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Displaying results 51 to 60 of 69.

Breaking Japanese Diplomatic Codes »

David Sissons and D Special Section during the Second World War

Publication date: September 2013
During the Second World War, Australia maintained a super-secret organisation, the Diplomatic (or ‘D’) Special Section, dedicated to breaking Japanese diplomatic codes. The Section has remained officially secret as successive Australian Governments have consistently refused to admit that Australia ever intercepted diplomatic communications, even in war-time. This book recounts the history of the Special Section and describes its code-breaking activities. It was a small but very select organisation, whose ‘technical’ members came from the worlds of Classics and Mathematics. It concentrated on lower-grade Japanese diplomatic codes and cyphers, such as J-19 (FUJI), LA and GEAM. However, towards the end of the war it also worked on some Soviet messages, evidently contributing to the effort to track down intelligence leakages from Australia to the Soviet Union. This volume has been produced primarily as a result of painstaking efforts by David Sissons, who served in the Section for a brief period in 1945. From the 1980s through to his death in 2006, Sissons devoted much of his time as an academic in the Department of International Relations at ANU to compiling as much information as possible about the history and activities of the Section through correspondence with his former colleagues and through locating a report on Japanese diplomatic codes and cyphers which had been written by members of the Section in 1946. Selections of this correspondence, along with the 1946 report, are reproduced in this volume. They comprise a unique historical record, immensely useful to scholars and practitioners concerned with the science of cryptography as well as historians of the cryptological aspects of the war in the Pacific. “This publication fills an important gap in the present available knowledge concerning code-breaking in Australia during World War II. It also gives overdue recognition to the important contribution made by David Sissons to this subject”. — Professor John Mack, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney.

East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 5, Number 2, 2013 »

Publication date: June 2013
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. The East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum (EAF) and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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Asia-Pacific Security »

Policy Challenges

Edited by: David W. Lovell
Publication date: May 2013
Since September 11, 2001, our newspapers have been filled with the ‘war on terror’; our governments have mobilised their resources for ‘homeland security’; and people everywhere are braced for more terrorist attacks. Yet while the new threat is genuine, we must not lose sight of the continuing security concerns in the Asia-Pacific. Tensions persist on the Korean peninsula, in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea, and in Kashmir. The region is well supplied with weapons of mass destruction and may face an arms race, and there are a range of pressing human security issues. Likewise, the strategic realities of the region remain linked with US power, and with the emergence of China as a key regional player. The book examines the developing strategic relationships in the region, and clarifies the dilemmas for Australian policy-makers as they try to balance genuine engagement with the region against a long-standing and valued alliance with the United States. Emerging from discussions between the Shanghai Institute for International Studies and the University of New South Wales at ADFA, Asia-Pacific Security has a particular relevance for foreign-policy professionals and scholars of the region. Printed copies of this book may be ordered from ISEAS publishing.

Japan's Failed Revolution »

Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform

Publication date: May 2013
Japan’s Failed Revolution: Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform asks why, despite all the high expectations, the Japanese public’s desire for economic reform, and leadership of a majority coalition in a parliamentary democracy, the reformer Prime Minister Koizumi has not achieved the economic reforms expected of him since he surprisingly attained power over a year ago. To unravel this ‘puzzle’, Aurelia George Mulgan eschews the simplicities of both cultural and rational choice explanations and systematically tests the propositions in the comparative literature on ‘failed reform’. The result is one of the best books ever written about contemporary Japanese politics. It explains how, despite British-style parliamentary institutions, Japan’s very ‘un-Westminster’ traditional policymaking process involving the ruling party and the bureaucracy’s structure and linkage has stymied and will probably continue to stymie even a sincere and active Prime Minister’s best reform intentions. This book should be read by all political scientists, journalists, economists, and students interested in contemporary Japan. Ellis S. Krauss Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies University of California, San Diego. The author takes a scalpel to dissect Japan’s dysfunctional political system. She shows with wonderful clarity and depth of knowledge why the Koizumi reforms are not succeeding, and why revolutionary political change is needed as a precondition for economic recovery. The book should be required reading for anyone involved with contemporary Japan. J.A.A. Stockwin University of Oxford.

East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 4, Number 3, 2012 »

Publication date: October 2012
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. The East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum (EAF) and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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Financing Higher Education and Economic Development in East Asia »

Edited by: Shiro Armstrong, Bruce Chapman
Publication date: November 2011
This volume addresses important issues to do with access to higher education and different models of its financing in the East Asia region. It is enriched by diverse perspectives from vastly different starting points and by the historical and institutional settings in the region. The issues are set out in the context of the value of higher education in economic development and how it contributes to the capacities to adopt and adapt to new technologies and undertake institutional innovation. The established and well-functioning higher education loan and financing systems, such as those in Australia, and the experience of different systems tried—both in East Asia and in the United States—are brought to bear in this volume.

Michi's Memories »

The Story of a Japanese War Bride

Authored by: Keiko Tamura
Publication date: September 2011
This book tells the story of Michi, one of 650 Japanese war brides who arrived in Australia in the early 1950s. The women met Australian servicemen in post-war Japan and decided to migrate to Australia as wives and fiancées to start a new life. In 1953, when Michi reached Sydney Harbour by boat with her two Japanese-born children, she knew only one person in Australia: her husband. She did not know any English so she quickly learned her first English phrase, “I like Australia”, in the car on the way from the harbour to meet her Australian family. In the last fifty years, she brought up seven children while the family moved from one part of Australia to another. Now, in her eighties, she leads a peaceful life in Adelaide, but remains active in many ways. Her voice is full of life and she looks and sounds much younger than her age.

Double Vision »

Asian Accounts of Australia

Publication date: May 2011
Do Australians care about what their Asian neighbours think of them — and does it matter if they don’t? This collection of essays reveals that admiration for Australia is not widespread, particularly among Japanese and Chinese commentators. And how our Asian neighbours perceive Australia is important: perceptions have a powerful effect on the way different societies respond to one another. As part of the Asian Accounts of Australia project, this volume addresses a much-neglected issue and presents the views of pre-eminent scholars on how Australia is perceived among Chinese and Japanese and what this means for our future. Can Australia make the most of its opportunities to be well regarded and influential in China and Japan or will we be dismissed as a derivative culture, ignorant about our region?

East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 3, Number 1, 2011 »

Publication date: April 2011
East Asia Forum Quarterly grew out of East Asia Forum (EAF) online, which has developed a reputation for providing a platform for the best in Asian analysis, research and policy comment on the Asia Pacific region in world affairs. EAFQ aims to provide a further window onto research in the leading research institutes in Asia and to provide expert comment on current developments within the region. The East Asia Forum Quarterly, like East Asia Forum online, is an initiative of the East Asia Forum (EAF) and its host organisation, the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research (EABER) in the Crawford School of Economics and Government in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University.
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Ethnography & the Production of Anthropological Knowledge »

Essays in honour of Nicolas Peterson

Publication date: February 2011
Professor Nicolas Peterson is a central figure in the anthropology of Aboriginal Australia. This volume honours his anthropological body of work, his commitment to ethnographic fieldwork as a source of knowledge, his exemplary mentorship of generations of younger scholars and his generosity in facilitating the progress of others. The diverse collection produced by former students, current colleagues and long-term peers provides reflections on his legacy as well as fresh anthropological insights from Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Inspired by Nicolas Peterson’s work in Aboriginal Australia and his broad ranging contributions to anthropology over several decades, the contributors to this volume celebrate the variety of his ethnographic interests. Individual chapters address, revisit, expand on, and ethnographically re-examine his work about ritual, material culture, the moral domestic economy, land and ecology. The volume also pays homage to Nicolas Peterson’s ability to provide focused research with long-term impact, exemplified by a series of papers engaging with his work on demand sharing and the applied policy domain.