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August 29, 2025
 

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Jesse Johnson
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2019
Chinese aircraft carrier sails between Okinawan islands
The Defense Ministry said Tuesday that China's sole operating aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, had passed through the Miyako Strait between the island of Miyako and Okinawa's main island as it ventured into the Pacific that morning.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 11, 2019
One year after Singapore summit, hopes fading for progress in U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks
One year after the handshakes, photo ops and circus-like fanfare of the first-ever summit between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, hopes that Pyongyang will soon give up its nuclear weapons have all but evaporated.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 5, 2019
'Don't test our patience,' North Korea tells U.S. as one-year anniversary of Singapore summit looms
In the latest in a spate of increasingly threatening warnings by North Korea, the country's Foreign Ministry has urged the U.S. to "change its current method of calculation" in nuclear negotiations or risk turning last year's Singapore joint declaration into a "mere blank sheet of paper."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 4, 2019
As U.S. rips China on Tiananmen crackdown anniversary, Japan takes a different tack
In an annual statement, the U.S. State Department marked the 30th anniversary of China's June 4, 1989, Tiananmen crackdown with one of its most harsh criticisms to date, delivering a scathing assessment of the massacre and praising the "heroic protest movement" — a message that stood in stark contrast...
Japan Times
JAPAN / FOCUS
Jun 3, 2019
30 years after the Tiananmen massacre, can Japan do more to keep its memory alive?
The West and Japan have sought to balance human rights concerns with reaping the rewards of economic relations with China.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 3, 2019
'Purged' North Korean No. 2 reappears at event with Kim
The apparent right-hand man of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who a report last week said may have been purged and sent to a labor and re-education camp, has appeared alongside Kim during a musical performance, state-run media said in a dispatch Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 28, 2019
Japan the new 'leader of the liberal order in Asia,' top Australian think tank says
Japan has become "the quintessential smart power" and the new "leader of the liberal order in Asia," according to a new index of power in the region published Wednesday by a leading Australian think tank.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 27, 2019
North Korea calls Bolton 'warmonger' and says halting missile tests means giving up right to self-defense
North Korea has labeled U.S. national security adviser John Bolton a "warmonger" for saying that recent missile tests by the nuclear-armed country had violated U.N. sanctions, adding that giving up the test-firings would amount to relinquishing their right to self-defense, state-run media quoted the...
JAPAN / Politics
May 26, 2019
Sumo diplomacy as Abe courts Trump, but U.S. leader's tweets may have left Tokyo unnerved
U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bromance gets stronger but the president's U.S. president's tweets on Twitter — focusing on trade and North Korea — may have unnerved Abe.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 24, 2019
North Korea vows 'fiercer' response, end to nuclear talks if U.S. continues 'hostile acts'
North Korea said Friday that nuclear talks with the United States "will never be resumed" unless Washington halts what Pyongyang said were "hostile acts" and demands of "unilateral disarmament," warning of a "fiercer" response if this continues.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 23, 2019
U.S. Navy sends ships through Taiwan Strait for eighth time in nine months
The U.S. Navy has again sent ships through the Taiwan Strait, making transits of the waterway increasingly regular amid growing economic and military acrimony between the United States and China.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 22, 2019
North Korea labels Joe Biden an 'imbecile,' in contrast to effusive praise for Trump
North Korea, which has offered effusive praise for U.S. President Donald Trump, delivered a scathing rebuke of one of his top Democratic foes, Joe Biden, for insulting leader Kim Jong Un, calling the former vice president "an imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being, let alone a politician."...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 21, 2019
Chinese defense chief close to Xi to attend key Asia security forum next month
China's Defense Minister will deliver a "highly anticipated" speech at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue next month — the first time in eight years that Beijing has sent such a high-level official to the annual security gathering, which will include a speech by the acting U.S. defense secretary.
JAPAN
May 20, 2019
Japan's MSDF kicks off second quadrilateral naval exercise in less than two weeks
The Maritime Self-Defense Force has kicked off its second quadrilateral naval exercise in less than two weeks, with warships — including Japan's largest flat-topped helicopter carrier Izumo — joining vessels from the Australian, French and U.S. navies in waters west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra....
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 20, 2019
U.S. sends warship near South China Sea flash point as Beijing and Washington spar over trade
The U.S. Navy has sailed a warship near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, a strategic flash point in the South China Sea claimed by China, in a move expected to stoke anger in Beijing as the world's two biggest economies remain embroiled in a trade war.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 19, 2019
Taiwan's top diplomat says Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper is 'commie brainwasher' that 'sucks'
Taiwan's top diplomat has ripped into the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper after it referred to the island nation as part of China in a tweet praising Taipei's passage of a law legalizing same-sex marriage.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 14, 2019
Ex-top Trump aide McMaster says accepting North Korea nukes would push Japan to debate own deterrent
Former U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster has said that the United States accepting North Korea as a de facto nuclear power would prompt Japan to debate whether or not it needed its own nuclear weapons, a claim that comes amid rekindled tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 12, 2019
North Korea warns U.S. human rights criticism pushing it in a direction Washington 'does not want to see'
North Korea has lashed out at the United States for criticizing it over human rights abuses, with the country's Foreign Ministry warning such moves were pushing Pyongyang in "a direction where the U.S. does not want to see."
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 11, 2019
Trump plays down North Korean missile tests, says launches were not breach of trust
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly touted the halt of North Korean missile tests as one of his top foreign policy achievements, has played down the significance of leader Kim Jong Un's recent decision to test short-range missiles.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
May 10, 2019
North Korea's Kim uses 'long-range strike' drill to heap pressure on Trump
North Korea's two launches of short-range missiles in just five days — part of what it said were military drills designed to bolster the nuclear-armed country's "various long-range strike means" — will heap more pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump amid stalled nuclear talks.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan Post to stop accepting some parcels for shipment to the U.S.
Japan Post's UGX will still be available for many rejected packages.
Japan aims to tighten rules for business manager visas from October
The number of foreign residents with business management residency status had reached a record 41,615 as of the end of 2024.
Tokyo releases AI-generated video of Mount Fuji erupting
A screenshot from an AI-generated video showing what could happen to Tokyo if Mount Fuji erupted
Character-crazed Japan has little appetite for Labubu
A pop-up advertisement for the newly opened Chiikawa Park in Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood demonstrates how the country is chockful of cute characters — to the detriment of trends like Labubu.
Koshien’s dark summer forces reckoning for high school baseball
Koryo High School players greet their cheering section after beating Hokkaido’s Asahikawa Shiho in the first round of Summer Koshien on Aug. 7. The school withdrew three days later as a bullying scandal enveloped the team.
Is Kishida plotting a return of the king? Or would he rather stay a kingmaker?
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chairs a plenary session at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama on Aug. 21.
Japanese prefectures break with labor ministry on minimum wage
The ministry of labor has suggested a 6% minimum wage increase, but most prefectures reporting so far are opting to go slightly higher.
Philippines quietly deepening ‘unofficial’ defense ties with Taiwan
Filipino soldiers take part in a flag-raising ceremony on Mavulis Island during a visit by the Philippines' Armed Forces chief of staff, in Batanes, the Philippines, in June 2023. Batanes, a group of idyllic islands at the country’s northernmost tip, sits about 160 kilometers from Taiwan.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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