of national unity and homage to the imperial line. Notably, the Japanese government also chose this date in 1889 to promulgate the Meiji Constitution. The annual celebration of empire (with not so subtle overtones of imperialism at key moments in history) was scuttled after World
The Guardian has posted a stunning collection of photographs entitled The Fish in the Road: Luo Dan’s China.
China and the recently crowned installed anointed sworn in (x2) Obama administration are already in a currency tiff. I get paid in US dollars, so steady as she goes if you please…
At The China Beat, Eric Sezekorn reviews Yasheng Huang’s Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State.
Interesting counterpoint to Huang’s economic analysis of 1980s rural China: The Paris Review has anther excerpt from The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China from the Bottom Up, a collection of Liao Yiwu’s encounters with people on the margins of Chinese society. In this episode, Liao talks with a peasant named Zeng Yinglong, who in 1985 declared his hometown in Sichuan Province an independent kingdom and proclaimed himself emperor. (h/t Reflections in a Chinese Eye)
Finally, via FT Passport, Obamamania has reached the big time: ESL textbooks for Japanese learners of English. “His speeches are so moving, and he also uses words such as ‘yes, we can,’ ‘change’ and ‘hope’ that even Japanese people can memorize!”
On this date in 1979, Vietnamese forces ousted Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, ending the Cambodian leader’s three-year grip on power. From 1975 to 1979 between 1.5 and 3 million people died in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. The Khmer Rouge government of Pol Pot enjoyed considerable economic, military, and political assistance from the PRC, and the Vietnamese action against Pol Pot was one of several events which precipitated the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in February, 1979.
On happier note, January 7 is the “Festival of Seven Herbs” (七草の節句 nanakusa no sekku) in Japan. The Japanese eat a porridge made of seven herbs called, 七草粥, nanakusa-gayu for longevity, luck, and health.
Today is also the birthday of Sammo Hung 洪金宝. The stocky (but smooth) Hong Kong action star turns 57.
Following up on yesterday’s post about the Japanese Supreme Court hearing two cases involving forced labor and forced prostitution. In a ruling early yesterday, the court overturned a lower court ruling awarding five laborers compensation for forced labor on Japanese construction sites. Late Friday afternoon, the court denied two Chinese women compensation despite their claims of being kidnapped and coerced to work as prostitutes by the Japanese army.*
The court acknowledged that both the women and the workers had been forced by Japanese military and industry but that neither could sue for monetary damages, claiming that Chinese citizens forfeited their rights to compensation in a 1972 joint statement between China and Japan in which “Beijing renounced war reparations from Japan, a decision supporting the government’s position that postwar agreements cleared Japan of responsibility for future individual claims.”
The landmark ruling effectively puts the kibosh on a host of similar lawsuits brought against Japan’s government and some of its leading companies by Koreans, Chinese and others forced into prostitution or slave labor. The Chinese foreign ministry–quite rightly–denounced the verdict, describing the rulings as “’illegal and invalid’ and calling the court’s interpretation of the 1972 statement as ‘arbitrary.’”
Estimates of the number
Earlier this month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, seeking to shore up his crumbling base domestically, ripped open old wounds by publicly questioning the accounts of thousands of women forced to work as sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II. Abe suggested that “no historical proof exisisted” that these women had been coerced into service as these women claimed, despite a 1993 Japanese goverment study and official report that found the women’s stories credible.
Today BBC reports (via HNN):
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has apologized in parliament for the country’s use of women as sex slaves during World War II.
The apology comes after Mr Abe was criticized by Asian neighbors for previous comments casting doubt on whether the women were coerced.
Mr Abe told parliament: “I apologies here and now as prime minister.”
This appears to be part of a concerted bid to reduce the fall-out of earlier comments, a BBC correspondent says.
Mr Abe said, during a debate in parliament’s upper house, that he stood by an official 1993 statement in which Japan acknowledged the imperial army set up and ran brothels for its troops during the war.
“As I frequently say, I
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