Japanese Research

An Analysis of Japanese Think Tanks' Perceptions of China-U.S. Strategic Competition and Japan's Role

LIU Jiani

2025, 39(6): 1-17. DOI: 10.14156/j.cnki.rbwtyj.2025.06.001

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Against the backdrop of intensified strategic competition between China and the United States, Japan, as the most important ally of the United States in Asia, continues to rise in its position in the global and regional strategic layout of the United States. Selecting 32 research reports from 9 representative think tanks in Japan as samples, this study focuses on the main perceptions, internal roots, and potential impacts of Japanese think tanks on the strategic competition between China and the United States, as well as Japan's role. This will help China further strengthen its observation and analysis of Japan, and thus formulate appropriate response strategies with forward-looking thinking. Research has found that adopting a tough confrontational stance towards China at the strategic level has become the mainstream cognition of Japanese think tanks, and shows significant convergence, while there are still differences at the tactical level, especially on specific issues. The formation of Japanese think tank cognition is influenced by multiple factors such as Sino-Japanese relations and public opinion, domestic political ecology, think tank types, and expert tenure experience. This cognitive tendency not only exacerbates the Japanese governments strategic misjudgment of viewing China as a “hypothetical enemy”, leading to a more aggressive and confrontational policy towards China, but also guides public opinion both domestically in Japan and internationally to a certain extent, distorting and smearing China's national image.

Why Does the “Jingri” Phenomenon Emerge?: A Perspective Based on Japan's Cultural Economy Strategy

HUANG Zhang

2025, 39(6): 18-32. DOI: 10.14156/j.cnki.rbwtyj.2025.06.002

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Japan's cultural economy strategy has formed a four-in-one structural system, consisting of the “Cultural Industry Strategy” as the foundation, the “Nation of Tourism Strategy” as the pathway, the “Cool Japan Strategy” as the medium, and the “Cultural Economy Strategy” as the integrative platform. This strategic system transforms cultural aesthetics into consumer motivation, cultural influence into economic growth, and cultural dissemination into national identity, thereby establishing a unique mechanism for shaping “Japan's charm” on a global scale. Against this backdrop, the deep penetration of Japanese cultural products into Chinese youth groups has given rise to the “Jingri” phenomenon, which is not an accidental event but rather a structural outcome of the interaction between global cultural-economic competition and national strategies.

Practice and Implications of Japan's Community-based Integrated Care System

HAN Leijuan, OUYANG Wei

2025, 39(6): 33-48. DOI: 10.14156/j.cnki.rbwtyj.2025.06.003

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To address the challenge of an aging population, Japan has gradually developed a comprehensive care system based on specific communities. The Japanese community comprehensive care system adheres to the concept of continuous care, relying on specific community integration resources to provide integrated comprehensive care services including housing, medical care, nursing, prevention, and life support. This system features the integration of services throughout the full cycle and the collaboration of multiple stakeholders. However, it also has shortcomings such as imbalanced coverage across regions and among different groups, pressure on the sustainability of human and financial resources, and barriers to collaboration among multiple stakeholders. The experiences and shortcomings of Japan's community-based comprehensive care system suggest that promoting elderly care can focus on five key points: first, resource integration, optimizing the layout and matching of supply and demand based on living circles; second, policy coordination, using laws and planning to solve fragmentation and implementation gaps; third, stakeholder participation, activating social forces through multi-stakeholder collaboration; fourth, service stratification, prioritizing prevention to precisely match needs; and fifth, continuous care, refining services and connections throughout the life cycle to improve care quality.

Interest Demands, Practical Characteristics, and Practical Challenges of Japan's Educational Aid to Countries in the Global South

GU Xianlin, QIN Yueyang

2025, 39(6): 49-64. DOI: 10.14156/j.cnki.rbwtyj.2025.06.004

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Foreign educational aid is a crucial measure for Japan to reshape its national image, enhance its international standing, and expand its economic and geopolitical interests. The Global South holds numerous seats in the United Nations and serves as a primary market for Japanese products and a source of raw materials, exerting significant influence on Japan's political objectives and socio-economic development. Therefore, Japan implements educational aid for the Global South. In terms of strategy and objectives, Japan leverages its economic strengths and cultural characteristics as the foundation for conducting educational aid, serving as a basis to meet the demands of a politically influential nation. At the same time, it aims to stimulate domestic economic vitality, promote economic growth, and enhance Japan's soft power through such aid. In terms of aid methods, Japan emphasizes both material support and institutional and capacity-building aid. While providing essential material guarantees for aid projects, it continuously amplifies the impact of Japanese-style education on the educational development of the Global South. In terms of aid distribution, Japan delivers differentiated educational aid based on the diverse political, economic, and geopolitical values of Global South countries, addressing local economic and educational needs while empowering the structuring, stabilizing, and sustaining of Japan's relationship with the Global South. Japan has also encountered challenges related to linguistic and cultural differences and complexities across various regions of the Global South during its educational aid efforts.

Analysis of the Current Status and Trends in Ideological and Political Education in College Japanese Course Based on CiteSpace

WANG Shuaidong, LI Tenglong

2025, 39(6): 65-80. DOI: 10.14156/j.cnki.rbwtyj.2025.06.005

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In recent years, “Course Ideology and Politics” has become an important topic in the field of higher Japanese language education in China, with various achievements emerging in parallel, playing a positive role in promoting the reform of Japanese language teaching and the construction of new liberal arts. In order to systematically grasp the research trends of ideological and political education in Japanese language courses in Chinese universities, this article uses CiteSpace software to visually analyze the relevant literature included in the CNKI database from 2018 to 2024. Research has found that the study of ideological and political education in Japanese language courses in Chinese universities has roughly gone through three stages: the incubation period, the exploration period, and the expansion period, showing a development trend of continuous expansion of research scale, increasingly diverse themes, and significant improvement in depth and breadth. However, compared with the English academic community, the Japanese academic community still faces problems such as insufficient policy interpretation, serious lack of theoretical construction, and excessive homogenization of achievements in curriculum ideological and political research. In the process of promoting and deepening ideological and political research in Japanese language courses in the future, the academic community needs to adhere to keeping up with the times and strengthening the orientation of the times; emphasize innovative thinking and break through the constraints of paradigms; strengthen the literature foundation and enhance academic validity. Based on the characteristics of the discipline, we deeply cultivate theoretical construction to promote the organic integration of ideological and political education concepts in the curriculum with the reform of Japanese language teaching, and then promote the connotative construction and high-quality development of higher Japanese language education in China.

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