Homing in on Asia: Identity in contemporary Japan

Abstract

Things Asian have become the height of fashion in Japan. Indonesian film, Thai food, Chinese language study, and package tours to Taiwan have a mass appeal that is unprecedented in the past half-century. Japan's business and political circles are discussing Asia with an intensity unknown since the war years. A tremendous increase in Japan's trade and investment in Asia in the past decade and the demise of Cold War era political alignments have prompted both individual Japanese and their leaders to reassess a part of the world to which they had paid surprisingly little attention despite its proximity and historical connection to Japan. The “Asia Boom,” well established by the early 1990s, promises to continue into the twenty-first century as Japan grapples with the implications of its role in the region and its place in the world.