Gavan McCormack
Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor of Australian National University, editor of the Asia-Pacific journal Japan Focus and author of many works on modern Japan and East Asia, which are commonly translated and published also in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
Gavan's recent articles
23 December 2024
Donald Trump’s return will be a political headache for Japan
After Japan’s ruling party suffered an electoral setback in October, Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru also has to deal with the return of Donald Trump. Japan’s role as a US client state puts it on the front line of an escalating confrontation with China.
25 October 2024
Nobel messages from East Asia, 2024
Early in October 2024, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award of two major prizes: the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese grassroots peace organisation Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations), and the literature prize to the Korean novelist, Han Kang. From both winners came messages addressed to our troubled times. There is little early indication that they would be heard.
30 April 2024
Japan and North Korea: Time to talk?
In Northeast Asia a system of confronting military alliances – US/Japan/South Korea/Philippines vs China/Russia/North Korea – gradually takes shape, calling to mind nothing so much as the alliance system constructed in Europe in the decade leading up to 1914. The one today is no more likely to lead to peace and regional cooperation than was the other 110 years ago.
29 August 2023
Brink of catastrophe: Japan as Pacific polluter
In 2011, Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, roughly 250 kilometres north of Tokyo, was hit by a magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami. Three reactors stopped immediately but the loss of electricity supply led in the days and months that followed to breakdown of the cooling system and to a series of hydrogen explosions and meltdowns of the cores of Reactors 1 to 3.
20 June 2023
Jeju Islands peace message - truth and reconciliation in Korea
Following the award of the Korean Jeju 4:3 Peace Prize to former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, it is good to note that Pearls and Irritations has taken up cudgels on the long-neglected question of the Jeju Island massacre of 1948 (articles by Heo Ho-joon and Alison Broinowski). And it is good to see Evans taking the opportunity of being awarded the Prize to call on the government of the US to cooperate in revealing and addressing its responsibility for the tragic events of 1948.
23 April 2023
Japan on the path to becoming a Military Great(er) Power
Promising to double its defence expenditure over the coming five-year period and placing huge orders for US military equipment to help it to do so, the sometime peace state of Japan is moving into high gear on militarisation.
30 January 2023
Japan failed peace state?
A little over 75 years ago, a Japan-designed Asia-Pacific community collapsed, leaving not only Japan itself but much of the region in chaos, millions dead, cities in ruins.
20 August 2022
Abe Shinzo The ambiguous legacy of an assassinated Japanese Prime Minister
When former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was shot and killed in front of an election rally in Nara on 8 July, two days before an Upper House election, shock waves spread quickly around the world.
2 July 2022
Global agendas 2022 - NATO and RIMPAC
War its preparation, rehearsal, prosecution, and remediation is increasingly the concern of 21st century states and peoples. Attention in 2022 focussed on the savage fighting in the Black Sea and Ukraine, but preparations, plans and rehearsals on a hitherto unprecedented scale for conflict were underway around the world, notably in the form of US-led and organised exercises in the Baltic, the East and South China Seas, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. For the most part, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is in command, though in the case of the Pacific the primary role is played by the...
29 May 2022
Japans peaceful foreign policy is under siege from right-wing militarism
Seventy-five years ago, Japan adopted a constitution that ruled out ever using war as a tool of state policy. The countrys conservative leaders now want to ditch that commitment as they embrace the dangerous role of a militarised US client state.
4 February 2022
Militarism outguns democracy in Okinawa politics
The construction of a US military base in the prefecture, driven by the national government, ignores strong opposition to the project among locals.
2 November 2021
Japan's reluctance to cut emissions rivals Australia
Japan will rival Australia for the 'fossil prize' at COP26 as it pushes a revival of its nuclear industry in the name of climate change policy.
5 September 2021
Summer games in Tokyothe Paralympics
The current Paralympic Games are being carried out in the context of the dual crises facing Japan.
12 May 2021
To Be or Not to Be? Revisiting the question of Tokyos Olympics
Three months ago (19 February), I wrote of the Troubled Games of the XXXll Olympiad in the context of the dual crises facing Japan: continuing, unresolved radiation emanating from the 2011 Fukushima quake/tsunami/meltdown on the one hand and the COVID 19 public health crisis on the other. The Games was supposed to represent their resolution, leading the world into a new era of recovery, hope and peace, but as the event itself approahes, both remain unresolved. Here I focus solely on the Olympics (and Paralympics).
18 February 2021
Tokyo 2020: The Troubled Games of the XXXll Olympiad
On 25 March, the Olympic Torch Relay is to set out from Fukushima with its sacred flame on a national circuit, visiting all 47 prefectures and arriving at Tokyos Games venue for the opening ceremony on 23 July. But will this scenario really play out?
24 January 2021
Japans kow-towing to US is leading to ecological destruction on a majestic reef.
Japan, in consultation with the US, is trying to build a huge military facility for the US Marine Corps by reclaiming a large part of the wondrous, biodiverse Oura Bay. It is akin to Australia offering part of the Great Barrier Reef to the Pentagon to establish a military facility.
22 November 2020
Australia-Japan and the Morrison/Suga Agenda. Do we share the values of Yoshihide Suga?
Most members of the Suga (and Abe) governments of 2012-2020 belong to rightist, cult type historical revisionist organizations committed to restoring the emperors role to its pre-war centrality.
7 November 2020
Japan, Australia, and the Rejigging of Asia-Pacific Alliances
The frame of relationships that exist in East Asia today was set around 70-years ago. It needs review.
17 October 2020
Japans New Leader, Suga Yoshihide, Will Maintain the Old Regime (Jacobin Sep 27, 2020)
Suga Yoshihide, longtime aide to Abe Shinzo, has now replaced him as Japans prime minister. Suga will preserve the main features of Abes long stint in power: creeping militarism, subordination to the US, and a high-handed approach to political opposition.