Vol.58 No.1 (2006)
Contents
Articles
Saneshige Komaki “Japanese Geopolitics” and its Ideological Establishment
SHIBATA Youichi (1)
Institutional Analysis of the Contemporary Land Consolidation in the Red River Delta:
A Village-Level Study of Dong Long Commune in Tien Hai District, Thai Binh
Province, Vietnam
TRAN Anh Tuan (20)
Research Note
The Practice of Just-in-Time by Automotive Parts Suppliers in Nagano Prefecture
from the Viewpoint of Production and Logistics
KANEKO Jun, FUJIWARA Takeharu (40)
The Relationship Between Metropolitan Size and the Population Redistribution
Pattern within Metropolitan Areas in Japan from the Perspective of Diversity
among Suburban Municipalities
YAMAGAMI Tatsuya (56)
Stone Tidal Weir Fishing in the Penghu Islands, Taiwan, in the early 1910s
TAWA Masataka (73)
Meeting Report
Special Presentations in the Anuual Meeting 2005 (91)
Book Review(108)
News (109)
Notes for Contributors of the English Papers (120)
Subscription (123)
Abstracts
Saneshige Komaki’s “Japanese Geopolitics” and its Ideological Establishment
SHIBATA Youichi
(Graduate Student, Department of Geography, Kyoto University)
The purpose of this paper is to examine the ideological establishment of the geopolitics of Saneshige Komaki (1898-1990), who was a Professor of Geography at Kyoto Imperial University, and a well-known advocate of “Japanese Geopolitics” during World War 2, and accordingly a remarkable figure in the history of Japanese geography. Approaching this subject biobibliographically, I focus on the personal background of Komaki. Using his own bibliography, and through an analysis of his written works, I trace the development of his thought.
To begin with, I demonstrate the ideological background of Komaki’s geopolitics. Komaki had a great antipathy toward Western imperialism. In addition, immigration issues closely related to racial discrimination were his great concern. He held the view that geography in those days had lost its social relevance, and that the nature and culture of each land should be maintained under an indigenous order.
Next, I examine the ideological composition of Komaki’s geopolitics. His geopolitics began before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in July 1937. He asserted that “Japanese Geopolitics” was indigenous and one which attaches importance to the autonomy of Japan, after he had criticized the history of Western exploration, conventional geography, and Geopolitik. His geopolitics tried to clarify what was destroyed by Western colonization and had an historico-geographical and irrational character.
Lastly, I point out some of the positive and negative aspects of his geopolitics. The social relevance of geography, his criticism of Western colonialism and the issue of positionality in research can be seen the light of Japan at that time. On the other hand, the lack of an attitude to relativize Japan and the subjective/intuitive judgement in the reasoning process were negative aspects. However, the positive and negative are not clearly divided. “Japanese Geopolitics” has suggested important issues in connection with the political nature and the social relevance of geography and geographical knowledge, although it served to justify the aggressive wars of the Japanese Empire.
Key words: Saneshige Komaki, Japanese Geopolitics, Kyoto Imperial University, history of geography, biobibliographical study
Institutional Analysis of the Contemporary Land Consolidation in the Red River Delta: A Village-Level Study of Dong Long Commune in Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province, Vietnam
TRAN Anh Tuan
(Graduate Student, Graduate School of Letters, Kansai University)
Since Vietnam applied the “Doi Moi-Renovation” policy in 1986, and especially in 1988, the contract system between agricultural cooperatives and farmers was applied in agricultural production. Furthermore, the Land Law in 1993 indicates that farmers could use their land for the long-term (from 20 to 50 years). Therefore, land fragmentation in Vietnam has become a common phenomenon in all localities. This paper aims to provide an analysis of land reform and LC processes in Vietnam. In this regard, the study concentrates on the following issues : (1) to trace back former land reform in the period 1945-1953, in order to identify its results and errors; (2) to analyze contemporary LC in terms of an institutional analysis from the national to the commune level ; (3) to study the procedure of LC in Dong Long Commune, Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province.
The main results of this research can be summarized as follows :
Firstly, the land reform program carried out in the period 1953-1956 included 3 principal stages. The main objective of the program was to reduce the influence of colonists, feudalists and landlords by redistributing land to the landless peasants and laborers. As a result, over 810,000 hectares of land which belonged to them were confiscated, requisitioned, and purchased by the government. The land was then redistributed to 2,104,138 landless households, including 8,323,636 peasants and laborers.
Secondly, a significant result of the LC process was to reduce by 50％ the total number of land parcels in Dong Long Commune. There were two general impacts of this process : (1) farmers were able to shorten the distance from their houses to the land parcels. Therefore, labor costs as well as long-term investment were reduced, resulting in increased benefits from agricultural production. (2) Land management activities at the commune level became much more effective because of the reduction in the number of parcels as a result of combining public land into a bigger area and building up the Land Use Planning Program for long-term development.
Key words: Vietnam, Doi Moi, the Red River Delta, land reform, land consolidation, Simpson diversity index
The Practice of Just-in-Time by Automotive Parts Suppliers in Nagano Prefecture from the Viewpoint of Production and Logistics
KANEKO Jun
(Master’s Program of Education, University of Tsukuba)
FUJIWARA Takeharu
(Japan National Mail Bureau)
Recently, economic geographers have shown an interest in the spatial implications of Just-in-Time (JIT). Some research papers have emphasized the agglomeration of automotive parts suppliers around car assemblers. Others have attached importance to the dispersion of suppliers away from car assemblers in pursuit of compliant rural laborers. In this study, the authors have investigated the practice of JIT by some suppliers located around Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, in order to attempt to resolve these discussions.
The automotive parts suppliers around Ueda City are located in a distant place from each car assembler, because they were relocated from the metropolitan areas to escape war damage during World War II. The miscellaneous kinds of parts for many car assemblers are produced on the same intensively invested assembly line in a search for efficiency. The network of subcontractors has been developed in this region. Cheap labor from rural areas is utilized.
How has the JIT system been executed in such a distant location? The information about production and logistics can be exchanged immediately by electronic data processing. This enables suppliers to maintain about five days’ lead time between production and delivery. In logistics, the parts are dispatched to depots by large trucks to raise loading efficiency in middle and long distance transportation. The parts are then frequently delivered in small lots from the depot to the car assembler on schedule.
The parts suppliers which are the objects of this study have a high market share. They are relatively large-scale producers of systematized and modularized parts. This enables them to trade automotive parts with car assemblers even at a long distance and to impute transportation costs to the price of parts.
Key words: Just-in-Time, automotive parts, supplier, frequent delivery on schedule, Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture
The Relationship between Metropolitan Size and the Population Redistribution Pattern within Metropolitan Areas in Japan from the Perspective of Diversity among Suburban Municipalities
YAMAGAMI Tatsuya
(JSPS Research Fellow, Ritsumeikan University)
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between metropolitan size and the population redistribution pattern within metropolitan areas in Japan, in the period following 1965. The procedure for the analysis is as follows. First, by using the dichotomy of the central city and its suburbs, an average relationship in population growth between the two is analyzed. Next, the changes in the degree of population concentration among suburban municipalities as well as the changes in the population growth of individual suburban municipalities are analyzed. Finally, the above results are summarized, and the relationship between metropolitan size and the population redistribution pattern within metropolitan areas is discussed. In this paper, the Standard Metropolitan Employment Area (SMEA) ― advocated by Yamada and Tokuoka ― are used to delineate the metropolitan areas. The results of the analyses are summarized as follows.
First, from the analysis using the dichotomy of the central cities and their suburbs in terms of population growth, it was confirmed that the larger the metropolitan size, the faster and larger is the population dispersion.
Second, the following results were obtained from the analysis that considered the various trends in suburban municipalities. The dispersal of population initially advanced until 1995. During that period, a tendency was observed whereby the equalization of the population density distribution progressed in larger SMEAs, and the degree of inequality of population density distribution was greater in smaller SMEAs.
Moreover, a result similar to that obtained in previous research was observed as a relationship between metropolitan size and the population redistribution pattern within metropolitan areas ― population dispersion had advanced earlier, was on a larger scale, and was spatially wider with an increase in the size of the metropolitan area. Furthermore, by taking into account the variations in suburban municipalities in order to understand the spatial range as being influenced by population dispersal, it became possible to examine the spread of a sector as well as its distance from a central city. This leads to the conclusion that the sector that witnesses a growth in population is narrow in the smaller metropolitan areas.
Further, an observation of the trend from 1995-2000 in the large metropolitan areas revealed that suburban municipalities that recorded increasing trends in population reduction exhibited a tendency towards a concentration of population in the suburbs. This is a trend that is observed in small-and medium-sized metropolitan areas. If Japan continues its population decline in the near future, there is a possibility that the experience of small-and medium-sized metropolitan areas will precede that of large metropolitan areas in the future process of population redistribution within a metropolitan area.
As mentioned above, in this paper, it is possible to present some interesting findings that go beyond the scope of existing research ― findings about the relationship between metropolitan size and the population redistribution pattern within metropolitan areas ― by taking into consideration the diversity among suburban municipalities. However, the findings in this paper are restricted to the quantitative aspect of the process of change in population redistribution. Therefore, it will be necessary for future studies to verify a concrete process that leads to such a change. For example, there is considered to be a difference in the process of formation of a metropolitan area based on its population size. In order to verify this point, it will be important to explore the relationship between population growth and the change in the member of residents in municipalities within metropolitan areas. This issue will be the subject of future research.
Key words: metropolitan area, population distribution, diversity of suburban municipalities, metropolitan size, Standard Metropolitan Employment Area (SMEA), Japan
Stone Tidal Weir Fishing in the Penghu Islands, Taiwan, in the early 1910s
TAWA Masataka
(Kwansei Gakuin University)
A stone tidal weir is a traditional fishing method that is constructed on seaward slopes or within a fringing reef. It is basically a semicircle-shaped or horseshoe-shaped stone wall and the construction of it has a close relationship to tidal change. The fish swim or are driven into the weir during high tide but cannot find their way out during low tide. They are then caught in the shallow water within the weir by hand, dip net and so on during low tide.
Many types of stone tidal weirs are found mainly in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific areas. In Taiwan, they are called chio’h-ho-. According to recent intensive research, over 550 chio’h-ho-s are still found in the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait. It is said that the Penghu Islands is the most concentrated area of stone tidal weirs in the world.
A few recent reports on chio’h-ho- fishing in Taiwan have elaborated various geographical, ecological and historical perspectives. However, chio’h-ho-s have already fulfilled an economic role. During the last few decades, most of them have gone out of use with the introduction of more effective fishing methods and modernized fishing boats and gear. It is, therefore, an urgent task for researchers to study the role and function of chio’h-ho- in local small-scale fisheries and the process of their disappearance. The aim of this essay is to discuss the conditions of chio’h-ho- fishing in the Penghu Islands in the early 1910s using some papers relating to chio’h-ho- fishing rights, which appeared in documents of the Taiwan Government General. Discussion points are on fishing activity, period of construction, and ownership.
178 chio’h-ho-s were distributed in the northern part of the Penghu Islands in the early 1910s. Most of them were located mainly in semi-farming and fishing villages in Pai-sha Island and in the shore areas of solitary islands like Chih-pei, Ta-Tsang, and Niao Yu. Chio’h-ho- can be classified into three types : (1) semicircle-shape, (2) semicircle-shape with partition walls, and (3) two stone lines with a circular enclosure. Type (3) is the most advanced and efficient type.
According to the time when chio’h-ho- were constructed, the oldest ones were built early in the 18 century under the Ch’ing dynasty. On the other hand, the new ones were built early in the 20th century.
The actual possession of chio’h-ho- was shared by owners who invested their money and labor to construct them. They shared fishing rights and operated fishing by taking turns. In addition, they were under an obligation to maintain the chio’h-ho-.
In the latter part of this essay a variety of ownership and utilization patterns of 70 chio’h-ho-s in Chih-pei Island are discussed, where the author researched chio’h-ho- fishing activities in 1995.
Key words: stone tidal weir, the Penghu Islands, chio’h-ho-, documents of the Taiwan Government General, Chih-pei Island