Japan Takes Soft-Power Push to U.S. Campus

By Yuka Hayashi. A $5 Million Gift to Columbia Follows Inroads by Chinese, South Korean Institutes. In the Japanese government’s new budget, one small item stands out: a $5 million grant to Columbia University in New York to fund a position for a professor of Japanese politics and foreign policy.
The endowment—Tokyo’s first such donation to a U.S. university in more than four decades—is part of a new push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to enhance Japan’s profile overseas. More...