Hironobu Kitaoji
Academic Director
Japan Seminar House Inc
Australia

1.Introduction

We need to note three points prior to discussing this topic. First, it is difficult to generalise the three different types of free-to-air TV services:(1) Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), or the national TV services, (2) SBS, the multi-lingual TV station which broadcast NHK’s 7 o’clock evening news at 5 a.m. in the following morning, and (3) commercial channels (Channel 7, 9, and 10). In addition, programmes differ considerably between metropolitan areas and remote regions and the difference in rating by age and class make it difficult to make a quantitative analysis.

Secondly, there is the difficulty of comparative analysis. Nothing useful will be obtained by pointing out the limited resources and audiences of Australian free to air media, in terms of (1) the quality of ABC compared with the French national broadcast or British BBC, or (2) Australian TV stations scarcity of resources compared to the American news media,e.g. CNN, NBC. The only valid comparison would be weight given to Japan in comparison with those to China, Korea, Southeast Asia and South Asia, or to Asia as a whole compared to America and Europe as a whole. Here again, it is difficult to argue that news are biased or coverage is insufficient, because TV stations lack of their own sources of world news.

Thirdly, there has been a rapid increase in the last fifteen years in general TV viewers’ knowledge about Japan -- if the expression ‘general’ means anything without statistical averages being provided. The relative significance of TV as an information source has been reduced due to the rapid expansion of tourism, working holidays, trade and investment, as well as the development of other forms of media, e.g. cable TV, internet, e-mail, DVD, etc. There is little need to introduce TV viewers to general knowledge on Japan today. There seems to be a general trend that the TV coverage on Japan is getting more and more limited to such areas as political incidence, economic performance and natural disasters, rather than the modern life styles or traditional cultures. In short, the fact that there seems less coverage on Japan indicates the increase in the general knowledge on Japan. For example, the fact that there are hardly any special issues on England is neither the reason nor the cause of Australian lack of understanding or of interest in it. In other words, there is little correlation between the frequency of TV coverage on Japan and the general knowledge on Japan.

2.TV coverage and the general knowledge on Japan before 1990

We shall compare first those topics which have often been covered and those which have not.

These observed differences derive partly from the limitations of TV as a media that puts emphasis on incidental issues, but they may also be founded in the Australian national character and its specific historical circumstances. We shall concentrate our consideration here on the manner in which TV programmes are made and the way commentators handle the issues which derives from the latter factors, as the former tends to be common among English speaking countries due to the similar news source.

First, we shall summarise the historical changes in the Australian identity and their view on Japan. The White Australia Policy that characterised Australia since Confederation in 1901 through the Pacific War was based on the fear of Japan and other Asian countries, rather than ignorance. This view didn’t change evenduring the Anglo-Japanese alliance at the beginning of the twentieth century or in the cooperation by the Japanese navy that carried Anzac Corps to Europe during the WWI. The sign of the change at last was observed in the 1960’s with the trade expansion policy to Japan by the McEwan government, but the decisive change was made by the adoption of multi-culturalism by the Whitlam government. Before then, public opinion on Japan had been changed by the British entry to EC and the increase in imports of Japanese cars, electric goods, office machinery and tourists.

There were, of course, negative reactions to the Japanese economic advancement as well. In particular, direct investment in real estate during the bubble period of the latter half of the 1980’s flared the fear of, and encouraged a cautious attitude towards Japan. The TV stations often took up this issue and warned caution. The university academics often spoke about ‘Japanese imperialism.’ However, government’s attitudes either at the federal or at state level remained pro-Japanese; they indeed encouraged adoption of Japanese as the first foreign language to be taught in primary and secondary school curricula. In terms of proportion to the total number of students, Australia became the leading nation that favoured Japanese language education. It should be noted that there are even government schools where 20 per cent of education is given in Japanese. The reason why there are far more learners of Japanese than those studying Chinese or Korean rests on the fact that Japan is the only advanced country in Asia. All the concepts of the modern western civilisation were translated in Japan in the late nineteenth century with the use of Chinese characters. These concepts are now adopted as vocabulary of daily use in the countries where Chinese character are, or were used including Korea and Vietnam. Parliamentary democracy, human rights, communist party, etc. are all “Japanese” vocabulary. As the international value system is the one deriving from the Western civilisation, the massive translation project in modern Japan was the intellectual Silk Road. Japanese language is a sort of ‘protocol’enabling to connect the West and East. The Australian TV media does not seem have sufficientlyrealised this significance.

In General terms, the attitudes of programme production on overseas include those aiming to
(1) appeal to the supremacy of their own country,
(2) learn from the success stories from other countries and good ideas in other cultures, and
(3) enlighten the viewers on global issues, such as environment, peace, trade, poverty,medicine, and human rights. In Japan, the second attitude has always been dominant, but the third type special programme aiming to enhance humanistic concerns to the developing nations. In Australia, however, the overwhelming attitudes in Australian tradition are aiming to enhance the self-identity by emphasising the institutional and cultural backwardness of Asia. Certainly, Australia, with the population of 20 million and GDP of US$60 million, lacks enough resources to exhibit international leadership in competition with a huge country like Japan which is six times as populous and has an economy which is eight times bigger. Nevertheless, conservative attitudes of TV programme producers should be criticised in Australia, where such leading ideas as humanism, egalitarianism, democracy, safety concerns, social welfare, quality of life, are more strongly ascribed than in Japan.

3.Special Programmes on Japan

Compared with the 1970's, the rapid economic growth of Japan and the 1980's with extraordinary speculative boom, the special programmes on Japan after 1990 were clearly reduced in Australia TV channels. They used to deal with the myth of the Japanese culture from martial arts and bonsai to business management, but such programmes were not made in the last fifteen years. The Japanese economic recession is obviously a factor; it is also caused by the shift of Australian interest in Asia to other areas due to three new factors: (1) significant structural difference with the newly rising Southeast Asia, Korea and China, (2) possession of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan, and (3) the confusion of the Middle East and terrorism. Since 9.11 in 2001, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism substituted the Middle East issue which was once culminated the Gulf War in 1990 and Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995. In Australia opposition to Afghan and Iraq Wars as well as anti-American sentiments are much stronger than in Japan, but the Media did not criticise the Japanese policy of following the US as the Howard government took similar view with the Koizumi government.

In the recent years, special issues on Japan are mostly limited to those related to the Pacific War of sixty years ago. Those programmes became more conspicuous as those on advanced technology and those on the traditional art were reduced. Every year, they repeats the same film clips on the cruelty of the Japanese army, the comfort women, human experiments in Manchu, the stupidity of the strategy of the battle of Midway and the Coral Sea, the maltreatment of POW in Singapore and in railway construction in Burma, the bombing of Darwin, the ferry sank in Sydney harbour. The older generations continue to enjoy the same special programmes on the age old special issues featuring the Japanese army’s behaviour during WWII.This phenomenon represents not only the laziness of the programme producers, but that younger generations and the middle class are less dependent on free-to-air TV as both information sources and entertainments, due to the development of cable TV and the internet. TV in Australia today is the getting more or less a media for older people and the poor classes; TV is seen more as a declining industry as the movie industry once was. Its value as advertising media was reduced and thus there is increasing pressure for cost-cutting.

The Australian TV coverage on political situations in non-English speaking countries is very limited. The frequent changes of government after the scandal of Prime Minister Uno in 1989 were only briefly mentioned on the TV news. Indeed there is no surprise that Japanese domestic politics were paid little attention, in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Chinese democratisation movements, e.g. Tiananmen Square Incident. Even the break of the monopoly of power by Liberal-Democrats was not properly discussed, not to mention such names as Kaifu, Miyazawa, Hosokawa, Hata and Murayama. The situation didn’t change even in the late 1990's, when Hashimoto, Obuchi and Mori governments were more stable and lasted longer. Luckily, Japan did not cause many political issues of international concern. However, since 2001, Prime Minister Koizumi captured the attention at the Australian TV media, as his personality stood out in the summit meetings. His name is well known among the general public.

4.Japan in the International Economy: 1990-2005

The dramatic burst of the Japanese bubble economy in the 1990's was not adequately handled in the Australian TV media. This is understandable as even the Japanese had mixed views as to how long the depression would last. As far as the commentaries on TV are concerned, the Australian confidence in the Japanese economic and technological strength was not shaken seriously at least in the first five years. However, the main reason why the stall of the Japanese economy gained little attention was because the Australian economy as a whole did not suffer much from its impact. In parallel with the Japanese recession, The Chinese economic growth which began in 1991 exceeded 10 per cent per annum during 1992 and 1995. The Australian economy was benefited by this in two ways. Firstly, the rise of the new world factory enabled to secure export market for Australian raw materials. Secondly, it increased the domestic demand particularly with cheaper textile and electric goods to the price-sensitive Australian market. The Japanese recession was not such a major issue from the Australian point of view, compared with China emerging as the world’s sixth largest economy, as far as the size is concerned, by the year 2000, surpassing Canada and Italy, and exceeding France and England to become the fourth largest, by 2005.

In the early 1990's, there was also a high expectation of the economic growth of ASEAN countries and the APEC union, partly as a counter-measure to somewhat exclusive but successful European Community. The idea of the Asia-Pacific Region shares the future became popular in Australia. However, the Australian government was involved with the controversy with Dr. Mahathir, the Malaysian Prime Minister who sounded excluding Australia from the Asian Bloc. When the Australian media was frustrated by the ambivalent Japanese attitudes to this issue, the Asian Currency Crisis occurred. Beginning in Thai in 1997, it spread to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia, and resulted in such major changes as dissolution of Korean conglomerates and the fall of the Suharto government in Indonesia. Pessimism prevailed over the regional integration similar to the European Community as the economic, political and cultural backwardness became more evident through the Independence movement in East Timor, political instability of South-East Asia and nuclear experiments by India and Pakistan.

Just as the Japanese economic recession reduced special programmes dealing with Japanese cultural uniqueness, The Chinese economic growth ironically enhanced the view emphasising the Chinese backwardness. The increase in the Chinese economic reality through the trade, the Australian investments in China and Chinese students in Australia China made Australians realise the strength of the Japanese economy in comparison. If China’s prosperity is only based on the price competitiveness of an under-rated currency, it is destined to be replaced by India. Chinese per capita income is about the level of Indonesia, which is approximately one twentieth of Japan’s. Regional inequality exceeds ten times in China; the underdevelopment of infrastructure became evident, and science and technology, cultural achievements lag behind Japan. The crucial problem is the Community Party monopoly. In addition to intransparent bureaucracy, the Australian media is critical to the extreme nationalism as evidenced in the oppression of the Hong Kong economy, to betray international trust on the condition of return under "the one country, two systems," as well as political interference over Taiwan. In contrast, Japan played a leading role with North America and West Europe in the Uruguay Round to extend the Tokyo Round, which had established multi-lateral trade system. The Australian media property evaluated the Japanese role in establishing and maintaining the new trade system agreed in 1993 including agricultural products and intellectual property rights.

5.Social and Cultural Issues: 1990-2005

The main TV news on Japan in the 1990’s included Kobe’s earthquake and Sarin attacks, HIV scandals (the use of non heat-treated blood derivatives) became major news in 1995 from Japan. In all these cases, Australian media blamed the response of the Japanese government as well as the lack of concern on safety issues in Japan, although the handling of the HIV issues by Naoto Kan, the Minister of Health and Welfare somewhat saved Japan’s bad reputation in the health and safety in following year. However, the nuclear accident in Tokai Village’s power plant in 1999 was reported with strong criticism against the official terminology adopted to soften the nuance – “criticality accident.” Even in the case of the accident on the Fukuchiyama Line, the Australian media also questioned the effectiveness of the typical Japanese solution – “rewriting operation manuals to prevent re-occurrence.”Recently, the Australian TV pointed out that the Japanese government was the last to act on banning asbestos among all developed countries, and criticised the Japanese political attitudes to put a greater weight on vested interest of companies than on the national health.

In Australia, conservationists and animal lovers have strong support. The media coverage on the 12 Japanese companies engaged in tropical rain forest cutting and trading and the two whaling companies portrayed the Japanese as greedy and cruel people. It has been argued about the possible lack of accountability of the Japanese government insisting to defend the vested interests of such a small number of companies at the cost of such bad reputation to Japanese as a whole. Annual Meetings of the International Whaling Commission have always been reported. IWC was established in 1946 by 15 member countries, but the anti-whaling group increased by inviting 25 nations since 1972, to vote successfully in favour of moratorium on the commercial whaling in 1982. Compared with the principle of “the intelligent mammals must be conserved, the Japanese view of whale as a food resource has little support in Australia. However, Japanese companies have continued the “research whaling” and used ODA funds to include pro-whaling Caribbean countries.Australia, aiming to extend the whale sanctuary has been directly opposing Japan in meetings including those at Kyoto in 1993 and Shimonoseki in 2002. The entire effort including the Hiroshima movement, Kyoto Protocol and World Expo with environmental themes is outweighed by the whaling issue alone.

Australians have particularly strong enthusiasm in sports. Melbourne’s Sumo championship in 1997 had an extraordinary media response. This was followed by the direct full-case broadcasting of the Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998 and World Cup in 2002. The most well-known Japanese athlete today is Naoko Takahashi, who won the women’s marathon in the Sydney Olympic Games. When she was not selected, the Australian TV media portrayed an evil image on the Japanese Athletic Association. However, Ichiro Suzuki is not well known because the Australian media is not so interested in the Major League Baseball in America.

Before the 1990’s, Japanese culture was understood mainly by such traditional items as Bonsai, Shakuhachi, Origami and martial arts. There were also strong interests in Japanese life-style, including cuisine, Sake, Kimono, Futon, Tatami, Shoji, Japanese gardens and hot springs. These were often broadcasted in TV and actually incorporated into the life style by some enthusiasts. Japan Seminar House, which was established in 1985, had a model Japanese house with extended educational facilities and a Japanese garden constructed by the hands of volunteers. In the peak years in the early 1990’s 7,000 primary and secondary students visited for day seminars, and close to 2,000 matured students studied Japanese language and culture per year. TV programs were also made and visiting Japanese artists made performances in its theatre every year.

In the last 15 years, there has been also a boom in sushi, animation films, comics and J-pop music. Japanese fashion designers are also well known, and often introduced on TV.Commercial stations, too, occasionally introduce Japanese advanced technology and vulgar Japanese pop culture in order to keep the support of younger generations.SBS began to broadcast several contemporary Japanese films a month, in addition to classics by Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. Other Japanese contributions to the arts, architecture, music and literature of universal value are hardly covered in TV. The role of modern Japan in bridging the Asian cultural heritage to the universal value originating in the West is not yet well understood.

6.Institutional and Cultural Misunderstandings and Re-evaluation of Japan:

Despite the recession in the 1990’s, Japanese tourists overseas kept increasing from 10 million in 1990 to 18 million in 2000. However, those visiting Australia stayed between 0.5 and 0.8 million, indicating relative loss of Australian value from Japanese point of view. In contrast, Australians travelers to Japan, including English teachers, increased dramatically. Due to the general increase in knowledge about Japan, those TV programmes which present Japan as a mysterious Oriental country has disappeared.

However, there still exist considerable institutional misunderstandings, in which the most serious is about the position of Tenno as a symbol. Japan is still seen as if it is an empire, or at least a constitutional monarchy, due to the translation of ‘Tenno’ as ‘emperor’. This is because the popular sovereignty means republic in English, not just a vague democracy. The Yasukuni Shrine issue revives the arguments on Japanese war crimes and the ‘state shintoism’, the continuity of the Great Japanese Empire and the contemporary polity becomes an issue in TV commentary. The death of Hirohito was bound to be big news that might have reminded public on the WWII, but media didn’t have time to cover this issue thanks to the news of the fall of the Berlin walls in 1989 and German unification in 1990. Dispatching the Self-Defense Force overseas also contributed to the persistence of institutional misunderstandings.

During a meeting between visiting Prime Minister Howard and Koizumi, anti-Japanese demonstrations in China occurred. The news programme called “Date Line” was even handed, showing understandings to the Chinese fear on the one hand but critical to Chinese hegemonism on the other. They also pointed out that Japanese public opinion stayed calm to this, showing greater maturity in international politics. Each political unrest in Asia indirectly provides impression of Japan’s similarity to Western society. Islamic fundamentalism and institutional backwardness in China made the Australian media realise the institutional and cultural similarities between Japan and Australia. There is now a solid recognition that Japan is the only nation in Asia sharing values on human rights and intellectual property rights.

The Australian TV assumed an onlooker attitude to the Japanese proposal of UN reform. It was not so much because of the lack of expectation to Japanese leadership, as its expectation to the UN is not as high as in Japan. The United Nations is the extension of the Allied rule of the world, as much as the exclusive nuclear club. To include Japan and Germany as permanent members of the Security Council goes against its fundamental nature, and might lead to a rewriting of the history. Wasn’t the reason why the leaders of Germany, Japan and Italy, were invited after 30 years since the end of the WWII for the G6 Summit meetings at Rambouilet in 1975 with the US, UK and France because the UN Security Council could not handle such difficult issues as the oil crisis, currency crisis, the North-South problem and trade imbalance? The United Nations is as powerless over American military adventure as it is in controlling international economy, which should be better handled by G7, WTO, GATT, OPEC, IMF and World Bank.

Australian TV news covered on Japan’s role in the G7 Summit and contribution to developing nations. Naturally, resurrection of the old prejudices will revive when Japan’s self-insistence on the UN reform and Constitutional revision in order to enable Japan to engage in military confrontations. As long as Japan concentrates, however, in furthering structural reforms, advancing transparency, developing science and technology, engaging in environmental problems and those areas for other countries in Asia harder to achieve, Australian televised images on Japan will more accurately resemble reality.

Profile

Dr. Hironobu Kitaoji
B.A (ICU), MA (Texas), PhD (ANU)
Born in 1943 in Tokyo, he went to the United States as a Fulbright scholar after graduating from ICU. He conducted research in the Torres Strait, France, etc. while working as a university academic. He established Japan Seminar House, Inc. in 1985 in Melbourne. He is a co-author of the Modern History of Oceania with his late wife, Dr. Yuriko Kitaoji. His publications extends to literature, e.g. “the Goddess and a Fly” under a pseudonym Kishio Yanagi.