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Intimate Rivalsという日本と中国の外交を扱った専門書が発売されたようで、先週のJapan Timesでも書評が出ていました。

Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China: A Council of Foreign Relations Book (Council on Foreign Relations Book) (2015/04/07) Sheila A. Smith 商品詳細を見る

‘Intimate Rivals’ gives needed context to Japan and China’s volatile relationship
Only show author if their role is equal to author
BY J.J. O'DONOGHUE
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES

Over several chapters Smith addresses all the headline issues: the Senkaku Islands, maritime defense, food security and safety, and the impact of World War II on successive generations. But her book delves deeper and provides a great deal more context than a single newspaper article can.

Smith shows that all of the issues involved in Sino-Japanese relations — from territorial standoffs to “seemingly irreconcilable differences over policy” — have greatly influenced domestic politics locally. This is evident in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s move to roll back the pacifist Constitution or the debate over whether or not politicians should visit Yasukuni Shrine — visits that are as much about honoring the war dead as a symbolic act of not kowtowing to China.

発売に合わせてCFRで講演会があったようです。ベテラン研究員だけあって、質問にもユーモアを交えて答えていました。TOEICkerの方々が続々と教材を出したり、講師になったりしてきましたが、このような余裕が出てくるともっともっと幅が出てくるでしょう。Jayさんこと、早川先生みたいな方がもっと生まれて欲しいですね。



トランスクリプトも公開してくれています。１５分４０秒あたりからの質疑応答を見てみます。まずはアナウンスメントから。

HIATT: So, let's see. I'm supposed to say, please wait for the microphone and keep your questions brief. State your name and affiliation, and one question per person so other people can have a shot. Sir.
それでは、まずお伝えしなければいけないことから。マイクを待ってから、質問は短くお願いします。お名前と所属をおっしゃってください。お一人の質問は一つで、他の方にも機会を与えてください。

ハチントンの文明の衝突に絡めた質問の答えです。最初はおちゃらけた感じですが、もちろん後半はきっちりと答えています。

QUESTION: I'm Mark Kennedy, George Washington University. Long before you saw the changes, Samuel Huntington, in "The Clash of Civilizations", in analyzing the region, said that Japan was in essence a bandwagon hopper, and that they were on the board of whoever was the biggest power. And he says you can't count on Japan always being on the American bandwagon, that if China rises fast enough, far enough, that they'll jump on China's bandwagon.
Do you have a comment on bandwagon supposition a decade before you ever wrote this?
SMITH: Sometimes Sam Huntington is wrong? (LAUGHTER) Only sometimes. No, I mean...
HIATT: The meeting is on the record...
SMITH: Oh, it is. I'm sorry...　(LAUGHTER)　Rarely is Sam Huntington wrong. No, I apologize, Professor Huntington. I—you know, the Clash of Civilizations was one of those threshold books. It really got us to think differently. As a Japan scholar, I remember he put Japan in a civilization all by itself. And I always thought that was kind of curious.
But I do think, you know, we could step back with a long, long lens of 10, 20, 30 years from now. And then the answer is going to be contingent on U.S. behavior. It's really going to be contingent on where we are. Because right now the strategic bargain that keeps Japan safe, and that underpins the premises that we were just talking about, is the alliance with the U.S.
And if the order, global or regional, shifts to the extent that the U.S. is either no longer willing or able to ally with Japan and provide that partnership and that security guarantee against that rising China, then I suspect Japan will have to revisit some of those choices.
But I don't think we're going to see that tomorrow or 10 years from now. Maybe not even 20 years from now. But I think our choices are—there's contingency in there, intervening variables, if you'd like. But I think—I believe in human agency a little bit more than that large thesis would suggest.

戦時の謝罪についても丁寧に回答されていました。難しい質問に対してWe could have a very long night now, with this question.という返しは多少ベタかもしれませんが、抑えておいてもいいでしょう。

QUESTION: Barry Wood, RTHK in Hong Kong. Why do the Japanese have such a hard time apologizing for the war and convincing the Chinese, the Koreans that they mean it, when that's worked so well in the case of Germany, where they really—remorse has gotten them a long way in Europe. It seems to an outsider like myself who doesn't go to the region that often that Japan would benefit powerfully from some kind of atonement for World War II.
SMITH: We could have a very long night now, with this question. But it's a very important question, and it's a question I get asked a lot these days, because, A, I've been in Japan with a number of CFR members and others, and they are puzzled.
The short answer is Japan has apologized a lot. So, are those apologies sufficient? Are those statements of remorse sincere? Are they persuasive? So there's two parts to the question.
So the apologies have existed. So I talk a little bit in the book about the Chinese—the Japanese Emperor went to Beijing in 1992. He went, and that was very nervously viewed by many Japanese and many Chinese elites, right? It was a very successful trip. He spoke about remorse and the suffering of the Chinese people, and his remorse over that.
So, the agent of apology—I think one of the most effective agents of apology has, in fact, been the Imperial Household, right? It doesn't get wrapped into politics of apology in the same way that you witnessed the Murayama statement and then the Koisumi (ph) statement, and what we're going to see in August is the Abe statement.

4000円近くするので躊躇していましたが、TOEICの受験代よりは安いですね。時間ができたら思い切って買ってしまうかもしれません。