Asia

Although little known abroad, the Japanese press holds an important place in the global media landscape, two of the top circulation newspapers being Japanese dailies. How do these titles thrive, and how do they shape the public debate in Japan? This article studies specificities of the Japanese media market and some of its recent changes.

Japan and the Korean peninsula share a troubled history, and the already tense relationships of these areas have been deteriorating over the past few years. Floriano Filho maps out these tensions as well as their symptoms—which include an arms race—while bringing light to their historical roots.

As populism is rising on a global level, Books & Ideas offers a series on media politics in East Asian countries, to be published over the next two weeks. Though situations are extremely diverse, they can teach us a lot on the relationship between the state and journalists in authoritarian contexts. What role is left for the media to play in non-democracies?

Qi—“breath” or “energy”—lies at the heart of many traditional Asian practices, be they martial or artistic, that rest upon a broader understanding of mind and body. This concept has now become pervasive in Western ideas of health and spirituality. Could this trend be a positive effect of globalization?

Should East Asia’s economic takeoff and the new hegemony of capitalism in that region be interpreted as parts of a convergence towards a global model based on Anglosphere economic liberalism, or should we see them rather as the onset of a process by which a new form of capitalism is being constructed, based on the region’s economic integration? The two books reviewed here tackle this issue head on, from the angle of regulation theory.

This dossier examines the recently reopened debate on regional integration in Asia. What are the obstacles to the construction of an Asian Union? How is the issue tackled in Japan, China or Australia?

François Godement reminds us that the process of economic and cultural integration that is currently taking place in Asia is undermined by the heavy militarization of the countries in that region, by their competing visions of history and by diverse political factors of instability.

As China’s power increases, Japan is moving closer to other Asian countries. This return to Asia is not univocal, and the newly elected Democratic Party is not in a position to change the direction of Japanese foreign policy.

The international context and the economic and diplomatic rapprochement between the powers currently thriving in Asia seem to reinforce the Japanese idea of creating an Asian community. But what does China make of this?

Where will the borders of the East Asian community end up? Australia is trying to attach itself to this evolving project but, in the eyes of its Asian partners, its western inheritance keeps it on the fringes rather than at the core of the project.