| NOTA |
(*)(English adaptation by Waku Miller) (★)(1.Matsumoto Shigeharu espoused his liberalism with unflagging passion during Japan´s militarization and aggression of the 1930s and 1940s, during the nation´s reintegration into the world community in the 1950s and 1960s, and during Japan´s waxing as an economic power in the 1970s and 1980s. 2.Matsumoto lived long enough to see his liberalist ideal betrayed thrice by events in Japan. The adversity that liberalism encountered during Japan´s early-Showa militarism. though brutal, was crude and straightforward. A more insidious challenge was that posed by postwar reconstruction. Economic growth became the yardstick for progress, and government-coordinated central planning became the framework for the rebuilding effort. Individualism took a backseat to a collectivist agenda in schools and in the workplace. Japan´s version of central planning was unsuited to a postindustrial economy in an era of globalization, and the nation had largely abandoned it by the 1980s. In its place, Japan adopted the neoliberal economic model that had long since taken hold in North America and in Western Europe. The Postwar model had succeeded famously-- the Japanese Miracle-- in raising the standard of living for all Japanese in an egalitarian manner. In contrast, Japan´s neoliberal economic model abandoned the earlier concern with equality of results. Japan had abandoned the compassion implicit in the notion of individualism that Matsumoto had embraced. And the old liberalist was anything but comfortable with that abandonment. [Excerpted from the text] ◆Underlying Matsumoto´s effectiveness (as a Shanghai-based journalist) was his genuine love for China and its people. Amplifying his effectiveness further was a trait shared by all great journalists : a nose for a story. Journalistic intuition steered Matsumoto repeatedly past the false leads of rumor and misinformation and directed him to the essence of unfolding stories. Thus did he, first among the thousands of journalists working in China at the time, learn of (Chiang Kai-shek´s detainment in the Xi´an Incident). Thus did Matsumoto become the first Japanese journalist to break the news of an international incident of historic importance. Matsumoto Shigeharu (1899-1989) was born of the nation-building fecundity of the Meiji Restoration (1868) ; grew up amid the cosmopolitan liberalism of Taisho Democracy ; and witnessed firsthand the militarization, the wartime devastation, and the postwar resurgence of the Showa period (1926-1989). He studied in the United States and in European nations in his 20s, worked in China in his 30s, and cultivated an international network of lifelong friendships. Matsumoto worked as a scholar ; as a journalist ; as an attorney ; and as the head of the International House of Japan, a platform for cultural and intellectual exchange between Japan and other nations and the publisher of this book.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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