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Giles Merritt
For Giles Merritt's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2014
Russia's wish to sideline self will shake up the alphabet
Russia is set to sideline itself from the global economy, and by doing so, it will usher in a new era in global relations. International sanctions are only the first consequence.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2008
Euroskeptics, come out and have your say
BRUSSELS — The European Union has no coherent strategy on many issues. It has only sketchy economic policies toward Russia; ambitions, but no game plan, to become a player in the Middle East; and, despite its original leadership on the Kyoto Protocol, no successor program on climate change.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2008
A vanishing Europe and lifestyle
BRUSSELS — What will it mean to be European 25 years from now? Unlike the United States, whose history as a "melting pot" has given Americans a truly multiethnic character, native Europeans are becoming an endangered species. Europe badly needs immigrants, yet is not culturally prepared to welcome them.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2007
Europe remiss in dealing with Russia
BRUSSELS — Friend or foe, or something uneasily in between? That's the question Europe is asking about Russia, and Russia about a newly aggressive Europe. President Vladimir Putin's choice of Dmitri Medvedev, Chairman of Gazprom, the gas company with an emerging stranglehold on European energy supplies, only throws this question into an even starker light.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2007
China's happy mask hides huge problems
BEIJING — China's "face" may be its Achilles' Heel. As it basks in its new status as an economic superpower — the dragon that is outpacing Asia's tigers as well as the donkeys of the West — China is mistakenly downplaying its own serious structural weaknesses.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2007
EU defies pessimists' dire predictions
PRAGUE -- As the European Union prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome later this month, the EU is widely perceived to be on its knees. European integration, is felt to have, somehow met its Waterloo in 2005, when Dutch and French referendums unexpectedly torpedoed the draft EU constitution.

Longform

High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?