Gregory Clark - The Japan Times

September 10, 2024

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Gregory Clark

Gregory Clark has been around a long time (born 1936) and has done a lot of things. As a result, he likes to comment on foreign affairs, economic policies and education plus events in China, Russia, Japan and Latin America (he speaks all four languages).

COMMENTARY

Oct 20, 2009

Western media stoking conflict

A little more than a year ago, Russia and Georgia were at war over Georgia's small autonomous republic of South Ossetia. We now have two authoritative reports — one from late 2008 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE ) and the other just released by the European Union —...

COMMENTARY

Aug 26, 2009

First ban the hawks, then the bomb

This year's Hiroshima atomic bombing anniversary saw more demands for the abolition of nuclear weapons. It is a worthy goal. But does it make sense? People genuinely keen to rid the world of nuclear weapons need first do something about the hawks and hardliners whose actions often make nuclear weapons...

COMMENTARY

Jul 16, 2009

Reflecting on the lessons of Robert McNamara's war

The death of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at age 93 has reopened the debate on his role, first as architect for the Vietnam War, and then later in apologizing for it with his 1995 book "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." Since a hawk with a conscience is a rare commodity,...

COMMENTARY

Jun 11, 2009

Sri Lanka and Tiananmen: Time to accept the truth

It used to be said the first casualty of war is the truth. But today we do not even need wars to see truth destroyed. Even domestic conflicts in distant countries can do the job, with a flood of black information and news distortions produced, some causing enormous harm. The distorted interpretation...

COMMENTARY

May 27, 2009

Cross-strait gap narrows

Two things became apparent during a recent visit to China. One was the vitality of the economy; the critics who fussed over China's recent export downturn overlooked Beijing's ability to shift to a domestic demand-oriented economy. The other was the importance of Taiwan in Beijing's thinking.

COMMENTARY

May 12, 2009

Northern Territories dispute lives on self-righteous deadlock

Visits to Japan by Soviet and Russian leaders over the years have done little to break the Northern Territories deadlock — Moscow's refusal of Tokyo's demand for two large islands at the southern end of the Kuril Island chain occupied by Soviet troops in 1945, as a condition for a peace treaty with...

COMMENTARY

Apr 9, 2009

Australia and Afghanistan

So Australia's Labor Party prime minister, the Chinese-speaking Kevin Rudd, has promised Australia will stay the course with the United States in Afghanistan right to the very end. That's interesting. Canberra once also promised the U.S. it would stay in the Vietnam war till the very end. "All the way...

COMMENTARY

Mar 24, 2009

Barring the people needed

The Calderon affair — the expulsion of a Filipino couple who entered Japan illegally but whose Japanese-fluent daughter was born and raised in Japan — is seen as an indictment of Japan's confused immigration policies. And rightly.

COMMENTARY

Feb 27, 2009

Econ lessons from Japan

Searching the reasons for Japan's "lost decade" — the deflation and stunted growth said to have plagued Japan ever since the collapse of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s — has long been popular among U.S. and British commentators seeking an answer to the West's current economic problems.

COMMENTARY

Feb 15, 2009

Immorality of bushfires

Australia will recover from its recent bushfire tragedy damage. But can it recover from the shock of discovering how much of the damage was due to arson? Japan could provide some answers, though not all optimistic.

COMMENTARY

Feb 5, 2009

What's wrong with the way English is taught in Japan

The good news is that Japan's education bureaucrats realize that despite six years of middle and high school study many Japanese are still unable to speak English well. The bad news is that the bureaucrats plan to solve this problem by giving us more of what caused the problem.

CULTURE / Books

Jan 25, 2009

Larrikin notions of civilization

TRAVELS IN ATOMIC SUNSHINE: Australia and the Occupation of Japan, by Robin Gerster. Scribe Publications, 2008, 336 pp., $49.95 (cloth) Robin Gerster is a respected university- based researcher into recent Australian history. This, his latest book, is a very well-written and very detailed account of...

CULTURE / Books

Jan 25, 2009

Larrikin notions of civilization

Robin Gerster is a respected university- based researcher into recent Australian history. This, his latest book, is a very well-written and very detailed account of Australia's brief attempt (1946-1952) to occupy and "civilize" its large northern neighbor, Japan. The result, needless to say, was less...

COMMENTARY

Jan 15, 2009

Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people

"Japan girai" — dislike of Japan — is an allergy that seems to afflict many Westerners here. If someone handing out Japanese-language flyers assumes they cannot read Japanese and ignores them, they cry racial discrimination. If they are left sitting alone in a train, they assume that is because the...

COMMENTARY

Jan 8, 2009

Outlook is mixed for 2009

Looking at 2009, the good news is that the global economy is likely to recover much faster than predicted. The bad news is that global politics are likely to deteriorate much more rapidly than most expected.

COMMENTARY

Dec 8, 2008

Mumbai and Kashmir: What goes around, comes around

We were all shocked, rightly, by the Islamist attacks in Mumbai. But how many or us were equally shocked by earlier reports about the discovery of unmarked graves in Kashmir?

COMMENTARY

Dec 1, 2008

Trusting in the fiscal pump

"Learn from Japan," they said as the U.S., British and EU economies headed for their current downturns. Well, they may have learned something. But until very recently that something clearly was not enough.

COMMENTARY

Oct 27, 2008

West ganging up on Russia

Western reports say Russia is in deep trouble because foreigners are fleeing its stock market following the recent conflict in Georgia. Maybe so. But none of this was very visible to me on a recent Moscow visit.

COMMENTARY

Oct 6, 2008

Counterproductive antiterrorism

Buried deep in the U.S. Pentagon somewhere is an official in charge of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As he goes about his daily chores — organizing the floor shackles, bully guards, illegal confinements, arbitrary trials and occasional torture sessions — he no doubt thinks he is...

COMMENTARY

Sep 21, 2008

The Japanese knack for choking in a slump

Japan used to be held up in the United States as a model example, both of efficient economic management and efficient enterprise management. That economic management image disappeared with the "bubble" burst of the early 1990s.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.

Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?

By Alex K.T. Martin

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