Criticisms of The Center
Nichibunken was established against the backdrop of an increasing trade surplus with the United States in the 1980s. One of the ostensible impulses behind the founding of the center was a desire to change overseas perceptions of Japan that viewed the country as a faceless economic power. The cultural-anthropologist Ueno Chizuko sharply criticized the center as a calculated attempt at national branding. Ueno claimed that, despite the center's academic pretensions, the real purpose of Nichibunken was to improve the image of Japan in order to prevent criticism of Japanese trading practices and improve sales of Japanese goods abroad. Ian Buruma caused considerable outrage at the time for arguing in influential newspapers abroad that the establishment of the Center was part of a project designed to revamp the kind of nationalist ideology current in pre-war Japan. The center has also been criticized for promoting theories of Japanese particularism.
The appointment of Katakura Motoko as Nichibunken's fourth director-general may be seen as an attempt by the center to revamp its conservative image and distance itself from associations with theories of Japanese particularism. Katakura, a specialist in the anthropology of the Middle-East, is a relative outsider to the field of Japanese studies.
Read more about this topic: International Research Center For Japanese Studies
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