Gregory Clark - The Japan Times

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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).

For Gregory Clark's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY

Sep 2, 2005

Commemorating a mistake

Chaos theorists like to speculate how a butterfly flapping wings in Beijing might cause an earthquake in Latin America. But history could have something even more chaotic to say -- how a Japanese soldier's toilet stop near Beijing in 1937 plunged Japan into an eight-year war with China, rescued Europe...

COMMENTARY

Aug 14, 2005

Reform mantra mesmerizes

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's decision to call a Diet Lower House election Sept. 11 solely on the question of post office privatization is curious.

COMMENTARY

Jul 24, 2005

Selling evil without a cause

If British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to prevent more London bombings, he needs to come up with some better arguments to condemn Islamic militancy. His claim that Britain confronts an "evil ideology" was both naive and foolish.

COMMENTARY

Jun 15, 2005

Free to take exceptions to 'free trade'

The harsh treatment handed out to European Union ideals by French and Dutch voters this month was in part a reaction to excessive EU bureaucracy and expansionism. But it was also a gut rejection of so-called globalization -- the foolish effort to deny economic and social differences between nations.

COMMENTARY

May 30, 2005

Western lies blackened Beijing's image

China's successful moves to improve ties with India have done more than sabotage Tokyo's hopes for an anti-China alliance with New Delhi. They have also put an end to the myth that China's alleged aggressions against India since the 1960s would prevent any rapprochement between the two countries.

COMMENTARY

May 19, 2005

Soviet concessions at Yalta

U.S. President George W. Bush rained heavily on Russian President Vladimir Putin's 60th anniversary war-end parade when he said the United States had renounced the Yalta agreement that conceded to Moscow postwar control over Eastern Europe. Putin had every right to be annoyed.

COMMENTARY

Apr 15, 2005

Shedding imposed war guilt

Tokyo is right to blame the Chinese authorities for failing to prevent damage to Japanese diplomatic and other properties during recent anti-Japanese demonstrations. But the Chinese authorities probably had their reasons. Demonstrations in China can easily turn into ugly antigovernment riots when confronted...

COMMENTARY

Mar 24, 2005

Northern Territories dispute highlights flawed diplomacy

Japan is now in serious territorial disputes with all of its neighbors -- Taiwan, China, South Korea and Russia. True, this could prove there is something wrong with all of Japan's neighbors. But it could also prove that there is something wrong in the way Japan handles territorial problems with its...

COMMENTARY

Feb 17, 2005

Racist banner looks frayed

Understanding Japan and the Japanese was never meant to be easy. This is especially true for the Japanese attitude to foreigners -- at times exclusivist and at other times extremely open. There is an answer to the seeming contradiction, but it requires outsiders to accept that the Japanese might have...

COMMENTARY

Jan 18, 2005

Same old contrived hysteria

Japan seems headed for yet another bout of emotional confrontation with North Korea and China.

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 2004

Price of exclusivity too high

"Nippon Chinbotsu" -- Japan Sinks -- was the title of a 1980s best-selling novel that predicted how massive earthquakes would push the Japanese islands below the waters of the Pacific. The drenched survivors would head for Australia.

COMMENTARY

Nov 23, 2004

Irony lost on conservatives

The Japan Times editorial of Oct. 11, titled "Almost all wrong on Iraq," strongly criticized the foreign policies of the conservative U.S. administration. But on the same day and on the same page the conservative U.S. commentator George Will was quoting heavily from a book written by two London Economist...

COMMENTARY

Oct 11, 2004

New mindset is the only salve

Japan-China relations are in trouble, again. The latest recriminations began with the fierce booing of a Japanese soccer team in Chongqing in July of this year. Few of Japan's many indignant commentators seemed to know that this large central China city had been the defenseless target of relentless Japanese...

COMMENTARY

Sep 26, 2004

Blame supply-side policies

Toyoo Gyohten was the senior Ministry of Finance (MOF) official handling international affairs back in the early '70s, and a source of wisdom to those of us trying to understand Japan's financial maze. He now heads Japan's Institute for International Monetary Affairs. In a recent address to the Aspen...

COMMENTARY

Sep 15, 2004

The Tiananmen Square massacre myth

China's recent ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping have given the Tiananmen massacre myth yet another lease of life. Most media commentators, the BBC especially, have rehashed the standard condemnation of Deng as a hardliner who instigated a massacre of...

COMMENTARY

Aug 22, 2004

Barbaric immigration policy

Japan's current campaign against visa overstayers is both puzzling and cruel.

COMMENTARY

Jul 22, 2004

Myths of intelligence exposed

One reads with anger the conclusions of the U.S. Senate report and the British Butler report on the false intelligence reporting used to justify the U.S.-British attack on Iraq.

COMMENTARY

Jun 18, 2004

Shifting rightwing goal posts

Japan's increasingly powerful rightwing has gone to some strange lengths to condemn Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent admirable efforts to improve relations with North Korea.

COMMENTARY

May 25, 2004

Iraq and the end of history

U.S. President George W. Bush says often that the American aim in Iraq is to promote something called "democracy." But what is this democracy?

COMMENTARY

Apr 27, 2004

Don't credit PM for recovery

The Japanese economy is recovering. Why? Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi can hardly take the credit.

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

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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