Published: Monday, January 30, 2012
JFI activities
Dear friends of the JFI, Happy New Year!
Upcoming Events
February 29, 2012:
Kimie Hara will talk at the Japan Foundation Toronto on "60 Years Later: The San Francisco Peace Treaty and the Regional Conflicts in East Asia."
March 1, 2012:
Professor Nobuo Shimotomai of Hosei University will hold a guest lecture on the Cold War and Japan at Renison University College, University of Waterloo.
March 14-15, 2012:
JFI’s spring symposium, “Disaster Management, Energy Security, and Multilateral Cooperation: The Tohoku Disaster and Its Regional and Global Implications” will be held in Waterloo. The two-day workshop will discuss the potential of Japanese and Canadian cooperation in disaster management and energy security in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.
Lectures/Conference
January 20, 2012:
Ken Coates, University of Waterloo, gave a talk at the Japan Foundation Toronto on "Digital Japan: Digital Contents and the Extension of Japan's Innovative Economy."
December 5, 2011:
With the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), the JFI successfully hosted a symposium titled “Responding to Disaster: Lessons Learned from the Haiti and Great East Japan Earthquakes” at the Oscar Peterson Theatre at the Canadian Embassy to Japan. Distinguished panelists presented their views about the disaster response operations that followed the Haiti Earthquake of January 2010 and the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011.
Japan Watch
The Japan Times (January 22, 2012)
“Senkakus are ‘core interests’: China”
Japanese government officials are concerned over China’s intention after the People’s Daily, which reflects the official position of the Communist Party, recently called the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea to be “core interests,” the term Beijing has used to describe Taiwan and Tibet in the past. Although the Japanese government interprets this move as mainly a gesture to please domestic hardliners in China, it must not be overlooked that this designation is unprecedented. Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated significantly after the captain of a Chinese trawler was arrested last year near the Senkaku Islands, and Japan is currently analyzing how the opinion of the People’s Daily will further influence Chinese public perceptions of the issue.
Japan, for its part, is currently planning to deploy Self Defense Forces and set up depots on its southern island chains both for possible natural disasters and for security contingencies. The growing tensions over the Senkaku Islands are another example of the importance of ongoing territorial disputes in East Asia over remote islands.
