Bashing a ‘Japan-Basher’ : UC San Diego denied book grant: Get the professor?

Is the University of California, San Diego, being unfairly excluded from a book grant program because a faculty member is perceived in some places--especially Tokyo--as a Japan-basher?

The Japan-United States Friendship Commission claims otherwise, but others question its motives for being distinctly unfriendly toward UC San Diego. The campus was the only one of 13 top U.S. universities with Japanese libraries to be denied a grant renewal. The commission was created in 1975 to oversee a $36-million trust established with Japan’s payments to America for Okinawa’s return.

UC San Diego is the academic home of famed Prof. Chalmers Johnson, a past commission member, an ardent defender of the commission’s Japanese book-grant program, and a vocal and sometimes acerbic analyst well-known for his so-called revisionist views about U.S.-Japan relations. He is among a group of intellectuals labeled in some circles as Japan-bashers: They tend to call for tougher U.S. policies because of Tokyo’s perceived dithering on trade liberalization.

The commission rejected the grant request on the ground that that UC San Diego’s 10,000-volume Japanese collection is too small. But that did not seem to be a problem when the commission originally funded UC San Diego in 1988--nor two years later as part of a consortium with UCLA. And UCLA, which did receive a new grant, concentrates only on traditional Japanese studies. UC San Diego offers international relations, trade, business, economics and public policy--cutting-edge stuff. The commission claimed that the 12 that did get restored grants had collections of at least 100,000 volumes. But one recipient--Ohio State, of all places--has only a 46,000 volume collection.

As a result of what would appear to be blatant politics, UC San Diego now stands to be a lesser resource for students, scholars and businesses. All Southern California--host to the largest number of Japanese companies in the U.S.--stands to lose.