Nippon Foundation - Controversy

Controversy

The Foundation has stated its principal commitment is "to support international humanitarian initiatives aimed at improving the social, cultural, and economic well-being of developing countries, and combating poverty worldwide." In addition, however, it has engaged in politically motivated activities such as spending millions to help support Japan's claim that Okinotorishima is an island, by building a lighthouse there and investing in a project to "grow" the island through microorganism breeding.

The grants that The Nippon Foundation makes are overseen and coordinated by the Japanese government. While no official connection exists, one article claims that the foundation’s philanthropic work constitutes an important part of the official Japanese lobbying effort to foster and maintain a favorable image of Japan - known by the euphemism "improving mutual understanding." The article states that although many Japanese institutions refrain from seeking a grant from The Nippon Foundation, the combination of reduced US funding for Japanese studies and the efforts of the Japan Lobby for many years have virtually deprived the US and other countries of an independent capability for research and teaching on Japan. Further, it contends that The Nippon Foundation has also had considerable success in reducing the range of opinion and advice on which US government policy is based.

The Nippon Foundation, alongside the United Nations, USAID, and other international aid agencies, supported a massive family planning campaign in Peru, known as Voluntary Surgical Contraception. It was later revealed that under the campaign, undertaken by Alberto Fujimori's administration in Peru from 1996 to 2000, nearly 300,000, mostly indigenous, women were forcibly sterilized. The United Nations, USAID and other international aid agencies also supported this campaign.


Read more about this topic:  Nippon Foundation

Famous quotes containing the word controversy:

    Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.
    Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)