The Abe government has budgeted more than $15 million to fund Japan studies at nine universities overseas, including Georgetown and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as part of a "soft power" push to counter the growing influence of China and South Korea.
The program, the first time in over 40 years that Japan has funded such studies at U.S. universities, coincides with efforts by conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration to address perceived biases in accounts of the wartime past — moves critics say are an attempt to whitewash history.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Georgetown University in Washington will receive $5 million each from the Foreign Ministry's budget for fiscal 2015, which has yet to be enacted, a Finance Ministry official said.
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