Studies of foreign countries often depend on the lure of the image of an unknown market. The lure of the China market led King George III to send his emissary, Lord MacCartney, to China to meet Emperor Jianlung in 1793 and to give the Emperor a letter as well as an enormous collection of gifts. The purpose of this envoy to China was to convince the Emperor to ease restrictions on trade between Great Britain and China. In 1816, in the chronicles of Emperor Jiaqing, foreign countries were categorized in two ways: tributary countries and trading countries. By tributary country is meant a country, usually a smaller and less-advanced country, which pays loyal respect and is compliant and in return is given many rare and precious gifts, and is thus bestowed a position in what is considered as the Pax Sinica (Latin for Chinese Peace). By trading country is meant a country which is devoid of the meaning in the Pax Sinica in Chinese understanding. England was categorized as a tributary country, whereas in English history England was portrayed as one of the Western countries which tried to open the country and ports, thereby expanding its commercial ties. According to the Jiaqing huidian (imperial chronicles) England, Korea, and Vietnam are categorized as tributary countries, whereas France, the Netherlands, and Japan are categorized as a trading countries. During most of the Qing period (1644–1911), Japan adopted the system of trading with foreign countries whereby the Tokugawa central government monopolized external commerce, which traded only with Dutch and Chinese merchants. In 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed to change the content of history. Instead of tributary-networked Pax Sinica, Western and later Japanese imperialism and colonialism started the destruction of the Pax Sinica which was replaced by Western hegemony spearheaded by England.

Japanese sociologists’ work on Japanese society from 2005 through 2010 is critically examined. Articles published in the Japanese Sociological Review (JSR) during this period are analyzed along with books reviewed in the same journal. These publications are classified by their substantive areas and types of inquiries (quantitative, qualitative, theory, etc.). ‘Culture and social consciousness’ is the area where the largest numbers of articles and books have been recognized by JSR, followed by ‘class, stratification, and mobility’ and ‘industry, labor, and organization’. Overall characteristics of sociological studies of Japanese society in Japan are summarized. The discrepancy between contemporary social phenomena and sociological research is also noted, using an example of freeters and neets, among others.

The aim of this short essay is to further reflect on sociology in Japan by supplementing discussions on the three sociological papers compiled in this volume and adding critical perspectives. Discussions, and arguments, will be provided on the three thematic categories, namely, ‘international sociology’, sociology of culture as well as language use, and the global academic market, the latter addressing not merely sociology but also other social sciences.

This paper reviews the studies of Japanese society and culture undertaken by Hong Kong-based sociologists and scholars in related disciplines. It presents information on research projects funded by the Research Grants Council, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) journal articles, authored and edited books, book chapters, non-SSCI and non-A&HCI journal articles, as well as master and doctoral theses written by scholars and graduate students associated with Hong Kong's major universities. It is found that the main topics of research are Japan's capitalist development and corporate growth, meanings and social ramifications of traditional and popular culture, education, gender, and marriage, as well as aspects of work and employment, whereas the major research methods include document analysis, ethnography, and in-depth interviews. The limited amount of research and the preoccupation with economic development and popular culture reflect in part Hong Kong's unique political conditions and the government's indifference to the pursuit of social and political policy analysis. In recent years, the growth of academic exchanges between scholars in Hong Kong, Japan, and other East Asian regions and the heightened emphasis by university administrators on academic research will hopefully bring about advancements in such academic endeavors.

During 1980–90, Japan's annual real GDP growth rate was 4.6%, but which declined to 1.2% in the 1990s. While the drop in itself is a problem, at the same time it exacerbated many other problems, namely inequality, budget deficits, and the increasing burden of an aging society.

Society is not concerned about income distribution when the economy is growing, but begins to worry about inequality when an economic slump shows no signs of ending. Moreover, prolonged recession magnifies inequality. With the employment situation surrounding young people worsening, there arose an inequality between those finding jobs and those unemployed. And, the prolonged recession led to a huge budget deficit and the accumulation of government debt. Tax revenue shrank, and the government repeatedly increased public investment in the form of economic stimulus measures, but the Japanese economy did not recover in a sustained fashion.

Japan's low growth has already continued for 20 years. Incomes of the younger and middle-aged segments of the population have not increased. Additionally, Japan is an aging society. The aged need pensions, and medical treatment and care, costs which must be borne by younger and middle-aged segments of the population, in fact those who have not experienced Japan's prosperous times.

This paper discusses issues relating to the Great Recession, inequality, and the budget deficit and burden of an aging population.

Japan's Great Recession is basically explained by monetary shocks. Just the bubble and its bursting are not solely responsible for the prolonged slump. There is no empirical evidence for the assertion that certain structural problems lessened the efficiency of the Japanese economy in the 1990s. TFP (total factor productivity) in the 1990s did not decline compared with the early 1980s. Fiscal policy and the diminution of the financial intermediary function can only explain the Great Recession in small part.

The absence of any real monetary policy hampered economic growth through the channels of stock prices and improvement in bank balance sheets. Using vector autoregressive models, the exchange rate was not found to be an important channel of monetary policy, but there is some evidence that it significantly affected output.

On inequality problems, that among younger generations is important since it will increase inequality in the future. Japan's economy will stagnate for a long time if the young are not employed and cannot garner skills.

Another important point is that the way of maintaining social stability and alleviating inequality in Japan is extremely inefficient. To construct useless dams, roads, ports, and airports is extremely costly just to give jobs to the unemployed. It would be much better to give direct assistance to those in need.

There is some reason to think that a budget deficit is not so serious a problem as generally believed, and that the important thing is to cut wasteful government expenditure and not raise government revenue. While I admit this argument carries some weight, there is nevertheless good reason to think that it is necessary to reduce the budget deficit.

Before the global financial crisis, Japan's budget deficit was controlled, and declining, but subsequently became uncontrollable. Additionally, and more importantly, an aging population demands more social security expenditure, which causes serious budget problems, but Japan does not seem ready to cope with such problems.

The selection of these topics is subjective, but I believe that these are reflected in the Japanese concerns now. Japanese academic circles do not necessarily respond to the interests of the society, but I have tried to select papers on these topics to the extent possible.

Japan's remarkable economic success especially from the 1960s to the 1980s has attracted extensive worldwide attention. However, the world's admiration has plummeted since the 1990s, when the Bubble Economy burst, bringing on chronic stagnation. Since then, the world has regarded the Japanese economy less as a desirable model and more as an evident failure with many lessons for other economies. These external judgments, positive and negative, have also affected how the Japanese perceive their own economy. This article reviews how these domestic and international perceptions of Japan's economy have varied. It situates the companion articles by Hwang (2012) and Harada (2012) in the historical context of studies of the Japanese economy. This article especially discusses one recurring fixation that muddles comprehension of factors underpinning Japan's economic success and failure: the tendency to overestimate characteristics that supposedly are specific to Japan and different from other market-oriented economies. From the 1960s through the 1980s, scholars, commentators, policy-makers, and the public insisted these characteristics were singular and significant contributors to Japan's remarkable economic development. Since the 1990s, they have considered them the root causes of Japan's remarkable stagnation. Both are exaggerations. Although some singularly Japanese attributes perhaps contributed to Japan's economic ascent and decline, it is equally plausible they did not. It is more likely that poorly conceived and executed macroeconomic policies, especially monetary policy, had greater influence on Japan's post-1990s stagnation.

This study summarizes and discusses the trends and main features of South Korean studies on Japan's economy and business since the 1960s. I consulted 271 publications (articles and books) for this study. Academic and individual publications comprise 69.7% (189 publications) of the total; public and corporate research institutes 30.3% (82 publications). Therefore, academic and individual researches constitute a majority of the publications. The most pressing issues for South Korea are those of business administration, such as Japanese corporate governance, Zaibatsu, and Japanese firms, which have been mainly studied by academic and individual researchers. The second most important issues are those of international economics such as FTA, FDI, and the trade deficit between South Korea and Japan, mainly researched by government research institutes and individual researchers. Although more interest seems to have shown in the Japanese economy and business since the 1990s, the number of Ph.D. holders who studied economics and business in Japan has been keeping very small portions compared with other majors. In order to attract more students from Korea, the Japanese graduate system for economics and business studies needs to be more globalized and competitive.