Jeff Kingston - The Japan Times

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Jeff Kingston

Jeff Kingston lives in Tokyo, teaches history at Temple University Japan and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 1988. "Contemporary Japan" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) is his most recent book.

For Jeff Kingston's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

May 10, 2014

The Sewol tragedy: for whom the bell tolls

South Korea is a nation in mourning, sharing the unfathomable grief of parents who lost their teenage children on what should have been a festive school trip. It is a nation experiencing collective depression, where many are tormented by the heartbreaking and endless grim news about the students who...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

May 3, 2014

Obama's pivot to Asia: Rebalance and reassure

Summits are all about symbolism and optics and on that score U.S. President Barack Obama's swing through Asia was a qualified success. Another few nails were hammered into the coffin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with officials now edging toward a face saving TPP-Lite, but Americans paid little...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Apr 26, 2014

Asian paradox: Closer but cooler

The mini-Cold War between Japan and South Korea has kept Washington busy as it tries to forge closer security ties between its allies to offset the rise of China. Policymakers confront the Asian paradox of deepening distrust and conflict in tandem with widening economic and human exchanges. Relations...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Apr 19, 2014

Team Abe's alternate-reality Kool-Aid

Japan's relations with China and South Korea are in tatters, there has been no progress on dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, strains with Washington persist, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are at an impasse, whaling got harpooned and hopes for a deal with Russia on the northern...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Apr 12, 2014

Weapons for peace and proactive pacifism

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has relaxed curbs on arms exports and sees great market potential in Asia. In the Pacific Century, Asia's impressive economic growth is funding expanding defense budgets, making the region the most lucrative global arms market. Alas, it is also a region of significant flash...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Apr 5, 2014

Lessons of Fukushima: Reactor restarts are unwise

Kyle Cleveland, my colleague at Temple University Japan, recently published a report in the online Asia-Pacific Journal, "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty" that has drawn widespread media attention. Based on numerous interviews with government officials,...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 29, 2014

Unpersuasive logic for death penalty in Japan

The death penalty in Japan is imposed in cases of murder, and robbery and/or rape leading to death. In such cases, capital punishment is not mandatory and is usually only imposed in cases of multiple killings, though since 2006 this criteria has not been strictly observed.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 22, 2014

Okinawa redux: Democracy and an alliance at risk

U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy made a meet-and-greet trip to Okinawa last month, an opportunity to gauge the lay of the land and listen to some of the stakeholders in the longstanding controversies over plans to reduce America's military footprint in the prefecture.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 15, 2014

The Fukushima tragedy justifies nuclear skepticism

The findings of a Kyodo survey conducted in February this year reveal a stunning level of reluctance to restart Japan's nuclear reactors in the host cities, towns and prefectures that stand to gain from revving them back up.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 8, 2014

Tsunami zone's village culture fades into fog of history

We can better appreciate what Tohoku's shoreline villages represented now that they have been washed away and former residents are marooned in soulless temporary housing ghettoes where the greatest risks are isolation and boredom.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Mar 1, 2014

Japan's reactionaries waging culture war

The contemporary culture wars that have erupted over Japanese identity and history are undermining the country's national interests and damaging its reputation.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 22, 2014

Abe's culture wars boomerang against Japan

Japan's culture wars are heating up to the detriment of the nation. The Financial Times is right to warn that the jingoism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and attempts to stifle public debate, are grave threats to Japan's open society. Most Japanese don't want to go where Abe is trying to drag them, but...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 15, 2014

Tokyo firebombing and unfinished U.S. business

Last week in this column, I suggested that Caroline Kennedy, the American ambassador to Japan, would be well advised to get the ball rolling on U.S. apologies for past misdeeds.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 8, 2014

Blast from the past: Lucky Dragon 60 years on

Sixty years ago, on March 1, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat named Lucky Dragon No. 5 was doused by radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen-bomb test, codenamed Castle Bravo, on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Although the bomb was over 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Books

Feb 1, 2014

Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival

The title of "Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival" refers to an old Japanese proverb about making the best of a bad situation or transforming crisis into opportunity. Japan is no stranger to crisis, or to monumental "bending," but will the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 serve...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Feb 1, 2014

Can local voices derail the Super Shinzo Express?

Voters in Nago, northern Okinawa Island, threw down the gauntlet on Jan. 19 when they reelected as mayor the incumbent, Susumu Inamine, a staunch opponent of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the congested city of Ginowan in the south to the Henoko...

Japan Times

WORLD

Jan 25, 2014

'Abe-genda': nuclear export superpower

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now in New Delhi to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Indian Republic. His presence speaks volumes about closer diplomatic, security and economic ties and, at least from Tokyo's perspective, a common agenda on responding to the rise of China. India remains...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jan 25, 2014

Spinmeister Abe: crisis-mongering and distractions

The news media tends to hyperventilate because this generates a buzz that attracts attention.

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jan 18, 2014

Lexicon for today's Japan: Reading between the lies

Plowing through the news, one is often struck by the proliferation of acronyms, jargon, new names and terms. It can be a baffling experience, so I thought I would provide some explanations, keywords, synonyms, associative notions and interpretations to aid comprehension — even at risk of differing...

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Jan 11, 2014

A new-year Asian reading list to savor and inspire

At this time of year, many newspapers publish such lengthy lists of must-read books that it's daunting to even imagine them all piled up gathering dust on the bedside table. So let me narrow the field by sharing some amazing titles about or from Asia that I have enjoyed over the past year.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Things may look perfect to the outside world, but today's mom is fine with some imperfection at home.

How 'Reiwa moms' are reshaping motherhood in Japan

By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

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