The Japan-United States Friendship Commission, an independent federal agency, supports training, education and information management to help prepare Americans to meet the challenges and opportunities in the US-Japan relationship of the 21^st century.  It works through providing grants to non-profit entities in the following areas:

—Japanese Studies in the United States

—Public Affairs/Education

—The Study of the United States in Japan

—The Arts

The Commission, 2003-2004

Chairman:
Dr. Richard J. Samuels* **
Ford International Professor of Political
 Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Vice-Chairman:
Dr. Amy V. Heinrich* **
Director, CV Starr East Asian Library
Columbia University

Members:
The Honorable Bruce Cole
Chairman
National Endowment for the Humanities

Dr. Richard E. Dyck**
President
TCS Japan, KK

The Honorable Dana Gioia

Chairman
National Endowment for the Arts

The Honorable Patricia De Stacy Harrison* **
Assistant Secretary of State for Educational
 and Cultural Affairs
US Department of State

The Honorable James A. Kelly**
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian
 and Pacific Affairs
US Department of State

Dr. Linda K. Kerber* **
May Brodbeck Professor in Liberal Arts
University of Iowa

Mr. Theodore R. �gRegge�h Life, Jr. * **
Filmmaker

Ms. Doris O. Matsui**
Senior Advisor
Collier, Shannon Scott PLLC

The Honorable James McDermott
United States House of Representatives

The Honorable Thomas E. Petri*
United States House of Representatives

The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, IV*
United States Senate

Mr. Francis Y. Sogi**
Life Partner
Kelley Drye & Warren

Mr. Frank P. Stanek**
President
Stanek Global Advisors

Dr. Patricia G. Steinhoff**
Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Hawai�fi

The Honorable Sally Stroup**
Assistant Secretary of Education for Post-
 Secondary Education
US Department of Education

Staff:
Dr. Eric J. Gangloff
Executive Director

Ms. Margaret P. Mihori
Assistant Executive Director

Ms. Pamela L. Fields
Assistant Executive Director, CULCON

Ms. Sylvia L. Dandridge
Secretary

*Members of the Executive Committee
**Members of the US CULCON Panel

A Message from the Chairman

I am pleased to present the Japan-US Friendship Commission�fs biennial report for Fiscal Years 2003 and 2004.

During the period of this report, the Commission streamlined its programs into four categories and began the practice of offering three-year grants to selected grantees.  By offering three-year grants, the Commission hopes to reduce administrative burdens on the thinly-stretched staffs of the non-profit institutions that it supports.  Also, the Commission aims to help these institutions embark on longer-term planning and acquire greater leverage in approaching other sources of support.

Among the institutions supported by the Commission during this period, none is more important than the International House of Japan, a �ghome-away-from-home�h for many scholars visiting Japan.  The �gI-House�h is undergoing renovation of its facility and restructuring of its programs.  It also underwent a change in leadership in 2004, when Dr. Motoo Kaji stepped down, and Mr. Takasu Takagaki succeeded him as chairman of the board.  The I-House is an institution with perhaps the longest history of support among our grantees, and we are pleased to work closely with Mr. Takagaki during this transition.

In November, 2003, CULCON, closely related to the Commission, held its twenty-first plenary session at Sendai, Japan.  The session was highlighted by the presentation of Cross Currents, a CULCON-inspired website and teaching tool devoted to mutual influences among Japanese and American educational, cultural, artistic and social institutions of the past fifty years.  I encourage you to visit it at www.crosscurrents.hawaii.edu.  In addition, CULCON adopted as its next focus the development of global awareness in the emerging generation of US-Japan leaders.

Finally, I am pleased to report that the US-Japan Bridging Foundation, inspired by CULCON and established by the Commission to raise scholarships for American undergraduates in Japan, surpassed its original goal of $2,000,000 in 2004 under the chairmanship of Dr. Richard J. Wood.  It also surpassed its original goal of sending 500 students to study for semester- or year-long periods in Japan.  The number of students applying for scholarships continues to exceed five applicants for every scholarship.  The quality of applications remains high.  The Foundation could easily double its fundraising activity and still not fulfill the demand.  I remain highly optimistic about the visibility and desirability of Japan as a target for young Americans�f study and exchange in the years to come.

I would like to thank the board members with whom I have worked closely to effect meaningful change in the Commission, CULCON and the Bridging Foundation.  I would also like to thank the officers and staff for their outstanding job of managing the affairs of these organizations.

Richard J. Samuels

Chairman

February, 2005

The Japan-US Friendship Commission in 2003-2004

The Japan-United States Friendship Commission (�gCommission�h) is pleased to submit this report on its twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth years of operations for the period October 1, 2002 to September 30, 2004, which corresponds to the federal Fiscal Years 2003 and 2004.

Background and Overview

The Japan-US Friendship Commission is an independent federal agency, dedicated to providing support for research, training, education and exchange between the United States and Japan.  In passing the Japan-United States Friendship Act (PL 94-118) in 1975 to establish the Commission, Congress acknowledged the unique character and importance of the relation-ship between Japan and the United States, and in particular the need to strengthen its foundation through educational and cultural exchange.  It was searching for a means to develop the knowledge, the leaders and the friendly associations that in turn would increase the likelihood that any problems arising at the national level could be resolved on a basis of mutual under-standing and respect.

Thus the Congress established the Commission, a unique federal agency in that its purpose is to promote understanding with a single foreign country.  In the Friendship Act, Congress also established the Japan-United States Friendship Trust Fund, an endowment denominated in both yen and dollars with a combined value of approximately $36M at the exchange rate then in effect.  These two funds represented a portion of the money paid by Japan to compensate the United States for post-World War II assistance, and for certain public facilities on Okinawa at the time of the reversion of the Ryukyus.  The former payment became the yen fund, and the latter the dollar fund.  The Commission was authorized to invest the Trust Fund in government obligations, and to expend the interest earnings, subject to annual appropriation, and up to five percent annually of the principal of the Fund to carry out the purposes of the Act.  In 1982, the Act was amended to permit the Commission to invest any gifts it may receive and to spend the principal and interest earnings from gifts without reference to the appropriations process.  The Act was amended again in 1998 to make the dollar and yen funds interchangeable, allowing the Commission to seek the highest return on its investments in government obligations in either or both of the two countries.

Although governmental, the Commission operates much like a private foundation.  It is composed of a board of eighteen commissioners and a permanent staff of four officers.  The Board is divided equally between nine senior representatives of the United States government from the legislative and executive branches, and nine private citizens, including the chairman.  Of these eighteen, twelve members, including the private citizens and the representatives from the Departments of State and Education, serve ex officio on the Commission by virtue of their appointment to CULCON, a bi-national advisory board to the two governments in educational and cultural affairs.  The Board's responsibility is to manage the Trust Fund by investing it and using the proceeds to make grants to institutions in the United States and Japan to develop programs of education and exchange.

The Commission�fs mission remains as valid now as when it was established.  The relationship between Japan and the United States is unique in its sheer size, in its variety and complexity, and in its mixture of cooperation and competition, friendship and rivalry.  That relationship, however, stands on the cusp of change.

The regional and global environments that surround and condition the bilateral relationship are in the process of restructuring.  Globalization has changed the terms of international trade, and this has in turn impacted the core concerns of US-Japan trade and economic relations permanently.  The consequences of this new global economic environment are still unknown.  International terrorism and the emergence of China as a great power are changing the terms of global security.  This again has profound implications for US-Japan security and political relations that continue to evolve.  The new global environment has forced both nations to examine anew the fundamental character of bilateral economic, security and political ties and to reassess their optimal management.

The history of the past sixty years demonstrates that the United States and Japan have much in common in terms of broad national objectives.  In the short term, however, each nation has its own objectives and concerns, and identification with each other�fs objectives and concerns has become more difficult in the new global environment.  Moreover, the record of the past sixty years shows that differences in thought patterns, value systems, social and economic behavior, decision-making processes and means of communication can lead to mutual misunderstanding and friction. 

There is above all a language barrier that all too often forces each nation to react to the other through stereotypes.  There is a severe imbalance in the amount of attention that the media in the two countries devote to each other.  There is, moreover, growing recognition that many of the problems that exist and persist in the relationship are not amenable to easy solutions occasioned by enhanced cultural understanding alone.  We need greater knowledge of the character and causes of these problems – knowledge that might help us craft more effective policy in our management of the bilateral relationship.  It is the Commission�fs primary purpose to help generate and disseminate new knowledge and insight, based on the results of rigorous, independent, scholarly research, that will help shape and inform each country�fs understanding of the other, both inside and outside the academy, leading in the Commission�fs view to a more sustainable and balanced relationship.

The Commission today has a new sense of purpose and a more focused program of activity to meet the conditions both of its financial management and of the bilateral relationship.  It asks that the projects it supports take cognizance of the new relationship and each in its own way contribute back to the public good that Congress envisioned and sought to embody in PL 94-118.

Program Highlights

1.  Japanese Studies in the United States

The Commission pursues as its fundamental mandate the promotion of expertise on Japan throughout the American public.  Its primary means of accomplishing this goal is through maintaining the vitality of Japanese studies in institutions of American higher education and associated professional organizations and institutions.  Thus, as has been the case in previous years, Japanese studies in the United States remained the largest single category of Commission support in this period.

During this period, the most important step the Commission took in support of Japanese studies in the United States was to institute the practice of making three-year commitments to grantee institutions that support basic activities in the field.  The Commission invited and approved proposals for three-year grants from both the Interuniversity Center for Japanese Language Studies and the Northeast Asian Council of the Association for Asian Studies.  The Commission has full confidence in the training and research programs offered by these institutions; its purpose in inviting three-year grant proposals was both to reduce administrative burdens, and to allow these institutions to leverage other sources of support with this new statement of confidence from the Commission in the quality and future prospects of their programs.  Given the success of these first two invitations, the Commission will consider issuing similar invitations to select grantees of long-standing in the future.

Another major change in the administration of the Commission�fs support for programs of basic scholarly research in the field was to shift its program of advanced social science research fellowships on Japan from the Social Science Research Council to the National Endowment for the Humanities, a constituent member of the Commission�fs board of governors.  The Commission made this decision in light of the NEH�fs continued strong support for foreign language skills and area expertise and the production of new knowledge based on the scholarly use of those skills.

The close relationship between the Commission and CULCON has also led to a high degree of coordination between Commission support and CULCON priorities, especially in Japanese studies.  In the two fiscal years under report, the most significant expressions of this close coordination were the Commission's continued support of administration of the Bridging Project Clearinghouse inside the Association of Teachers of Japanese, continued support of the innovative CULCON-initiated website Cross Currents under development at the University of Hawai�fi (under the category of Public Affairs/Education), and in particular, in-kind support for the US-Japan Bridging Foundation, which serves to raise funds to help send more US undergraduates to study in Japan, a long-standing CULCON priority.

2.  The Study of the United States

During this period the Commission continued its long-standing support of programs of exchange between members of the American Studies Association of the United States, the Organization of American Historians and the Economic Historians Association, and counterpart organizations in Japan.  In addition, it helped launch a similar exchange between the African American Literature and Culture Society and the Japan Black Studies Association with a grant to Indiana State University.  Through these programs, the Commission aims to achieve two goals:  first, to expand opportunities for Japanese academics and graduate students to interact with colleagues from the United States and develop networks for future research and exchange; and second, to help further the process of the internationalization of American studies in the United States.

Senior figures in the field in Japan have continued to express their concern to the Commission that their highest priority lies in the support of Japanese graduate students in the field, and the nurturing of a new generation to take the place of the current generation of specialists at Japanese universities as they begin to retire.  The Commission studied the issue in consultation with experts in both countries and then worked with the Graduate School for American Studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto to devise a national competition for Japanese students of American studies for funds to support field research in the United States.  The Commission funded a pilot program for this effort in FY 2002.  With the success of the pilot, the Commission continued its support of that effort with a second grant  in FY 2004.  It also provided support for graduate students through its grants to the academic associations listed above.  In addition, the Commission provided support to American studies research centers at Doshisha and Ryukyus Universities for an array of research, work-shop and conference programs.

3.  Public Affairs/Education

The Commission�fs support for activities in public affairs and education remains lively.  Through it, the Commission endeavors to meet the growing demand for information on Japan throughout the United States.  It emphasizes projects that provide education and information both to selected groups of political and professional leaders, and to the American public at large.  Projects in Public Affairs/Education fall under two general headings:  Counterpart Exchanges and Media.  The following provides brief descriptions of some highlights of the many project supported by the Commission in this category during the period of this report.

In the area of counterpart exchanges, the Commission continued to give highest priority to legislative exchange programs between the United States and Japan.  These included the US-Japan Economic Agenda Legislative Exchange Program at The George Washington University for meetings between members of the Japanese Diet and US Congress, the United States Association of Former Members of Congress for the Congressional Study Group on Japan, and the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute for support of study tours of Japan by Members of Congress and their staff.  In addition, the Commission gave support for exchanges among healthcare providers in the United States and Japan who use art as part of their therapy.  Also, it helped foster policy dialog on a trilateral basis with Korean participants through a grant to the Japan Society and with Chinese participants through grants to the Pacific Forum/Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In FY 2001 the Commission helped launch the Japan Forum at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a public on-line forum on Japan and US-Japan relations.  This pilot project to harness the power of the Internet in discussion and analysis of the US-Japan relationship proved extremely successful, and the Commission has provided support for this open discussion forum through the period under report.  In addition, the Commission provided support to the Information Clearinghouse Japan in both years to help it build a database on the worldwide web of actions taken on appeals made to local review boards overseeing Japan�fs prefectural information disclosure laws.  This database will be searchable in both Japanese and English and will provide the only analytical tool available to assess the effectiveness of this important area of Japanese legislation.

While the internet-based projects above are recent initiatives, the Commission also continued to foster its traditional public affairs programs through support for the International House of Japan, where the Commission had provided an annual grant since the latter�fs establishment for the International House�fs facilitative activities.  Also, the Commission provided support to the National Association of Japan-America Societies (NAJAS) during the period under report, to offer mentorship training to new executive directors of the regional Japan-America societies.  The Commission was instrumental in helping establish NAJAS and many of the individual Japan-America societies in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.  Many are now firmly established in their home communities, while NAJAS has established itself as the leading national voice in the promotion of closer ties between regional leadership in the United States and Japan.  The Commission was pleased to revisit these societies and reaffirm its support of their activities by helping strengthen a new generation of regional leadership as the first generation of society directors has begun to retire.

Finally, the period under review saw particularly lively Commission support for the production of documentary films on a variety of subject matters concerning Japanese society and US-Japan relations. 

4.  The Arts

The Commission continues to support projects in the arts in the firm belief that art is one of the most effective means of fostering better understanding between the two countries.  It recognizes that it must take an increasingly selective approach to funding in this field, given financial pressures in other program areas.  Thus beginning in FY 1999, the Commission set as its priority for support in the arts projects to send American exhibitions and performing arts groups to Japan.

Presentation of American arts and artists, especially at venues outside Tokyo, does not have a well-established history.  While the Commission worked to implement this priority directly, it also worked with the National Endowment for the Arts to design a structure that would take the lead in facilitating the presentation of American art in Japan.  Thus, in FY 2002 the Commission made a grant to Arts Midwest to establish the Cultural Trade Network (CTN), an office inside Arts Midwest devoted to this purpose.  The pilot program proved successful, and the Commission has continued to support the CTN through the period under report.  The Commission expects it will help not only increase the flow of American performing art to Japan, but also help leverage funding from state and local sources to support the costs of such exchanges.  Readers will find in this biennial report an increased number of grants to send American performing arts troupes to Japan, not only to venues in Tokyo, but increasingly to regional venues, facilitated in many instances by the CTN.

In FY 2003 and FY 2004 the Commission continued to work closely with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs in sponsoring the US-Japan Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship Program.  Under this program, five Fellows annually spend six months in Japan, immersed in Japanese culture and its manifestations in their fields and in training in the arts.  In addition, the Commission continued to provide support to the International House of Japan to hire an expert to facilitate the program on site. The Commission has also upgraded the program by adding a fund for resident Fellows to use for collaborative projects while they are in Japan.

5.  CULCON

CULCON (the US-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange), a binational advisory panel to the governments of the United States and of Japan, serves to focus official and public attention in both countries on the vital cultural and educational underpinnings of the bilateral relationship.  Its origins lie in discussions held in 1961 between President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda.

Beginning in 1978, CULCON became a program of the United States Information Agency, reverting to Department of State oversight with the consolidation of foreign affairs agencies in 1999.  In 1991, permanent secretariats were established in Tokyo and Washington to provide continuity to CULCON activities.  The US Secretariat was established at the Commission, given the close relationship between CULCON and Commission membership.  Since 1991, US CULCON has become a highly visible, proactive organization, emphasizing the implementation of CULCON recommendations, frequently with the Commission�fs professional and financial support.

In the 1990s, CULCON activity focused on two working groups:  undergraduate educational exchange and information access.  There also was considerable activity in media cooperation.  Breaking with precedent, CULCON held its nineteenth plenary session outside Tokyo and Washington, in Naha, Okinawa in February, 1999, its twentieth session in Los Angeles in 2001 and its twenty-first in Sendai, Japan in 2003.  CULCON XX provided the opportunity to review the work of the Digital Culture Working Group, CULCON�fs highest priority at that time.  The Working Group�fs mission was to harness the power of the Internet to CULCON�fs mission of improving educational and cultural relations between the two countries.  The product of this Working Group is Cross Currents, a web-based multimedia educational resources on US-Japan cultural and educational relations over the past fifty years.

With Cross Currents established, CULCON has turned its focus to a new subject at the twenty-first plenary session:  the develop-ment of a new generation of leaders with a global perspective and the experiences necessary to place the US-Japan relation-ship firmly in the globalized international community.

NOTE:  In the listings below, in many cases Commission support met only partial costs of the total project.  Readers interested in full descriptions of the following projects may refer to the Commission�fs web site at www.jusfc.gov, where links are available to individual project sites, or may consult with the Commission staff.

Grants Awarded in Fiscal Year 2003

October 1, 2002 - September 30, 2003