Every crisis offers a rich lesson to officials, related industry and academic experts, interest groups and society in general. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is no exception. 

Three academic experts from three different fields explore the various shapes of Japan’s soft power. What is Japan’s strategy in this age of intensive cultural diplomacy? How has the globalisation of Japan’s culture industries shaped its image across Asia and worldwide?

The Australia-Japan Research Centre (AJRC) and the ANU Japan Institute will once again co-host the annual Japan Update.

In the wake of the “end” of Cold War in the mid-1990s, some citizens of Japan and South Korea started travelling between the two countries. The exchange was begun in 1996 by a Korean citizen who read a news report about the mass protest campaign against the US and Japanese governments in Okinawa.

Between 11 and 20 September, an important act of remembrance and reconciliation between Japan and Korea will take place. Here in Canberra, we will be marking the homecoming journey with an event on 17 September, the day when the return journey of the forced labourers will reach Shimonoseki and embark on the ferry crossing to Korea.

Special Event Announcement: THE 38TH ANNUAL JAPANESE EVENING FEATURING KABUKI, 2015 ANU Za Kabuki, in conjunction with the Japan Centre, the Australian National University, and the Embassy of Japan Canberra, Presents: KŌCHIYAMA – THE EXTORTIONIST

• Kabuki2015_flier (PDF, 5.47 MB)

At the start of the 1920s, a couple of young silk merchants living in the mountains of central Japan decided that their community needed education to enable them to be active citizens and to shape their own future. 

The record of widespread mantra-meditation in North Jeolla Province in the 1920s shows the significance of the idea of cosmic change among former Tonghak (Eastern Learning) followers in the early part of twentieth-century Korea, colonised by Japan.

Information scientists realized the potential of using publicly available Twitter data to shed light on social phenomena more than five years ago, and social scientists have now caught up.

The ANU Japan Institute and Australia-Japan Research Centre jointly invite you to attend the seminar by Dr David Envall "Japanese Security Policy: Commitments, Priorities And Ambitions" as part of 2015 Japan Studies Seminar Series and AJRC Seminar Series.