Edo Naito - The Japan Times

November 20, 2025

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Meta

Edo Naito

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara holds a news conference at the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday. Kihara is leading a new Cabinet-level panel to review foreign-national related issues.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Nov 18, 2025

Fixing immigration without sparking xenophobia

Don’t lump long-term, law-abiding foreign residents in with new arrivals.

A maiko walks down a street crowded with tourists in Kyoto. Challenges that come with a massive influx of overseas visitors and foreign nationals buying up real estate are just some of the immigration problems that have become hot-button political issues in Japan.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Nov 11, 2025

Government and bad actors are at the root of the foreign national issue

Japan has experienced an explosive increase in overseas tourists since the COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted, and its global appeal as a travel destination has grown.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrives in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Oct 30, 2025

How is Takaichi doing after a week at the helm?

The Japanese public's reaction to her first week as prime minister has been overwhelmingly positive.

Komeito chief representative Tetsuo Saito speaks during a debate with leaders of other political parties at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo in July. His party exited the ruling coalition with the ruling-LDP after 26 years, citing concerns over political donations and transparency.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Oct 17, 2025

Is Komeito’s split with the LDP really about political funding?

Was Komeito negotiating in good faith or looking to undermine the Takaichi administration before it even commenced?

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.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.

A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo

By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports