Apr 14, 2013

A positive step in Senkaku dispute

Japan and Taiwan on Wednesday signed an agreement on fishing rights in the sea near the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, claimed by both China and Taiwan. The agreement sets aside the sovereignty issue over the Senkakus and allows Taiwanese trawlers ...

May 13, 2012

The sunny side of myopia

A new comprehensive study of eyesight around the world has found that 80 to 90 percent of secondary school graduates in East Asia suffer from nearsightedness, or myopia. The new study, published in the Lancet medical journal recently, found that neither genes nor increased ...

Apr 21, 2012

Mr. Ishihara's ill-considered plan

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced in Washington last Monday that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is in the final stage of negotiations to buy most of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from the landowner Mr. Kunioki Kurihara, a resident of Saitama. Prime ...

Apr 8, 2012

Auditing work conditions in Asia

Recently Apple computer company and one of its main subsidiaries, the Taiwan-based technology provider, Foxconn, agreed to be audited. The auditors from the independent Fair Labor Association did not look into the accounting books, but into the company’s working conditions. The investigation was one ...

Mar 23, 2012

Bowing out with a farewell of great expectation

by Tom Plate

What was most amazing to Westerners at least -and perhaps, especially, to the Chinese people — was that his comments were broadcast live on official China TV. After all, his official observations weren’t exactly pretty. Here is the back-story. In every historical movement and ...

Mar 9, 2012

Selling Japan's food and tourism

Following the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and the subsequent nuclear crisis in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan’s manufacturing sector suffered greatly due to the damage caused to the nation’s supply chains. Attention should be paid to other sectors that are still reeling from ...

Mar 8, 2012

Resources fuel tensions in South China Sea

by Michael Richardson

For much of 2010 and 2011, tensions over conflicting claims to disputed islands, maritime territory and energy resources rippled through the South China Sea, embroiling several Southeast Asian states and China in disputes that also involved the interests of outside powers, including Japan and ...

Feb 24, 2012

China's next president does his turn on catwalk

by Frank Ching

As expected, the visit to the United States by China’s leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, did not result in any policy breakthroughs. He is, after all, only the crown prince and has not yet been anointed No. 1. The trip continued a practice begun 10 years ...

Jan 25, 2012

China's limits as a role model

by Frank Ching

Forty years ago, the arch-conservative American President Richard M. Nixon shocked his country and the world by visiting communist China, a country that the United States did not recognize and whose soldiers had fought American soldiers in the Korean war. Last week, that historic ...

Jan 18, 2012

Mr. Ma wins a second term

Mr. Ma Ying-jeou, president of Taiwan, has won a second term. In elections held last weekend, Mr. Ma claimed a surprisingly large victory, besting Ms. Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Equally important, Mr. Ma’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party held on to ...

Jan 3, 2012

Unnerving year for Northeast Asia

While 2011 was “the great unraveling,” 2012 holds out the prospect of equally consequential changes for Asia, but the inflection points are visible well ahead of time. The most notable feature of the calendar will be elections that are scheduled to be held throughout ...

Dec 19, 2010

Prioritize finding MIA remains

Regarding the Dec. 12 article “Kan takes in Iwojima graves hunt”: As the nephew of an American World War II service member missing in action, I commend Japan’s prime minister for journeying to Iwojima and showing the world how high a priority his government ...