The Commissioner

Winter-Spring 2001
Volume 8, Number 1

Inside this Issue:

From the Executive Director

Highlights of the September 2000 Grantmaking Session

New Priorities for Support of Joint Research Projects

Bridging Foundation Reaches Halfway Mark

CULCON XX To Meet In Los Angeles in May

A Salute to the Creative Artists Fellowship Exchange Program

Two events have conjoined in profound impact on the US government’s foreign affairs operation: consolidation and transition. Consolidation refers to the merger of foreign affairs agencies with the State Department last year, but the effects are still felt throughout the foreign affairs community in Washington, including the Commission. We noted in a previous newsletter that consolidation itself would not affect the Commission, which remains an independent agency, but it has brought with it a loss of much of the institutional memory of the traditions of cooperation the Commission enjoyed with the former USIA over many years. We are working hard to establish linkages with newly formed elements inside the State Department that are critical to the operations of the Commission.

At the same time, the new administration has arrived, and with it, the transition to many new appointments among the highest ranking officials in foreign affairs policymaking. Once again, the Commission is not immediately affected by this transition, given that the commissioners serve set terms, and the Commission staff members serve in career status positions. Nevertheless, later this year new appointments will be made as our current commissioners rotate off at the end of their second and final terms. That process will be affected by both consolidation and the transition, and we are working to make certain that it will move forward smoothly and in a professional way. We look forward to announcing the names of new commissioners later this year.

Among our current commissioners, we note with pleasure that both our chairman and vice-chairman have assumed new positions. Dr. Wood, as of January 1, has become President of the United Board of Christian Higher Education in Asia, a foundation operating out of New York. Mr. Fukushima became President and CEO of Cadence Design Systems, Japan in fall, 2000, a Silicon Valley corporation that supplies electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services, with Japan headquarters in Yokohama. We wish both Dick and Glen the very best in their new ventures.

For our part, staff is occupied with preparations for the next CULCON plenary session to be held in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National Museum in May. Both the Commission and its private-sector partner, the US-Japan Bridging Foundation, will hold their spring meetings in Los Angeles in conjunction with this event. This is the first time in CULCON history that it will meet outside Washington – a tradition created at the 1999 plenary session, when the Japan CULCON panel convened outside Tokyo for the first time, in Okinawa. This will also be the Commission and the Foundation’s first meetings outside Washington, and we look forward very much to the change in venue. You will find articles on the workings of all three organizations inside this newsletter.

For all readers who will be attending the annual Association for Asian Studies meeting in Chicago in March, the Commission will host an open forum to discuss its programs at 12:30 PM on Saturday, March 24 at the meeting site. We will also serve a buffet lunch and invite all our friends and readers to join us. This opportunity to hear the ideas and opinions of members of the Japan studies community helps the Commission keep its programs of support for Japanese studies in close touch with the needs of the field. Please come and make your thoughts known to us.

In January, the Commission published a new edition of its series of biennial reports and an updated version of its program guidelines, including new language concerning priorities in its support for joint research projects: Japan-United States Friendship Commission: Biennial Report 1999-2000 and Japan-US Friendship Commission: Program Information January, 2001, available at www.jusfc.gov. Please contact the office if you would like hard copies of these publications.

Finally, a housekeeping note: the Commission’s lease on its current quarters expires later this year. We plan to move in July from this location to one nearby with larger space at lower cost. As we approach the move, we will give our friends and readers ample notification of the change. Please check the Commission’s web site for the most current information.

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Japan-United States Friendship Commission Grants
Approved at the September 15, 2000 Grant-making Meeting

·Creative Artists Fellows, $30,000

·The International House of Japan – US/Japan Creative Artist Fellowship Program, ¥21,280,00

·Opera Theater of St. Louis – The Tale of Genji: An Invitation to Japan, $50,000

·Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese – Infrastructure Support for the Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese, $83,000

·Center for East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania – The 2001 Faculty and Curriculum Development Seminar on Japan, $143,500

·Columbia University, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture – The Japan-US Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, $19,617

·Northeast Asia Council of the Association of Asian Studies (NEAC/AAS) – NEAC/AAS Grants for Japanese Studies, $67,792 & ¥3,600,000

·Social Science Research Council – Program of Grants for Advanced Research on Japan, $82,500 & ¥6,000,000

·American Enterprise Institute – National Financial Reform and Restructuring in Japan and America, $30,000

·Purdue University – Supporting Families, Supporting Fertility, $26,772 (FY’01) $10,293 (FY’02)

·University of Washington – Beyond Bilateralism: US and Japanese Cooperation and Competition in Asia $41,629 (FY’01) $48,644 (FY’02)

·Congressional Economic Leadership Institute – 2001 US-Japan Educational Exchange Program, $80,000

·George Washington University – GWU US-Japan Economic Agenda 2001 Legislative Exchange Program, $110,539 and ¥1,950,000

·The International House of Japan – Facilitation of US-Japan Exchange Activities in Japan, ¥8,500,000

·The National Association of Japan-America Societies – 2020 Vision: A Digital Road Map for Policies and Priorities in the US-Japan Relationship in the 21st Century, $54,761

·National Bureau of Asian Research – Japan-US Discussion Forum, $32,580

·American Studies Association – Japan-US Dialogues across the Pacific: Globalization and American Studies, $4,000 and ¥1,050,000

·Economic History Association – Economic History Association, Building Economic History Bridges between Japan and the United States, $7,870 and ¥2,061,600

·Organization of American Historians – Short-term Residencies in Japan for US Historians, $14,938 and ¥2,507,460

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At the September, 2000 Commission business meeting, the commissioners reviewed the Commission’s programs and priorities based on the results of discussions with several groups of outside experts on various aspects of Japan-US relations. They concluded that the basic structure of Commission programming remains as valid now as when they established it four years ago. They also reaffirmed the priorities for Commission support within that basic structure, as outlined in the Commission’s guideline to its programs, Program Information January, 2001.

One area of change did emerge – in Commission support for high-priority research projects in policy analysis and Japanese studies. Throughout the discussions convened earlier to review Commission programs and priorities, discussants focused on the need to identify the emerging new generation of leadership in every area in the basic structure of Commission support. They advised the Commission to bring that new generation into play with the on-going US-Japan dialog in a substantive way. The commissioners took that advice to heart and applied it first and foremost to their support for research projects, whether in basic research in Japanese studies or in the application of research to policy issues. As a result, the Commission published the following language to announce its new priorities in considering proposals for research projects. (This language is taken from Program Information January, 2001.)

Potential applicants are urged to consult with Commission staff about research topics and project formats before submitting proposals.

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Less than three years ago the Commission created the US-Japan Bridging Foundation to raise scholarship funds to send US undergraduate students to study in Japan. The goal was to raise $2 million within five years in order to send at least 400 students to Japan. The scholarships provide financial ‘incentive’ to help close the gap of 48,000 Japanese students coming to America to study versus around 2,000 American students going to Japan.

Congratulations go to our generous donors who have now put us over the halfway mark of our fund raising goal. With a total of $1,116,000 donated to date, the Foundation has awarded scholarships to 91 students to study in Japan. We will be able to send more students than ever before for our next round of scholars who will be selected for the fall of 2001. We seek scholarship applications twice a year. Each time we have received approximately ten times as many applications as we can award, so we know the demand is there. Our stipends generally make the financial difference that enables students to realize their goal of going to Japan to study.

JUSFC and the Bridging Foundation are committed to ensuring that America’s young people will be prepared to assume leadership roles in the future in all aspects of trade, security, cultural and educational relations between Japan and the United States. The Foundation is extremely pleased that one of our corporate donors has also decided to sponsor its own scholarship program. Also, a recent scholarship recipient has been offered a job after graduation to work for one of our donor firms in Japan. We look forward to more successes of this kind. Thus, we believe we’ve come a long way towards our goal of introducing more US undergraduate students to Japan. Their study abroad will prepare them for leadership roles in the future.

Many thanks to our generous donors: The Freeman Foundation, Goldman Sachs (Japan), IMCA, Lockheed Martin, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Morrison & Foerster Foundation, Northwest Airlines, Oracle, Philip Morris, Shinsei Bank, Teredyne, The Starr Foundation, Weyerhaeuser, and members of our Board of Directors.

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The next plenary session of CULCON – its twentieth – will meet in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National Museum on May 10-11, 2001. This is the first time that CULCON will meet outside Washington, DC in the United States. Los Angeles was chosen both for the facilities that the Museum could offer as the meeting site, and the multiethnic character of Los Angeles. The Japan Panel held CULCON XIX in Okinawa in February, 1999 and stressed the unique character of Okinawan culture through such means as a pre-CULCON symposium on national identity and cultural identity, Okinawan cultural presentations, and a lecture by a noted Okinawan ethnomusicologist. For its part, the US Panel plans to reciprocate by highlighting a number of the many multicultural communities of Los Angeles and their contributions to American culture.

The formal agenda of CULCON will focus on a review of achievements in the 1990s in the areas of student exchanges and information access. Central to the plenary session will be a demonstration of a prototype of the Digital Cultural Resource, a new web site planned by CULCON in Okinawa in 1999, that will amass a digital archive of materials relating to Japan-US educational and cultural relations in the past fifty years. While providing links to other sites that promote understanding of Japanese culture and American culture as such, the new web site, called Cross Currents, will focus on the interaction of Japanese and American culture and society in this period and the achievements they have produced through that interaction. The web site will be appropriate for a general audience, but its primary target will be K-16. It will be accompanied by numerous teaching tools.

In addition to these discussions, CULCON panelists will deliberate on what new projects CULCON wishes to undertake in the future.

Readers who are interested in attending this event should contact the CULCON secretariat by e-mail at culcon@jusfc.gov. We will be pleased to extend an invitation to the open sessions to you.

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With support from the Commission, the Japanese American National Museum of Los Angeles will open an exhibition featuring the art of selected participants of the joint JUSFC/NEA Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship Program, in conjunction with the plenary session of CULCON XX. The opening at the Museum will take place on the evening of Thursday, May 10, 2001. Major support for the event has been provided by Oracle Corporation.

The exhibition will feature the works of three women participants in the program – Beliz Brother of Seattle, Mie-ling Hom of Philadelphia, and Kim Yasuda of Santa Barbara. All three will create installations, each in her medium of choice, specifically for the show and the Museum space. In addition, the Museum curators will assemble a large inventory of materials and ephemera collected in Japan by the over 100 artists who have now participated in the Program since its inception. The purpose of this "exhibition within the exhibition" is to help provide a historical, artistic and psychological context for the major works on display. In conjunction with the exhibition, which will last through August, 2001, the Museum will feature several of the Fellows in public discussions of their work and the impact of cultural exchange on the artist’s sensibilities and aesthetics.

The opening event on May 10 promises to be memorable. A number of performing artists from the ranks of past Fellows will be on hand to entertain, as will be Christopher Blasdel, the Program’s long-time facilitator in Japan and accomplished shakuhachi artist. The artists will use the dramatic backdrop of the Museum’s facilities for staging their performances. Dr. Richard Wood, Chairman of the Commission, will use the occasion to highlight the Program and the values of cultural exchange, as well as to thank the many sponsors who have made the Program and the evening’s event possible.

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