Short Abstract

Drawing from positionalities of the researchers, the panel focuses on providing perspectives utilizing Asian lenses and paradigms to question, interrogate and expound initial scholarships regarding the Japanese Left and its encounters beyond Japan.

Long Abstract

What views do Asians have towards the Japanese Left? While some regard it as a “failed” political movement phenomenon in Japanese and Marxist history, in this proposed panel, the presenters reveal how Asians view the Japanese Left from their positions. The first panelist will discuss the significance of studying the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) that follows the initial study of Lam Peng Er (1996). Often dismissed as "imitators" of Eurocommunism in Japan, "revisionists", "lost cause", or "moral compass", by implementing a historical materialist approach in collected materials, a proposed study in this panel counterargues that the transformation of the Japanese Communist Party from an asset of the Communist International in Asia to an independent leftist party transcends the core process of "self-formation" to Yoshimi Takeuchi's proposed concept of "Asia as Method" (Takeuchi, 2005). The second panelist expounds the perception of the Japanese Red Army’s (JRA) incident in Jakarta as reported by Indonesian mass media, breaking away from what the Western and Japanese media portrayed of the radical group. Next, the third panelist provides a Maoist point of view on the Japanese Left, examining how the general public engaged with, negotiated, or resisted leftist movements within Japanese society. This section would offer a counterpoint to prevailing discourses on the relationship between the Japanese Left and the broader social space it sought to transform. After this encounter, the fourth panelist aims to discuss the role of the Indonesian Marxist intellectual, Tan Malaka, broadening the panel discussion of how camaraderie within the Japanese Left expanded beyond Japan and influenced Indonesian Nationalism. With these research presentations, though challenging established initial findings and interpretations, the panel calls for inter-referencing the Japanese Left, as collectively done in multiple perspectives drawn from Asian perspectives.