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October 14, 2025
 

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Edo Naito
A screen outside a Tokyo securities firm shows the Nikkei 225 Stock Average on Oct. 6. As Japan's financial markets reacted to Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party presidential win, much of the media's focus was on the falling yen, downplaying the surge in equities to record highs.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 12, 2025
Sanae Takaichi gets 'the Abe treatment'
Given that she is frequently labeled a "Shinzo Abe protege," the media coverage of her so far reminds me of how they reported on Abe himself throughout his second term.
Sanae Takaichi, newly elected leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, speaks during a news conference at the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 6, 2025
Four questions that determine Takaichi’s success
From breaking with Komeito to revisiting the U.S. trade deal, new Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi has the potential to shake up Japanese politics.
Shinjiro Koizumi (center), Sanae Takaichi (right), and Yoshimasa Hayashi speak at a news conference for candidates taking part in the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race in Tokyo on Sept. 23.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 30, 2025
Is this the LDP’s last presidential election?
The five LDP presidential candidates — three conservatives and two liberals — are competing to offer the most uninspiring platform.
Liberal Democratic Party presidential candidates attend a debate at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 26, 2025
'Speed dating' — with an LDP twist
It feels like one of the speed dating events that used to be on Japanese television years ago, where the candidates court prospective partners one after the other.
Demonstrators protest at the port of Mutsu-Ogawara in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, in March 1997, as a British freighter arrives with processed nuclear waste, whose fissile elements can be fabricated into new nuclear mixed-oxide fuel.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 23, 2025
Could pacifist Japan ever arm itself with nuclear weapons?
It has always been a question of having the will to act and the belief that the U.S. nuclear deterrence commitment to Japan was beyond question.
Candidates take part in the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race in September 2024 at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, including many of the contenders for next month’s contest. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 19, 2025
LDP candidates through a 'Japanese conservative' lens
The three key elements of Japanese conservatism are preserving national identity and traditions, sustaining the imperial succession and affirming the Self-Defense Forces’ role.
Polls suggest a head-to-head contest in the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential race, but powerbrokers may sideline veteran contenders to engineer a youth-versus-youth showdown that could reshape both the party and Japan’s political landscape.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 18, 2025
Whiteboarding the LDP election
As I whiteboard the election scenarios, Koizumi vs. Takaichi is the most obvious race.
Candidates for Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election stand together on stage before a debate in Tokyo in September 2024. Pictured are future Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Yoshimasa Hayashi, Sanae Takaichi, Shinjiro Koizumi and others. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 9, 2025
Ishiba’s resignation triggers a battle for the soul of the LDP
To become the next prime minister, the new LDP leader will also need to secure enough support from one or two of the other larger conservative opposition parties.
Voters look at posters of candidates for an Upper House election outside a polling station in Tokyo on July 20. The young abandoned the ruling Liberal Democratic Party for other conservative and newer parties in the recent poll. REUTERS
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 31, 2025
What is a ‘Japanese conservative’ in this day and age?
My view is that younger voters saw the LDP as a group of elderly, self-absorbed elitists who were out of touch with the issues that mattered to them.
Shinto priests holding traditional umbrellas walk to the main shrine for a ritual to cleanse themselves during the annual Spring Festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in April 2016.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 13, 2025
Dispelling the myth of Yasukuni Shrine
The shrine has been a lightning rod — especially as it has been used by some of Japan's neighbors as a convenient means to shift attention away from their domestic issues.
The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, is on display at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Virginia after restoration in August 2003.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 6, 2025
Were the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings necessary?
Was it necessary to drop the bombs on civilian population centers to demonstrate the power of the weapons?
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba addresses the media at the vote-counting center in the Liberal Democratic Party’s headquarters in Tokyo on July 20.  
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 1, 2025
Is this the end of Japan's 'big tent' parties?
The big winners of the day in the Upper House election were newer conservative parties.
Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya speaks at a rally in Tokyo on July 21, a day after the Upper House election.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 29, 2025
A fringe party or political force: Will the real Sanseito stand up?
There were a few things that might raise eyebrows, but nothing especially scary. Sanseito's published policy platform is relatively benign.
Sohei Kamiya, founder of the Sanseito, which campaigned on a “Japanese first” message and tough immigration rhetoric, speaks at a rally in Gunma Prefecture on July 6.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 23, 2025
Ignore the election hype, foreign residents are here to stay
While the number of foreign residents reached a record high last year, it’s still barely over 3% of the total population, low by international standards.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi visits a rice farm in Ibaraki Prefecture on July 9. Inflation is eating into household budgets, and higher prices are causing much concern among the Japanese public.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 18, 2025
In Japanese politics, rice is the 'third rail'
If inexperienced politicians inadvertently damage Japan’s food security, voters will send them packing.
People pray during a visit to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15, the 79th anniversary of Japan's surrender during World War II.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 20, 2025
Why only Japan is criticized for honoring its war dead
Other countries honor the ultimate sacrifice regardless of whether the war was just, later judged a mistake or involved actions that could be seen as war crimes.
The Chinese Communist Party has significantly expanded its global influence operations by using tactics like election interference, disinformation, elite capture and pressure on the diaspora to sway politics and policies in democracies worldwide.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2025
Is Beijing engineering election wins for 'soft on China' politicians?
Beijing legally requires all citizens to support Communist Party policies and views ethnic Chinese everywhere as instruments for advancing its global goals.
With Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's ruling coalition in crisis, the opposition divided and the Democratic Party for the People gaining momentum, Japan’s upcoming Upper House election could trigger a major political realignment.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 15, 2025
Elections are fast approaching, and none of the big parties are ready
With Ishiba in place, the fear that the LDP could next lose its current majority in the Upper House in July is pervasive.
In South Korea, where presidents are increasingly investigated, impeached or imprisoned, the judiciary has become a well-known pathway to political power.
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2025
Is the judiciary the weakest link in South Korea’s democracy?
It’s not unusual for lawyers to pursue personal political ambitions during their careers in democracies. But in South Korea, this has reached a level not seen elsewhere.
Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama (left), who also chairs the Japan-China Parliamentary Friendship Association, meets with Zhao Leji, the third-ranked official in the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, in Beijing on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 30, 2025
Communist China’s quiet influence on Japanese politics
China Communist Party influence operations have been embedded in the Japanese government and political structures for 75 years.
As the Osaka Expo comes to a close, what will its legacy be?
After a run-up marked by apathy, organizers soon found they had the opposite problem as crowd control became a concern.
Hypothermia in the land of the rising Sanae
Amid the election of Sanae Takaichi as Liberal Democratic Party president, and possibly the next prime minister, Japan's economy shows signs of recovery, but weak wages, a conservative corporate culture and currency issues raise doubts about a true economic thaw.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
After ruling bloc collapses, LDP and opposition scramble to find needed votes for PM
Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday after leaving the ruling coalition earlier in the day.
What if everything we think about obesity is wrong?
Recent research shows obesity may be driven by ultraprocessed and hyperpalatable foods that disrupt fullness signals and lead to overeating.
A frenetic diplomatic schedule looms for Japan’s next leader — whomever that may be
As horse-trading and speculation surge over who will be elected the next prime minister in parliament — the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Sanae Takaichi or a possible candidate put forward by a unified opposition — Japan’s next leader will be confronted with a quick succession of key diplomatic events.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
At Osaka Expo, gas giants promote a greener future. But is it a lot of hot air?
The Gas Pavilion had welcomed around 500,000 visitors by the end of August, making it one of the most popular exhibits at the Osaka Expo.
‘Takaichi trade’ starts unwinding as political calculus upended by Komeito exit
Less than a week ago, Sanae Takaichi seemed set to become Japan's first female prime minister.
‘Save the Ring’ calls intensify as Osaka Expo’s end nears
Visitors lounge on the grassy hill on the top of the Grand Ring during the 2025 Osaka Expo in the city of Osaka in May.

Podcast

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Longform

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Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building
By Patrick St. Michel

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