战后日本的中国研究

战后初期,在日本,最先活跃民间的中国研究机构是中国研究所(简称中研)。它成立于1946年1月,由战争期间在满铁调查研究机关工作的人员、新闻记者、左翼人士等组成。中研以向日本国民介绍和宣传中国革命和新中国的实际情况为己任。关于新中国的状况、中国共产党的方针、毛泽东思想等资料除外务省以及外联团体作为内部资料收集整理以外,到50年代前半期,由中研介绍的资料占很大比重,在增进日本国民对新中国的了解和关注方面,中研所起的作用可谓不小。     

Japan's Political Leadership Deficit

Analysts have long pondered the question: 'Who rules in Japan?'. Prime Ministers who have exercised strong leadership have been the exception rather than the rule. Despite the widespread acknowledgment that Japan's political leadership deficit undermines the ability of the government to act swiftly in a crisis and to exercise international leadership in trade and foreign policy, a systematic explanation for Japan's weak political executive is yet to be advanced. While historical and cultural factors cannot be ignored, more relevant in a contemporary context are institutional factors that restrict the power of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. A parliamentary Cabinet system is not incompatible with strong leadership but, in Japan's case, the inability of the political executive to exercise indisputable authority, or indeed, merely to exercise the legitimate prerogatives of Prime Ministerial and Cabinet Office, is directly attributable to the constraints imposed by a collection of informal power structures within the ruling conservative party and by an autonomous central bureaucracy, all of which have held power away from the political executive. Various institutional remedies are currently being pursued to enhance the leadership of the executive branch. They are part of a deliberately engineered shift in power from non-elected bureaucrats to elected politicians. The reforms will also help to diminish the influence of ruling party factions over personnel selections to executive office and the ascendancy of internal policy cliques within party policymaking.