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...years have had a positive and lasting influence on the development of Japan-U.S. relations.
So close does the United States seem to Japan today--so solid the security relationship, so great the mutual love for baseball, Hollywood movies and Starbucks coffee--that many young Japanese find it hard to believe that the two nations ever fought a war.
Japan-U.S. relations had for the most part been harmonious in the decades following Commodore Matthew Perry's arrival in Japan in 1853, but the cultural ties and friendly relations that had been developed initially through exchange with American experts, teachers and missionaries and later through business, sport, literature and film, were not so strong they could withstand the fact of Japanese aggression in China and elsewhere beginning in 1931.
1934: Japan-America Student Conference
Alarmed to see the mood in Japan and the United States shift dangerously close to war, Japanese students joined with American students in launching the Japan-America Student Conference in 1934. Now in its seventieth year (its activities were suspended during the war), the Conference has opened new channels for interaction between the two nations at many levels, from government to the private sector.
The 56th convention of the JASC was held between July 21 and August 20 2003 in Hawaii, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Princeton under the theme of "Re-Evaluating the Japan-America Relationship: Civic Commitment to Global Issues." Senior members of the JASC include former American secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former Japanese prime minister Miyazawa Kiichi.
Miyazawa attended the sixth and seventh meetings of the JASC held in 1939 and 1940, just when tensions between the two nations were intensifying.
"I noticed a JASC poster on a bulletin board at Tokyo University inviting people to join up," recalls Miyazawa. "We on the Japanese side were preparing for a heated discussion, but the Americans took a very laid-back attitude, saying that Japan and the United States shouldn't go to war. It wasn't so much a conference as a good-will meeting." In attending the two meetings, Miyazawa was struck with the breadth, the tolerance and diversity of the United States.
Much later, after holding a number of important cabinet posts, Miyazawa became prime minister in 1991. Following his varied diplomatic encounters with the United States, Miyazawa describes his impression of the country in the following terms. "The United States, he says, "is unassuming about things. It might go to extremes in certain ways but it always strikes a balance. Maybe that's where the country's good side lies, as well as its strength."
For this reason, Miyazawa stresses the importance of wide-ranging exchange among people, from government leaders to average citizens, as well as the significance of deepening friendships among the younger generations along the lines of the JASC.
1953: The Intellectuals
Despite the best efforts of the JASC and others, Japan-U.S. relations steadily deteriorated, and in December of 1941, the two nations plunged into war with the Japanese military's attack on Pearl Harbor. When peace came, many Americans who had learned Japanese during the war moved on to other pursuits, believing that half a century would have to pass before Japan could recover its prewar level. One, however, sensing that he must continue to pursue his passion, even if it meant starving, resolved to continue his Japanese studies. That man, who ultimately introduced Japanese literature to the world, was Donald Keene.
Keene first encountered Japanese literature when, at the age of 18 in 1940, he purchased a discounted copy of Arthur Waley's translation of Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji) at...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
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