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For those who may concern,<br>
<br>
Please circulate the following seminar information next week, 9 Oct
in CHL.<br>
Professor Gavan McCormack will present one of the most severe
territorial problems in contemporary East Asia between China and
Japan.<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
Shin Takahashi<br>
<br>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height:
normal;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";" lang="EN-US">School
of Culture, History and Language</span><span style="font-size:
12pt;"></span></p>
<div align="center"> </div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height:
normal;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";" lang="EN-US">College
of Asia and the Pacific </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;
font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<div align="center"> </div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height:
normal;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";" lang="EN-US">Tuesday,
9 October, 12.00-1.30 </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;
font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<div align="center"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";" lang="EN-US">Seminar
Room C – Coombs Bldg, ANU</span></div>
<h1 style="text-align: center;" align="center"> </h1>
<h1 style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span
style="font-size: 22pt;">Yonaguni</span><span style="font-size:
18pt;"> <span lang="EN-US"></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span
style="font-size: 18pt;">Dilemmas of a Frontier Island in the
East China Sea</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;" lang="EN-US"></span></h1>
<div align="center"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";">Professor Gavan
McCormack<br>
<br>
<small>(Emeritus Professor, PAH, CHL, CAP, ANU)</small><br>
</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">Forty years after
they were “normalized,” relations between Japan and China are so
abnormal that events planned to celebrate the anniversary in
September had to be scrapped. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">Tension rises
throughout the East China Sea and especially in the vicinity of
the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands where Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese
fishing and coastguard vessels jostle, each insisting that the
islands and their adjacent waters are their own sovereign
territory. National, and to some extent global, attention focusses
on an “Okinawa problem” that has<span style="" lang="EN-US">,
until recently,</span> been almost entirely seen in the context
of the main island of Okinawa, where the “world’s most dangerous
base,” Futenma Marine Air Station continues to sit in the middle
of Ginowan City 16 years after its promised return, where works on
a projected new base to<span style=""> </span>replace it at
Henoko in Nago City to the north remain blocked, and where plans
to introduce the highly controversial tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey
aircraft have roused the entire prefecture to fierce united
protest. Yonaguni opens a new front in the contest between the
agenda that the governments of Japan and the United States attempt
to impose and local aspirations for an order of peace and
cooperation that would finally supplant Cold War confrontation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">On 24 September
2012, a special session of Yonaguni Island’s Town Assembly voted
3:2 against a proposal to conduct a town plebiscite on the
question of whether or not to host a Self-Defense Force facility.
The storm that raged over that decision showed at microcosmic
level the way in which the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia
was affecting local communities in the Northeast Asian region.
Yonaguni was assuming – if the town assembly’s controversial
decision to host a SDF facility is carried out - the role of front
line in an emerging East Asian Cold War. To China, the Japanese
decision to implant a military force within the first Chinese
maritime line of defen<span style="" lang="EN-US">s</span>e, and
in the closest Japanese island territories to the contested
Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, will inevitably be seen as a challenge.
Few islands faced choices of such moment. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;"> </p>
<h3 style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;"><span style="font-size:
12pt; font-weight: normal;">Gavan McCormack is emeritus
professor in the School of Culture, History and Language in the
College of the Asia-Pacific. He is also coordinator of The
Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus (</span><a
href="http://japanfocus.org/"><span style="font-size: 12pt;
font-weight: normal;">http://japanfocus.org/</span></a><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">) which was in
2008 awarded the Inaugural Ikemiyagi Shui prize for promotion of
international understanding of Okinawan issues. He first wrote
about territorial problems in these seas in 1973, in a chapter
on “Senkaku” in his <i style="">Japanese Imperialism Today</i>
(with Jon Halliday). For his most recent work analysing current
territorial problems in the Pacific and East China Seas, see his
“Troubled Seas: Japan’s Pacific and East China Sea Domains (and
Claims),” <span class="externaledithide">The Asia-Pacific
Journal</span><em>, Vol. 10, Issue 36, No. 4, September 3,
2012 (</em></span><a
href="http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gavan-McCormack/3821?rand=1346639114&type=print&print=1"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">http://www.japanfocus.org/-Gavan-McCormack/3821?rand=1346639114&type=print&print=1</span></a><em><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">. </span></em></h3>
<h3 style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;"><span style="font-size:
12pt; font-weight: normal;">In 2012 he and MIT historian John
Dower featured in Japan’s NHK special New Year program,
“Kantogen” discussing the outlook in post-Fukushima Japan.</span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">His most recent book
is the<b style=""> </b>just published (co-authored with Satoko
Oka Norimatsu) <i style="">Resistant Islands – Okinawa Confronts
Japan and the United States</i> (Rowman and Littlefield, 2012,
distributed in Australia by InBooks and currently being translated
into Japanese, Korean and Chinese for publication early in 2013).<br>
</p>
<br>
<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";" lang="EN-GB">All
Welcome.</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height:
115%;"> <br>
Enquiries:<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";" lang="EN-GB">Shin
Takahashi (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:shin.takahashi@anu.edu.au">shin.takahashi@anu.edu.au</a>)<br>
Tana Li (</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;
font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><a
href="mailto:tana.li@anu.edu.au" target="_blank"><span
style="color: blue;">tana.li@anu.edu.au</span></a>)</span><br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Shin Takahashi
高橋 進之介
Ph.D Student
Room 5209, H.C. Coombs Building
Division of Pacific and Asian History
School of Culture, History and Language
College of Asia and the Pacific
The Australian National University
ACTON, ACT, Australia
Phone:+61-612-56363 (office)
E-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:shin.takahashi@anu.edu.au">shin.takahashi@anu.edu.au</a></pre>
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