The fine line between academics and propaganda

There really shouldn't be a fine line between academic research and propaganda, but every once in a while, I read something that starts out sounding seemingly scholarly, and then get to the punch line and wonder whether it is actually propaganda.

Take Japan Focus for example. Its articles are posted in serious academic newsgroups. The subjects are academic. I often recognize at least some of the contributors. The list of associates are all reputable people. All of these traits point to the makings of a solidly credentialed scholarly journal, which for the most part, I think this journal is. Although I have read some articles I did not agree with, I have also read some insightful ones.

I don't read all of the articles, but the one that struck my eye this week was an article about Japan's and China's oil activities in Africa.

The article started out neutral enough-- comparing the two countries recent pursuits for fossil fuels in Africa and some background info about the consumption/production of oil for each country.

It then goes into an explanation of recent deals Japan has made with countries in Africa-- Libya, Ivory Coast, Egypt, and Congo. (At this point, I start to wonder about the ethicality of oil attained from potentially war-ravaged countries or countries that are politically unstable, but I confess that other than keeping relatively abreast of current events, etc., I do not know too much about individual African countries, and sometimes lose track of which country is or was in a civil war.)

It also mentions countries that China is pursuing deals with--Nigeria, Angola, among others.

The article carries on like this--comparing the two countries and expounding on some of the key oil deals.

It was mostly fine until I got to this paragraph: "China does not seem to be fussy about where its oil comes from. It gets oil in Sudan, for example, despite the international uproar over the Darfur crisis. To be sure, Japan won concession rights for oil and gas in Sudan in June last year. But the winner, Systems International Group, is a company newly established by a Japanese non-governmental organization, Reliance. It plans to use the profit from oil development in eastern Sudan to finance humanitarian support in Africa."

Hmm. A negative statement about China. Do I detect a bias? It doesn't help that the author is Japanese. Furthermore, Japan isn't exactly dealing with model nations in Africa either, so who is he to point fingers? However, I continue on, willing to give him the benefit of a doubt. Perhaps he is an expert on this topic.

Then I get to this penultimate paragraph: "Unlike China, Japan, the self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia, cannot turn a blind eye to poor records on democracy and human rights in many African countries. Japan has applied strict criteria for aid provision to developing countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere in the world, with democracy and human-rights protection as basic conditions." (emphasis mine)

I stalled for a moment on "Japan, the self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia". Ok, perhaps more than a moment, since I'm taking the trouble to blog about this questionable phrase.

Who the heck--other than wartime propagandists--in this day and age would dare to refer to Japan as a "self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia"? Does Hisane Masaki actually believe that Japan is a "self-proclaimed champion of democracy in Asia"? Surely, he must know the implications of making such an assertion. Even if this happened to be true today, given Japan's history, it's really stupid to make a statement such as this in an article that criticizes China's lack of concern for human rights.

Appalled by this statement, I googled him to find out more about him and found this page, which also lists more articles by him. His credentials seem solid enough; he has worked long enough in international journalism, that one would expect him to be culturally sensitive and understand the implications of calling Japan a "self-proclaimed champion of democracy" --in Asia of all places.

Of course, it is possible that he sincerely believes this. However, if that is the case, given Japan's history in Asia, he really ought to qualify what he means by this loaded phrase. Perhaps he means that Japan is the highest contributor of humanitarian aid in Asia. (note: I don't actually know this; I'm just proposing possible scenarios of what he meant.) But then, wouldn't it be less ambiguous to just say that instead?

It's amazing how one phrase can shatter the credibility of an expert. I was ready to dismiss this article as an "informative but biased piece" on China and Japan's oil pursuits in Africa, but with this one phrase, it reads more like a propaganda/PR ad for one of these oil companies.

While I understand the idea of intellectual freedom and the importance of reading viewpoints that are contrary to one's own, reading something like this that treads a very fine line between scholarly and propagandistic made me question the editorial discretion of this journal.