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July 07, 2025
 

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Jeff Kingston
Jeff Kingston lives in Tokyo, teaches history at Temple University Japan and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 1988. "Contemporary Japan" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) is his most recent book.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 23, 2017
In Japan under Shinzo Abe, more power to the PM, but to what end?
In his final Counterpoint column, Jeff Kingston considers where Japan is heading under scandal-hit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2017
Grading Abe's flailing leadership and policy drift
In his penultimate Counterpoint column, Jeff Kingston gives Shinzo Abe a report card for the prime minister's nearly five years in office.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 9, 2017
Abe's extremism undermines Japan's interests
Alas, Japan's extremists have still not given up trying to find honor in the nation's 1945 wartime defeat and and the ideology that led to it.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 2, 2017
Happy history in China, the land of the politically repressed
Talk about negative nation branding! With the Cambridge University Press affair, Chinese authorities have really outdone themselves in drawing attention to their fear of history.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 26, 2017
Koike tests possibilities and perils of populism in Japan
Abe occupies Koike's ideological comfort zone, so she needs to cannibalize his base to get any traction. It is thus imperative that she presents an alternative policy agenda to highlight their differences and tap into simmering dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 19, 2017
Abe tries to ride out storm in bid to restore trust deficit
A shoo-in a few months ago, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plunge in popularity imperils his re-election to a third term as LDP president in September 2018, fueling speculation about when he will go and who will replace him. That said, it's still too soon to count him out.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 12, 2017
The unfinished business of Indian partition
The nightmarish horrors of India's partition by the British 70 years ago on Aug. 15, 1947, cast a long shadow into the 21st century.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 5, 2017
Beleaguered Abe on the ropes as support weakens
The public has seen the true face of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and doesn't like what it sees.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 29, 2017
Labor reforms come up short for Japan's 'precariat'
The costs of not improving the lot of nonregular workers are enormous in terms of thwarted careers, social status, poverty — and even isolation, as they have a much lower marriage rate.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 22, 2017
A reset for Abe's constitutional revision agenda?
The sudden implosion in Abe's popularity has significant consequences for his agenda of constitutional revision.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 15, 2017
A decade after Niigata's nuclear close call
On July 16, 2007, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake rattled the world's largest nuclear power complex at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa — a site that the government and Tepco had insisted was seismically safe.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2017
Tokyo poll offers Abe an opportunity to take a long, hard look in the mirror
We have witnessed Abe's peak and he is now a diminished leader, with the aura of invincibility he projected since December 2012 now gone.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 1, 2017
The 80th anniversary of Japan's invasion of China
Japan's actions at Marco Polo Bridge, and its subsequent campaign to conquer China, unleashed a maelstrom that casts a long shadow over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to turn the page on this history.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 24, 2017
The politics of religious hatemongering in India
The irresistible urge to mix politics and religion usually comes at the expense of secularism, tolerance and vulnerable minorities. We saw this recently in Asia with extremist Islamic groups spewing anti-Chinese hate speech to defeat the incumbent governor of Jakarta, the ebbing tide of secularism in...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 17, 2017
Sri Lanka's firebrand monk invokes Muslim menace
Galagoda Atte Gnanasara is Sri Lanka's notorious rabble-rousing monk — leader of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a radical nationalist religious organization.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 10, 2017
Arrogant Abe disrespects U.N. and the press
What is with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's arrogant disrespect for the United Nations?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 3, 2017
Asia lags Taiwan in accepting LGBTQ equality
All across Asia, LGBTQ people remain marginalized and subject to discrimination, abuse and worse, surrounding the beacon of hope in Taiwan with an abiding darkness.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 27, 2017
Under Abe, are we heading toward a beautiful Japan or an ugly future?
Where is the beauty in downplaying the 'comfort women' issue, muzzling the media, promoting patriotic education, rolling back transparency and restarting nuclear reactors?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 20, 2017
The slippery slope of appeasement in Bangladesh
Unelected religious hard-liners are pressuring Bangladesh's elected government to embrace Islamic values as they define them, resorting to street protests and inciting violence to achieve their aims.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 13, 2017
Japan's constitutional rebirth or reincarnation?
The stakes are high as the Japanese people consider Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's backward-looking vision for the future.
Japan braces for more quakes as authorities dismiss doomsday hype
Evacuees from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecuture, arrive at Kagoshima Port on Friday.
Heatstroke alert issued for 19 prefectures as Japan enters 'once-in-a-decade' heat wave
Japan will experience a heat wave through mid-July on a “level only seen once in a decade,” the Meteorological Agency said on June 30.
Hidden AI prompts in academic papers spark concern about research integrity
Waseda University is one of 14 institutions in eight countries found to have used hidden prompts in research papers.
Tokyo and Kyoto feature among top ‘noctourism’ destinations
Tokyo ranked second after New York and ahead of Dubai and Singapore in a ranking of the top global cities for nighttime tourism.
Elon Musk says he has created a new U.S. political party
Elon Musk looks on during a news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 30.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Flag football facing challenges and opportunities ahead
Japan’s women’s flag football team at the 2025 International Bowl in Los Angeles in June. The sport is enjoying continued growth in the country.
From Hokusai’s Great Wave, shinkansen to One Piece: a cultural treasure box for Lego Japan
Michael Ebbesen, general manager of Lego Japan, says Lego bricks based on Japanese culture have a rich global appeal and are sellable around the world.
With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
As Southeast Asia heats up, a Japanese cooling giant sees a major opportunity
An employee of Daikin Cambodia explains the use of different tools during an air conditioner installation training session in Phnom Penh. Daikin is one of Japan’s oldest air conditioning companies, but as Japan’s population falls, the firm is keying in on overseas growth.

Podcast

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