Central Themes for a Unit on Japan
in the World Cultures Social Studies Curriculum

Japan in Global Context
[suggested time: 3-4 lessons]

• Japan and the World
• The Future of the World
• Conclusion

Japan and the World

1. Japan's relations with the advanced industrial world, including its ally the United States - Japan's enormous economic power, its lack of commensurate military power and its commitment to remaining nonnuclear, its dilemma of finding ways to take international responsibility appropriate to its economic stature, and the friction caused by Japan's economic success, are of primary importance.

2. Japan's relations with Asia and the third world -- while Japan is aligned with the advanced industrial nations of the West, it is also an Asian country. The economic powerhouse of the region, Japan is now receiving competition from other countries (the NICs). Not only is the historical relationship of Japan's imperialism and war still a living memory in the other Asian nations, but the region is divided among Communist powers like China and democratic powers like Japan.

   Japan's proper place in the region remains an issue.

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The Future of the World

1. The shape of the world -- today there is no longer a single vision of the world order, but a global set of cross-linkages. How Japan fits -- or does not fit -- into these linkages, to the West, to Asia, to Europe, and elsewhere; how we fit -- or do not fit -- into these same linkages are all issues to be considered. The emphasis here is on our common dilemma.

2. Global cultural borrowing and global economy -- the globalization of patterns that once were national or regional characterizes the world as we know it today. Now the world borrows from Japan as Japan once borrowed from the world; now every nation's inward economy is dependent upon its outward economy; now patterns of national values are everywhere faced with challenges from other cultures and places. We are all in this one together.

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Conclusion

• A summary of the six themes, how they appear and reappear throughout Japanese history, which of the themes still hold today and which no longer obtain in a globalized world order in which Japan is not just the borrower, but the borrowed from, in which habits of social closeness can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, and in which problems of Japan in the world are one of the most serious issues that Japan and the world have to confront together.

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