Unit 731, at the forefront of Japan’s wartime bacteriological warfare programme, is deeply revile... more Unit 731, at the forefront of Japan’s wartime bacteriological warfare programme, is deeply reviled in China but virtually forgotten in Japan today. Scholars have argued that this forgetting is largely the result of a United States cover-up of the Khabarovsk Trial, the 1949 Soviet military tribunal that brought the activities of Unit 731 to light.
This paper uses previously un-translated Japanese newspaper reports and clippings from People’s Daily, as well as British Foreign Office records and Russian Presidential Archive material to argue that the forgetting of the Khabarovsk Trial can be understood as the result of an “active forgetting” and a “passive forgetting”.
The official portrayal of the Soviet detention of Japanese soldiers in Siberia and the change in Soviet and Chinese policy towards Japanese war crimes between 1950-1956, this paper demonstrates, both had much to do with how the Khabarovsk Trial came to be forgotten.
"Formosan Ideology" posits that "oriental" colonialism as practised by the Japanese differs from ... more "Formosan Ideology" posits that "oriental" colonialism as practised by the Japanese differs from Western colonisation. The bulk of Wu's dissertion uses Taiwan to demonstrate the difference. Would the rise of an Hong Kong identity, which has a British, and thus Western, colonial history, invalidate the difference between Western and Oriental colonialism?
The Fukuda Doctrine has been heralded as “a major turning point” in Japan-ASEAN relations becaus... more The Fukuda Doctrine has been heralded as “a major turning point” in Japan-ASEAN relations because it represented Japan’s shift away from an economically oriented Southeast Asian policy to a more politically oriented one. But if encouraging stability in Southeast Asia is considered a political goal, then Japan would have had been involved in the region as a political actor for years prior to the pronouncement of the Doctrine. Also, the Doctrine would then be more accurately interpreted as merely an event that marked a high point in Japan’s Southeast Asian strategy, which had by then long moved away from Yoshida-era economics-driven relations. So why did diplomatic engagement between Japan and Southeast Asia only experience a major spike in 1977 if existing factors which could have fuelled high profile relations had been in existence for some time prior? Most scholars explain the timing with external and domestic factors from the Japanese perspective, but a select few have noted in passing that Japan was unable to play a greater role in the region simply because ASEAN was not ready. If so, why did ASEAN become ready only in 1977?
If the Eastern Bloc collapsed because the totalitarian governments of Central and Eastern Europe ... more If the Eastern Bloc collapsed because the totalitarian governments of Central and Eastern Europe completely lost their legitimacy to rule, what was it that kept them from falling apart in the turbulent years of the 1950s and 1960s? It had already become clear then that bureaucratic coordination was stifling growth. Why then did its governments collapse in a single swoop only after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Combining scholarly explanations from both the pre-and-post-1989 era largely answers this question. Collectively read, it appears that the governments of the Eastern Bloc were unable to maintain the illusion of economic growth and were too weak to suppress the sparks of dissent. In the absence of support from the Soviet Union, the tinderbox that was the Eastern Bloc simply combusted when enough sparks appeared. Unsettlingly, these explanations suggest that the rule of law may matter less for the continuity of totalitarianism than the appearance of fulfilled economic promises, effective censorship or propaganda, and strong policing.
While 5 February 2014 will mark exactly 50 years since the first malapportionment case was broug... more While 5 February 2014 will mark exactly 50 years since the first malapportionment case was brought before the Supreme Court of Japan, it will also mark 50 years of the judiciary’s reluctance to invalidate government action that flouts the Constitution. This essay analyses the Court’s rulings in the 1999 and 2011 cases, and evaluates the options that it and the public have if they want to bring an end to the inequality of the value of the vote.
By looking at why and how the Taiwanese and Singaporean governments have attempted to give meanin... more By looking at why and how the Taiwanese and Singaporean governments have attempted to give meaning to Chineseness, and by asking “when and why (Chinese) identity is invoked”, this paper focuses sharply on the “crises of perception” that have given rise to an indistinct non-Chinese identity in Taiwan and Singapore. At the same time, by taking a cross-state comparative approach, this paper argues that despite the differences in the socio-political contexts of the two states, Mandarin, a product of language policy-making in both cases, has ironically become a language that sets Mandarin-speaking China apart as the Other.
Unit 731, at the forefront of Japan’s wartime bacteriological warfare programme, is deeply revile... more Unit 731, at the forefront of Japan’s wartime bacteriological warfare programme, is deeply reviled in China but virtually forgotten in Japan today. Scholars have argued that this forgetting is largely the result of a United States cover-up of the Khabarovsk Trial, the 1949 Soviet military tribunal that brought the activities of Unit 731 to light.
This paper uses previously un-translated Japanese newspaper reports and clippings from People’s Daily, as well as British Foreign Office records and Russian Presidential Archive material to argue that the forgetting of the Khabarovsk Trial can be understood as the result of an “active forgetting” and a “passive forgetting”.
The official portrayal of the Soviet detention of Japanese soldiers in Siberia and the change in Soviet and Chinese policy towards Japanese war crimes between 1950-1956, this paper demonstrates, both had much to do with how the Khabarovsk Trial came to be forgotten.
"Formosan Ideology" posits that "oriental" colonialism as practised by the Japanese differs from ... more "Formosan Ideology" posits that "oriental" colonialism as practised by the Japanese differs from Western colonisation. The bulk of Wu's dissertion uses Taiwan to demonstrate the difference. Would the rise of an Hong Kong identity, which has a British, and thus Western, colonial history, invalidate the difference between Western and Oriental colonialism?
The Fukuda Doctrine has been heralded as “a major turning point” in Japan-ASEAN relations becaus... more The Fukuda Doctrine has been heralded as “a major turning point” in Japan-ASEAN relations because it represented Japan’s shift away from an economically oriented Southeast Asian policy to a more politically oriented one. But if encouraging stability in Southeast Asia is considered a political goal, then Japan would have had been involved in the region as a political actor for years prior to the pronouncement of the Doctrine. Also, the Doctrine would then be more accurately interpreted as merely an event that marked a high point in Japan’s Southeast Asian strategy, which had by then long moved away from Yoshida-era economics-driven relations. So why did diplomatic engagement between Japan and Southeast Asia only experience a major spike in 1977 if existing factors which could have fuelled high profile relations had been in existence for some time prior? Most scholars explain the timing with external and domestic factors from the Japanese perspective, but a select few have noted in passing that Japan was unable to play a greater role in the region simply because ASEAN was not ready. If so, why did ASEAN become ready only in 1977?
If the Eastern Bloc collapsed because the totalitarian governments of Central and Eastern Europe ... more If the Eastern Bloc collapsed because the totalitarian governments of Central and Eastern Europe completely lost their legitimacy to rule, what was it that kept them from falling apart in the turbulent years of the 1950s and 1960s? It had already become clear then that bureaucratic coordination was stifling growth. Why then did its governments collapse in a single swoop only after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Combining scholarly explanations from both the pre-and-post-1989 era largely answers this question. Collectively read, it appears that the governments of the Eastern Bloc were unable to maintain the illusion of economic growth and were too weak to suppress the sparks of dissent. In the absence of support from the Soviet Union, the tinderbox that was the Eastern Bloc simply combusted when enough sparks appeared. Unsettlingly, these explanations suggest that the rule of law may matter less for the continuity of totalitarianism than the appearance of fulfilled economic promises, effective censorship or propaganda, and strong policing.
While 5 February 2014 will mark exactly 50 years since the first malapportionment case was broug... more While 5 February 2014 will mark exactly 50 years since the first malapportionment case was brought before the Supreme Court of Japan, it will also mark 50 years of the judiciary’s reluctance to invalidate government action that flouts the Constitution. This essay analyses the Court’s rulings in the 1999 and 2011 cases, and evaluates the options that it and the public have if they want to bring an end to the inequality of the value of the vote.
By looking at why and how the Taiwanese and Singaporean governments have attempted to give meanin... more By looking at why and how the Taiwanese and Singaporean governments have attempted to give meaning to Chineseness, and by asking “when and why (Chinese) identity is invoked”, this paper focuses sharply on the “crises of perception” that have given rise to an indistinct non-Chinese identity in Taiwan and Singapore. At the same time, by taking a cross-state comparative approach, this paper argues that despite the differences in the socio-political contexts of the two states, Mandarin, a product of language policy-making in both cases, has ironically become a language that sets Mandarin-speaking China apart as the Other.
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Thesis Chapters by Xian Jie Lee
This paper uses previously un-translated Japanese newspaper reports and clippings from People’s Daily, as well as British Foreign Office records and Russian Presidential Archive material to argue that the forgetting of the Khabarovsk Trial can be understood as the result of an “active forgetting” and a “passive forgetting”.
The official portrayal of the Soviet detention of Japanese soldiers in Siberia and the change in Soviet and Chinese policy towards Japanese war crimes between 1950-1956, this paper demonstrates, both had much to do with how the Khabarovsk Trial came to be forgotten.
Papers by Xian Jie Lee
Drafts by Xian Jie Lee
This paper uses previously un-translated Japanese newspaper reports and clippings from People’s Daily, as well as British Foreign Office records and Russian Presidential Archive material to argue that the forgetting of the Khabarovsk Trial can be understood as the result of an “active forgetting” and a “passive forgetting”.
The official portrayal of the Soviet detention of Japanese soldiers in Siberia and the change in Soviet and Chinese policy towards Japanese war crimes between 1950-1956, this paper demonstrates, both had much to do with how the Khabarovsk Trial came to be forgotten.