Online Seminar Series "Asia Center TERAKOYA" #5 & #6――The Significance of Looking Back on Asia's 30-Year Journey in These Times

Report / Asia Hundreds

The Japan Foundation Asia Center recently released a review of the Asia Leadership Fellows Program (ALFP, conducted from 1996 to 2008) and distributed the 5th and 6th sessions of "Online Asia Center TERAKOYA" to mark its publication. In the 5th session entitled "Intellectual Exchange in Asia: The 30 Years of History since the End of the Cold War, and the Future," we looked back on the significance of intellectual and civil society exchanges promoted by various actors, referring to the structural changes that have taken place in Asia over the three decades. In the following 6th session entitled "Democracy at a Crossroads: Choices for the New Era of Questions Posed by the Coronavirus Crisis," we discussed the challenges to democracy imposed by the current COVID-19 crisis, sharing experiences from Japan, Southeast Asia and India. In both sessions, experts working in the fields of culture and arts, academics and journalism participated in the discussions, providing many insights into the topics of discussion.

OGAWA Tadashi, Professor at Atomi University, moderated both sessions and contributed the following review of the discussions.

*The video recording is available at the end of the text.

Text：Ogawa Tadashi, Professor, Atomi University
Published：February 24, 2021

PROFILE

OGAWA Tadashi (Professor, Atomi University)

Ogawa Tadashi joined the Japan Foundation in 1982. He served as Director-General of the Japan Foundation in New Delhi and then in Jakarta before assuming his current position in 2017. His research covers international cultural exchange policy, contemporary culture in Asia, and comparative religion and society. Publications include Indoneshia Isuramu taikoku no henbo (Indonesia: Transformation of an Islamic Great Power; Shincho Sensho, 2016), Sengo beikoku no Okinawa bunka senryaku (American Postwar Public Diplomacy in Okinawa; Iwanami Shoten, 2012), Tero to kyusai no genri shugi (Fundamentalism: Twisted Terror and Salvation; Shincho Sensho, 2007), and Indoneshia taminzoku kokka no mosaku (Indonesia as Multiethnic Nation; Iwanami Shinsho, 1993).

TAKENAKA Chiharu (Professor, Rikkyo University)

Takenaka Chiharu served as a professor at Meiji Gakuin University before assuming her current position in 2008. She specializes in international politics, South Asian (Indian) politics, and gender studies. Publications include Gandi heiwa o tsumugu hito (Gandhi, A Man Spinning Peace; Iwanami Shinsho, 2018), Tozoku no indo shi (The Bandit History of India; Yushisha, 2010), and Sekai wa naze nakayoku dekinaino? Boryoku no rensa o toku tame ni (Why Can't the World Get Along? To Untie the Chain of Violence; CCC Media House, 2004).

TONE Hideo (Program Officer, the Toyota Foundation)

Prior to joining the Foundation, Tone Hideo had been program officer of Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization dedicated to strengthening Japan's role in international networks of dialogue and cooperation. During his term, he was engaged in high level bilateral and multi-sectoral dialogue and exchange programs with Korea and Germany, as well as activities of the Friends of the Global Fund, Japan (FGFJ), to which JCIE serves as secretariat to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, one of the biggest health donors based in Geneva. He is currently in charge of the International Grant Program which focuses on common issues in East and Southeast Asia.

FUJITANI Takeshi (Assistant to Executive Editor / Former Asia Editor / Director for Digital Transformation in Newsroom, Institute of Journalism, the Asahi Shimbun)

Fujitani Takeshi participated in the Ship for Southeast Asian and Japanese Youth Program (SSEAYPH) at the age of 19. Since then, his passion has always been focused on humanitarian issues in the developing world, especially in Asia, where he used to live, study and work and, consequently, where he gained valuable insights and experiences from various historical events as well as encounters and interactions with the people there. He joined the Asahi Shimbun in 1987 and has served as Rome and Belgrade Bureau Chief, Jakarta Bureau Chief, Asia Editor, and Assistant Managing Editor. Over the three decades, he has devoted himself to journalism, covering and reporting stories in almost all Asian countries including North Korea and Afghanistan. Based on his first-hand experience as a reporter, he co-published TSUNAMI o koete – Suumatora-oki jishin to Ache no hitobito (Beyond Tsunami -- Indian Ocean Earthquake and People in Aceh; POPLAR Publishing Co., Ltd, 2006).

Lam Peng Er (Senior Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore)

Lam Peng Er obtained his PhD from Columbia University. His books include the single-authored monograph, Japan's Peace Building Diplomacy in Asia: Searching for an Active Political Role (Routledge, 2009) and Green Politics in Japan (Routledge, 1999), as well as edited and co-edited volumes, Japan's Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change (Lexington Books, 2020), Japan's Relations with Southeast Asia: The Fukuda Doctrine and Beyond (Routledge, 2013) among others. He is an executive editor of the International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (a journal of the Japan Association of International Relations published by Oxford University Press), and Asian Journal of Peacebuilding (a journal of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University).

OGUMA Eiji (Professor, Keio University)

Oguma Eiji is a professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University. After working as an editor for several years at a publisher, he obtained his PhD in Sociology from University of Tokyo in 1997. His socio-historical works on Japan cover national identity, colonial policy, post-war democratic thought, the 1968 student movement and Japan's employment system. He has been awarded seven prizes for his publications and one prize for filmmaking in Japan. He participated in and researched the anti-nuclear movement in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 and directed a documentary film on the movement. His major publications in English are A Genealogy of 'Japanese' Self-Images (Trans Pacific Press, 2002) and The Boundaries of 'the Japanese' vols. 1 and 2 (Trans Pacific Press, 2014 and 2017).

HORIBA Akiko (Senior Program Officer, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF))

Horiba Akiko is Program Director and Senior Program Officer of Asia Peace Initiative Department at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) with a focus on peacebuilding in Southern Thailand, women's political participation in Asia and strengthening civil society networks in South East Asia. She is also a lecturer at Tokyo Institute of Technology. She received a doctorate in Area Studies (Indonesia, conflict analysis) from Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan and a Master of theological studies at Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Massachusetts, USA. Before joining the SPF, she worked as a policy secretary for the House of the Representatives. Her research interests are conflict analysis, peacebuilding, and Southeast Asia politics.

Goenawan Mohamad (Poet / Playwright / Founder of Tempo magazine)

Goenawan Mohamad is one of Indonesia's leading intellectuals who has played a leading role in the country's democratization movement. After retiring from journalism, he devotes his time to write literary and philosophical pieces. He has published more than 20 volumes of essays, poetry, plays and a novel. His paintings have been exhibited in important Indonesian art galleries. He currently works as a steering committee member of Komunitas Salihara, the first private multidisciplinary arts center in Indonesia.

Urvashi Butalia (Director of the Zubaan)

Urvashi Butalia is a co-founder of India's first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, and now runs Zubaan, an imprint of Kali. She has been active in the women's movement in India for over three decades, and is also an independent researcher and writer. She writes for newspapers and magazines and has also written several books, including an award-winning history of the partition of India, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (winner of the Oral History Book Association Award 2001 and the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture 2003). She has won many other awards including the Padma Shri, one of the Indian government's highest civilian honours.

ASIA HUNDREDS is a series of interviews and conference presentations by professionals with whom the Japan Foundation Asia Center works through its many cultural projects.
By sharing the words of key figures in the arts and cultures in both English and Japanese and archiving the "present" moments of Asia, we hope to further generate cultural exchange within and among the regions.

The Starting Point of the Project

The two sessions of the online seminar series "Asia Center TERAKOYA" – the 5th session "Intellectual Exchange in Asia: The 30 Years of History since the End of the Cold War, and the Future" and the 6th session "Democracy at a Crossroads: Choices for the New Era of Questions Posed by the Coronavirus Crisis" were a two-part project planned for a single purpose.
The purpose was to take the fruits of the human network built by the Asia Leadership Fellows Program (ALFP), which was co-organized by the Japan Foundation and the International House of Japan (I-House) from 1996 to 2018 and share them with a wider audience in Japan and abroad. Since I myself was involved in the launch of ALFP during the time I was a staff member of the Japan Foundation, this time I had the privilege of participating in the planning of this TERAOKYA series.
The starting point of the project was this understanding: "The world we live in is now facing an enormous challenge, and how we should promote cultural exchanges to deepen mutual understanding across borders is also being questioned on a fundamental level." We felt the need to think about how we can overcome the crisis with experts from around Asia. This is how the two discussions came to fruition.

Looking Back on 30 Years in Asia since the End of the Cold War

Crises bring major changes to history. To understand the age we live in and look toward the future, we need to look back on the past. Therefore, in the 5th session entitled "Intellectual Exchange in Asia," we asked the speakers to review Asia's 30-year journey following the end of the Cold War. From the Japanese perspective, this period coincides with the Heisei era.
Participating in the discussion were TAKENAKA Chiharu (Rikkyo University), TONE Hideo (the Toyota Foundation), FUJITANI Takeshi (the Asahi Shimbun), and Lam Peng Er (East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore).
Prof. Takenaka, who was an advisor to ALFP and has been involved in exchanges with Asian nations as a scholar, described the enormous changes in Asia in simple terms, saying that the region moved "from poverty and authoritarianism to prosperity and freedom." In the story of Asia's development are the opposing forces of light (economic development, democratization, the growth of the middle class, the rise of civil society) and shadow (xenophobia, religious extremism, people left behind by development, environmental destruction and the frequent occurrence of disasters). In times of light and shadow cast by economic development and democratization, Asia's regional interdependence has deepened, and Japan has strengthened its bonds with other nations in the region, Prof. Takenaka said enthusiastically.

The Toyota Foundation has contributed greatly to the promotion of mutual understanding in Asia. The foundation offers grants based on policies that reflect the changes in Asia, Mr. Tone explained. In the 1970s, the foundation started a program called "Know Our Neighbors," which was based on the recognition that "Asia doesn't know about Asia." It was a translation-publication program of literature in humanity and social science aimed at building a foundation for mutual communication among the countries in the region. Based on the mutual understanding, their grant program today aims to heighten it into "a partnership that leads to the transformation of society" in which Asian nations can learn from each other and tackle the common issues they face. The essence of the partnership has evolved to become more specific and realistic in nature.

As a journalist, Mr. Fujitani has covered news from around Asia, listening to the voices of a diverse range of people from the elite to the general public. He pointed out that Japan still has a sense of superiority over the rest of Asia and said that this is a problem that we must overcome. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the poor has narrowed considerably in the past 30 years, and education and health services have improved greatly, but Asia is facing new issues. One of the issues is the aging society. Mr. Fujitani introduced a pioneering project in which Yugawara-machi of Kanagawa prefecture in Japan and a municipality in Thailand are collaborating to create a model for senior care.

International politics scholar Dr. Lam Peng Er used the clever analogy of "a cup half full or half empty" to explain the progress of regional community building in Asia after the end of the Cold War. One can take an optimistic view and say the cup is already half full or take a pessimistic view and say it is still half empty. Dr. Lam takes the optimistic view. When he said the current COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for citizens of various countries to come together, he had in mind the experience of the Asian financial crisis in 1997–1998, when Japan, China, South Korea and ASEAN nations united to overcome the crisis, clearing the way for the multilateralism that followed. At the same time, the cup is still half empty because a relationship of trust is lacking in Northeast Asia and there is no regional institution like ASEAN, Dr. Lam explained.

Next Page: The True Nature of the COVID-19 Crisis

Online Seminar Series "Asia Center TERAKOYA" #5 & #6――The Significance of Looking Back on Asia's 30-Year Journey in These Times

The Starting Point of the Project

Looking Back on 30 Years in Asia since the End of the Cold War

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