From the Editor in Chief
This is the inaugural issue of the electronic magazine Japan Echo Web. Last year, as part of the review of government programs conducted by the administration of Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio, it was recommended that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs halt its purchases of public-relations magazines. So the ministry decided that it would stop buying the English-language journal Japan Echo and the Chinese-language Yueyang Jujiao: Riben Luntan, contracting instead for the production of online journals in these two languages by outside organizations—to be selected not under a single-tendering contract but through competitive submissions of plans in response to a “request for information.” Japan Echo Inc. won the competition to produce the journals for the current fiscal year (April 2010 to March 2011), and so we are now launching the online publication of Japan Echo Web in English and of a sister journal in Chinese.
According to the operational specifications that MOFA set forth in its request for information, the purpose of the online publication is “to transmit information widely to foreign countries through a website concerning the policies and thinking of experts relating to Japan’s diplomacy, politics, economy, society, culture, and other topics.” And at least for the current fiscal year this is to be accomplished by presenting English and Chinese translations of works by experts and others, including essays, analyses, reviews, dialogues, and interviews. However, the content is to be determined by an outside editorial board, and it has been agreed that, as was the case with Japan Echo: “In order to keep the publication from being government propaganda, though the views of the Foreign Ministry are to be considered, the editor in chief is to have final say over the editorial content.”
The editorial board meets around the middle of every month. It consists of me, Shiraishi Takashi (executive member, Council for Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet Office; president, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization; visiting professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies), as editor in chief, and the following members: Kojima Akira (senior research fellow, Japan Center for Economic Research; former chief editorialist, The Nikkei), Kondō Motohiro (professor, Nihon University Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies; former editor in chief, Chūō Kōron), Nariai Osamu (professor, Reitaku University, economics), Takahara Akio (professor, University of Tokyo, modern Chinese politics), Takashina Shūji (professor emeritus, University of Tokyo, director, Western Art Foundation), Takenaka Harukata (professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, comparative politics), and Watanabe Hirotaka (professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, European studies).
When we were publishing Japan Echo, the editorial board would pick a number of specific section themes for the articles to be carried in each issue concerning such fields as foreign policy, politics, the economy, society, and culture, and in each section we strove to present a substantial collection of articles of various sorts, including essays, interviews, and dialogues. Our bimonthly publication schedule made it possible for us to put together such collections of articles. With Japan Echo Web, the situation is somewhat different. Though the journal is still a bimonthly for formal purposes, we intend to take advantage of the flexibility provided by online publication and post four or five new essays or other pieces on our website each month, with this From the Editor in Chief column and a Voices of Japan section, consisting of an interview on a topic of interest by Kōno Michikazu (former editor in chief, Chūō Kōron), posted on a bimonthly basis. This means it will be difficult to put together sections like those in Japan Echo focusing on specific topics. And we will no longer be able to offer the essays, often including substantive commentary, that we formerly asked members of the editorial board to write as introductions to such sections.
