Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Sep 28, 2013
Japan and Korea: Reconciliation and redress for wrongs remain elusive
by Jeff Kingston
On the eve of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award the 2020 Summer Games to Tokyo, Seoul’s abrupt import ban on all fisheries products from Fukushima and seven other Japanese prefectures was clearly a response to public concerns about radiation spewing into the ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Sep 21, 2013
Rokkasho: nuclear white elephant or yen sucking black hole?
by Jeff Kingston
As one approaches Rokkasho, a small town of 11,000 on the remote, windswept coast of Aomori Prefecture at the very north of Japan’s main island, Honshu, one sees dozens of power-generating windmills spinning away. Aside from this ambitious renewable energy project, Rokkasho also is ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Sep 14, 2013
National humiliation: China still vanquishing, suppressing ghosts of past
by Jeff Kingston
Sept. 18 is unofficially National Humiliation Day in China, a day when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commemorates Japanese aggression and atrocities. It is a time for wallowing in the national obsession with a century of indignities inflicted on a weak China until the ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Sep 7, 2013
Don't worry: Team Abe is tackling the nuclear crisis at Fukushima
by Jeff Kingston
Even if the public remains overwhelmingly skeptical about nuclear safety in general, and anxious in particular about the impact of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on the environment, there is reassuring news that we can now rest easy. ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Aug 31, 2013
Tepco's follies, reactor restarts and awkward plutonium stockpiles
by Jeff Kingston
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) is deservedly slagged as the Keystone Cops of nuclear power, and conjures up images of Homer Simpson, the iconic nuclear safety inspector in “The Simpsons.” Perhaps it ought to adopt as its mascot Ocnus, the Greek god who personifies ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Aug 24, 2013
Gay marriage in Japan? Only over the reactionary LDP's cadaver
by Jeff Kingston
Tokyo Disneyland is an odd place to make a political statement, but the theme park now hosts same-sex wedding ceremonies. When a lesbian couple tied the knot there at a commitment ceremony in its Cinderella Castle in 2012, what was dubbed Japan’s first gay ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Aug 17, 2013
Japan's China imperative: overcoming problems, repairing relations
by Jeff Kingston
There is speculation that quiet diplomacy may lead to a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and China’s President Xi Jinping. Certainly there are good reasons to expect no meeting of minds on some crucial issues that divide the two nations, but these need ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Aug 10, 2013
Aso's Nazi gaffe tarnishes Abe's agenda for constitutional revision
by Jeff Kingston
The other night at my local sushi bar conversation turned to Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso’s comments about constitutional revision — specifically, his suggestion there is something to be learned from the way the Nazis revised the Weimar Constitution in 1933. The person next ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Aug 3, 2013
Where's the love? Japanese feel unhappy, unloved and pessimistic
by Jeff Kingston
The results of a Pew Opinion survey released in July 2013 found that the public mood in Japan is improving but remains “mostly one of dissatisfaction.” However, that dissatisfaction is 10 percent lower than the level registered in 2007 during Shinzo Abe’s first spell ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jul 27, 2013
Yasukuni Shrine: ground zero for unrepentant wartime remembrance
by Jeff Kingston
There is considerable speculation about whether Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to visit Yasukuni Shrine in mid-August. This is an especially sensitive time of the year as it coincides both with the annual Bon festival, when people honor their ancestors, and the anniversary of ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jul 20, 2013
Abe-power: Can premier deliver on promises and growth strategy?
by Jeff Kingston
Once the dust settles tonight, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party/New Komeito coalition will be in control of both houses of the Diet, promising an end to political gridlock. But with power comes responsibility, and now the pressure is on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jul 13, 2013
Kono Statement: Hit-and-run Abe vandalizes 20th anniversary
by Jeff Kingston
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pursuing dead-end diplomacy in East Asia at precisely a time when Japan most needs to shore up relations with neighbors so as to position itself well for China’s ongoing rise. Alas, he doesn’t grasp that regional reconciliation over history ...