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Garren
Fujisawa Japan
Associate Professor, Daito Bunka University
Interests: Japan, International Relations, UK, Peacekeeping, Civil-Military Relations, Defence, Security, History, Asia, Europe, Commonwealth, US, Media
Recent Activity
15th May 2013: The mean spirits of the comfort issue, near and far
15th May A very odd combination of experiences and stimuli in Cambridge, Britain, and Japan these days. Armed police have been patrolling Luton streets. Scenes from Brazilian flavella transported to Bedfordshire, and a regular town of little note other than an airport near London and once a centre of car... Continue reading
Posted May 15, 2013 at Garren's blog
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14th April 2013: The passing of an icon, but the remnant of a legacy (Revised)
14th April 2013 The queen is dead. Long live the Queen. Yes, Mrs T, the Iron Lady, Maggie (Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out!) is no more, having rather oddly slipped from this realm while in a room at the Ritz hotel, in lieu of a care home, a most fitting... Continue reading
Posted Apr 14, 2013 at Garren's blog
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10th April 2013: The passing of an icon, but the remnant of a legacy
10th April 2013 The queen is dead. Long live the Queen. Yes, Mrs T, the Iron Lady, Maggie (Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out!) is no more, having rather oddly slipped from this realm while in a room at the Ritz hotel, in lieu of a care home, a most fitting... Continue reading
Posted Apr 10, 2013 at Garren's blog
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30th March: Eastern warmth to North-eastern chill
30th March Well, the blog has now moved west. Yes, 27th March was the day when the combined forces of Daito Bunka University, JR, and KLM propelled me and a mound of baggage (of roughly equal mass, but very different volume) from Japan (cold and damp, at about 10C) via... Continue reading
Posted Mar 30, 2013 at Garren's blog
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12th March 2013: Anniversary Astonishment Absence
12th March 2013 How easily some are astonished, and yet how easily the senses of most are dulled by the astonishing around them. The second anniversary of the Triple Crisis in Japan passed with most of the nation feeling mildly sad and contemplative, yet there were few utterances of astonishment.... Continue reading
Posted Mar 12, 2013 at Garren's blog
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23rd February: Nationalists, charlatans, and legacies
23rd February The Senkaku worries rumble on, like an upset stomach being fed cabbage water and pale ale, with somewhat alarmist scenario writers tempered by the moderating views of pacific sages: we are either on the verge of Asian/world war, or else these are mere teething pains with babies fighting... Continue reading
Posted Feb 23, 2013 at Garren's blog
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5th February: Look Out, Locked On!
5thFebruary Look out, Locked on Well, it had to happen sometime, but it seems that someone has escalated the troubles that China and Japan face in the East China Sea. No-one has been hurt, and no weapons have been used, other than a psychological weapon. A Chinese frigate, of the... Continue reading
Posted Feb 5, 2013 at Garren's blog
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3rd February: Aiming Low
3rd February 2013 Aiming Low The new age of Abe has witnessed a series of milestones over the past week. The new administration was swept into power due to dissatisfaction with the general competence of the DPJ-led government, and particularly with the government’s seemingly powerlessness to lift the economy out... Continue reading
Posted Feb 3, 2013 at Garren's blog
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24th January: Flying High, Flying Low and the Algerian Tragedy
24th January Flying High, Flying Low The Abe government has continued its battle against badness everywhere that it sees it, including in the Japanese economy. The vice-supremo in this battle is none other than former-Olympian, playboy, Catholic, and all-round odd bloke Aso Taro. Last Friday, when Abe was away visiting... Continue reading
Posted Jan 24, 2013 at Garren's blog
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3rd January: New Year, New Serpents, Less People
A new year and so much to look forward to in the year of the snake. There will be a lot more room in Japan, now that the population has fallen by the greatest amount in one year since 1947, when such records began, falling by an estimated 212,000, and... Continue reading
Posted Jan 2, 2013 at Garren's blog
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27th December: Passing parties, new-old leaders, eternal shores
27th December New parties come, new parties go, old leaders are new leaders, but the sea still laps on the island shores. Kamei Shizuka, a politician very difficult to pigeonhole or even describe without reference to such words as ‘curmudgeonly’ and ‘constipated’, has announced that he will resign from the... Continue reading
Posted Dec 27, 2012 at Garren's blog
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16th December 2012: New Dear Leader, Deputy as Leader, Dearly Needing a Leader
16th December New Dear Leader. Yes, the election results are dripping and flooding in and the picture they paint is not exactly one to warm the heart or settle the stomach. The LDP and its leader, Abe Shinzo, have won a landslide, one the of the greatest landslides in the... Continue reading
Posted Dec 16, 2012 at Garren's blog
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8th December 2012: Anniversaries, Memories, and Assassins
8th December It isn’t often that a major news story is broken with the headline ‘No deaths, few injuries, a major sense of anti-climax’ but that was the case today. The story refers to yesterday’s very large earthquake (magnitude 7.3) off the coast of Tohoku, further out and of a... Continue reading
Posted Dec 8, 2012 at Garren's blog
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26th November: So many tongues, so few mouths
26th November So many wagging tongues and yet so few mouths. Yes, in Japanese election news the Japan Restoration Party (JRP Nihon Ishin no Kai) noted for the comedy stooge trio of Hashi, Ishi, and Hira has announced that it will probably not be able to field enough candidates for... Continue reading
Posted Nov 26, 2012 at Garren's blog
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19th November: Yelling in the Street and other Election News
19th November The blog is getting a bit busy these days. Nothing for two weeks, and now two posts in two days. Anyone would think I had no social life or something, whereas only yesterday I had a big argument in the street with a lad and almost came to... Continue reading
Posted Nov 19, 2012 at Garren's blog
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17th November: Roll up, Roll up, Regional Separatists, Communists, and Buddhists Fight it Out! No foreigners.
17th November Well, the season has come round again. Yes, the fake pine trees are out, the appalling music is belting out in the shops encouraging us all to come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, and the same message is now being belted out by Japan’s politicians, as the... Continue reading
Posted Nov 17, 2012 at Garren's blog
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6th November: Fireworks tonight but is it a fault?
6th November 2012 Well, there’ll be fireworks tonight! Yes, it was the one day of the year when British people can crack jokes like that and receive a roomful of hearty groans at home, but nothing more than a baffled stare when abroad. Yes indeed, while Japan celebrates summer with... Continue reading
Posted Nov 6, 2012 at Garren's blog
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28th October: No Country for Old Men
28th October The king has left the building. No, not an Elvis sighting, but a press conference by the Tokyo Governor that actually had meaning. On Thursday, Ishihara Shintaro announced his resignation as Tokyo Gov in order to re-enter national politics, although the semantics could be argued over: many assert... Continue reading
Posted Oct 28, 2012 at Garren's blog
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17th October: Liars, Thieves, Islands, Flower Pots
17th October More than a month since the last posting, and the blog is whimpering in the corner due to neglect. Well, that is an indication of how much of a toll 23 days in India took of my system, and left me attempting to make some sense out of... Continue reading
Posted Oct 17, 2012 at Garren's blog
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9th September 2012: Clean sweeps for one and all
9th September 2012 The blog has been dormant for far too long. This has been partly due to an overload of events in Japan, where relations with China and Korea managed to ‘out-amaze’ the complex of nuclear disaster-tsunami recovery-political fragmentation that is Japan’s domestic socio-political situation. Partly, however, it has... Continue reading
Posted Sep 9, 2012 at Garren's blog
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21st August: Tragedy far away, right in front of you
21st August The news of the past week has naturally enough been dominated by various illegal visitors to the Senkaku Islands, and the legal visits of politicians to another island and a shrine. So many visitors and so much news. Japan is considering the major step of referring the issue... Continue reading
Posted Aug 21, 2012 at Garren's blog
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15th August: The End, the Beginning, and the Legacy
15th August With so much to write about in the past 24 hours the starting point is perhaps the trickiest. Perhaps we should start at the beginning, which in this case is the end. 15th August is the start for India and South Korea, being the national independence days for... Continue reading
Posted Aug 15, 2012 at Garren's blog
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13th August: Blog Back, Wonder Wiggo, and Putin's Puppy
13th August After more than a month off, the blog is back. The summer took its toll, with a rather busier schedule than had been hoped for, and less work done, as well as few chances to add anything to the blog. However, it was an interesting month personally, and... Continue reading
Posted Aug 13, 2012 at Garren's blog
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6th July 2012: No News, Good News, No Good News
6th July 2012 The big news of the past week has been that Ozawa Ichiro wants to be Prime Minister (not news), that the Dai-ichi nuclear explosions and leakages of March 2011 were caused by smug nuclear industry culture, lax safety culture, and poor government supervision and crisis management (really,... Continue reading
Posted Jul 6, 2012 at Garren's blog
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2nd July 2012: All Change Please!
2nd July 2012 The end of June saw me in Edinburgh, at a conference, where I met wonderful people from all over the world, including even one from Edinburgh (hello Sarah!), but one of the oddities for me was that despite the huge number of sessions with China focused papers,... Continue reading
Posted Jul 2, 2012 at Garren's blog
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