THE JAPAN ASSOCIATION FOR ASIAN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES

1.Establishment of JAAPES and Its General Character

l) Brief History

The Japan Association for Asian Political and Economic Studies (hereafter JAAPES) was founded on May 5,1953. When the San Francisco Peace Treaty had just been signed and the Korean War was coming to an end, aiming at doing purely academic but comprehensive studies on Asia. The Association was not the only one which was involved in Asian studies at that time, but unique in the sense that it was politically neutral while most other similar organizations were deeply influenced by Marxist ideology and leftist movements, against the background of the political atmosphere in Japan in the early 1950s.
The membership is said to have been only about 50 when it convened its first national meeting at Keio University with two main themes nationalism in Asia and development of Asian economics. In 1957,it was authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as public service corporation (koeki hojin). It is one of the few academic associations that are officially permitted as foundational juridical persons (zaidan hojin) in Japan. Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is its competent authority, it goes without saying that the Association has never lost its academic freedom in its history of 46 years.

2) Membership

The membership has been expanding year by year since then ,particularly since the early 1980s,when the importance of Asian problems was widely recognized in this country. After the currency and economic crises took place in East and South east Asia JAAPES met another springboard and it quickly attracted younger members including overseas graduate students The Association now includes among its members over eighty Asian scholars or graduate students.
The total number or members has increased impressively over the past five years from 850 in 1994 to 950 in 1997, and further to 1040 in July 1999.JAAPES has become one of the largest academic organizations for area studies in Japan. The Association comprises members with various specialties, not only economics and political science but also history and anthropology though they share interests in Asia from Pakistan to Japan and from Mongolia to Indonesia. Not a few members also cover region-based study such as Asian NIES , ASEAN and Asia-Pacific regional cooperation. Thus it can be seen as almost equivalent to the AAS (Association for Asian Studies) in the United States, namely an association of specialists in Asia studies with a variety of disciplines.
But unlike the AAS this association is somewhat inclined toward East Asia as a focal region and China as a specific country. As the Table clearly demonstrates,
empirical evidence of the comparative distribution of Asian Studies members) specialized in East Asian studies, while 320(31percent)majored Asia. In terms of country focus, China dominated the field, accounting total. This was followed by Korea(71),Taiwan(71),Indonesia(67),Thailan by region of study in the JAAPES shows that as of July 1999,582(56percent)of total of 1033(replies to a survey of l040 academic in Southeast Asian studies and a further 88 (9percent)concentrated on research on South for 39 percent(401)of the d(62),India(57),the Philippines(46),Vietnam(43)and Malaysia(42).

2.Academic Activities

JAAPES's formal academic activities may be grouped into the following four Categories.

1)Annual Meeting or National Conventions
Its annual meetings, or national conventions, usually consist of three sessions :Free theme sessions, sub‐theme sessions for specific topics, and a common theme session with a common issue for discussion in the entire meeting .In November l996,when the 50th annua1 meeting was held at Josai University (Chiba), three sub‐theme sessions were held with these topics: socio‐economic changes in China, the automobile industry in China, and structural changes of Malaysian Politics in the l990s.On the final day of the year's annual meeting, a special panel on the topic of “Nationalization and Privatization of Enterprises in Asia" was organized by Prof. Shigeru ISHIKAWA, an emeritus professor of Hitotsubashi University. This panel invited four guest speakers, and they introduced empirical studies of the privatization process in China and Vietnam, Korea and Taiwan, India, and Central Asia. Another for scholars specializing in a variety of countries made comments on each presentation. In this panel, Prof. ISHIKAWA suggested the necessity of introducing the stage development approach into discussion on privatization schemes in developing countries, including Socialist countries. This topic was discussed again at a sub‐theme session at the annual meeting for 1997.

The 5lst annual meeting for 1997 was held at Waseda University (Tokyo) with a special common topic of Contemporary Issues of Development Theory, in which four distinguished scholars were invited to present their own views, i.e. Yujiro HAYAMl (Aoyama Gakuin University) on economic development and community, YonoSuke HARA (the University of Tokyo) on reassessment of development theory, Kiyokatsu NISHIGUCHI (Ritsumeikan University) on adaptation of development theory to the Asian economic crisis and Akira KOSAKA (0saka University) on imitational finance and development theory. This panel also invited four discussants from the fields of economic history. political economy, regional economy. and environmental economics. This panel was epoch-making in promoting development theory in relation to Asian studies. The meeting also arranged two sub‐theme sessions:1) globalization and public enterprises:privatizationII,2) democratization and general elections in Asia. These sessions had three reports each with commentaries by appointed members. In this annual meeting, JAAPES for the first time organized a special session for international academic exchange, Three scholars were invited from China, Korea and the United States to discuss the topic of “Prospect and Problems of Multilateral in the East Asian Security Order."

The 52nd meeting or the 1998 annual meeting was held at Kyoto University with a special common topic of Present Situation and Prospects of Asian Currency and Economic Crises. This special panel was organized by Toshio WATANABE (Tokyo Institute of Technology) and Kunio OSHIHARA (Kyoto University). Four guest speakers were invited to present their views and ideas on the economic crises facing Asian countries. They were Yoshihiko MOTOYAMA (Kyoto University) with critical comments on the IMF and international monetary movement, Tamio HATTORI (Doshisha University) on a Korean case study, Daisuke HIRATSUKA (Institute of Developing Economies or Ajiken) on the 2lst century type international financial crisis, and Akio TAKAHARA (Rikkyo University) on a Chinese case study. After presentation in the morning session, the four scholars made their comments and introduced a heated debate on understanding of the causes of Asian crises in the afternoon session. The meeting also arranged three sub-theme sessions including “Development Theory" and "the Concept of Social Development, "and the second international academic exchange panel on "Nuclear Weapons and Security Problems in Northeast Asia."

The l999 annual meeting will be held at Aoyama Gakuin University (Tokyo), focusing the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. This annual meeting plans to organize two international symposia on China with distinguished guests from abroad. These symposia will be joint activities with a study group of modern Chinese studies sponsored by a special program of "Scientific Research Priority Areas" by the Ministry of Education. The 53rd annual meeting also plans to arrange three other sub‐themes: 1)the Asian Currency Crisis and Its Aftermath, 2)Nationl-Building and National integration in Asia, and 3)State and Society in China.

2)Regional Meetings

The Association has two divisions, and each has its own separate regional meetings, usually at the end of May in the Higashi‐Nippon region, or Eastern part of Japan(680 members) and in June in the Nishi-Nippon region, or Western part of Japan(360mcmbers).These meetings can be said to be a copy of the annual meeting. and the larger regional meeting held in the Higashi-Nippon region usually includes two sub-theme sessions on specific topics and a common theme session with three reports.
For instance, in l997,when the Higashi-Nippon meeting was held at Hosei University, a common session was held to discuss Hong Kong and Asia today. In the case of the Nishi-Nippon region, where the Association members are fewer than in the Higashi-Nippon region, its regional meeting is also organized in the same way as the Higashi-Nippon. In June 1997,the meeting was held at Ritsumeikan University Kyoto) and discussed the common topic or China in the Post-Deng Xeroxing Era and ASEAN. .In 1998,the regional meeting of the Higashi-Nippon region was held at Chuo University with the common topic of Middle Class and Social Changes in Asia, while the meeting of the Nishi-Nippon region was held at Nagoya University with the common topic of Asian Currency and Economic Crises.

3)Monthly Seminars

JAAPES has a special program for providing members, especially those of the younger generation such as doctoral or post-doctoral students, with opportunities to present their own papers and to receive comments from members with various specialties. The so-called monthly seminars, which have been held for such a purpose for more than 15years,are held usually four to five times a year in Tokyo, and it is now planned to extend such a program to other areas. The first monthly seminar in the Nishi-Nippon region was held in 1994.The same sort of seminars is planned in the Kyushu area.

4)International Conferences

Finally, since 1989 the Association has organized international conferences, inviting foreign guest speakers from Asian countries. The first conference was held at Tokyo Metropolitan University in December l989,followed by the second one at Keio University in l991 and the third one at the University of Tokyo in 1993.
What should be noted in relation to this conference is the implementation of the AASREC (Association of Asian Social Science Research Council )'s Japan Conference, which was held in Kanagawa Science Park just before JAAPES's third international conference. When it was decided to convene the tenth council in Japan, JAAPES was requested by the Science Council of Japan to organization cooperation with other related associations: the Japanese Society for the Study of Education and so on. What is to be stressed is that the conference would not have succeeded with out organizational, and even financial support from JAAPES and its members. The conference included two sections.
First was a symposium on Environment and Sustainable Development: Social Science Perspectives with presentation of country papers. Second was a panel discussion on the subject of Economic Reforms and Democratization in Asia.
As mentioned above, inl999, the Association plans to organize international conferences at its 53rd annual meeting in relation to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Republic of China. Over ten foreign scholars will be invited to discuss the past, present and future of China at this conference. JAAPES expects to use this good opportunity to internationalize its academic activity.