John Barry Kotch - The Japan Times

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John Barry Kotch

For John Barry Kotch's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 11, 2004

'Uniter' needs bipartisan foreign policy

SANTA FE, New Mexico -- The ballot counting goes on in New Mexico, the battleground state closest to Northeast Asia and U.S. Democrats' last stand, but to what avail? With the presidential election already decided, only the political arithmetic remains.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 28, 2004

Bush foes keep fingers crossed

CAMBRIDGE, England -- While the world looks on, tens of millions Americans will go to the polls next Tuesday, along with millions of American expatriates, for what is being billed as the election of the century, or at least the most important election in our lifetime. And while non-Americans cannot directly participate, they will be affected by the result.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 17, 2004

Election at all costs may cost democracy

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Elections set a new nation or a broken one on a course of renewal. Therefore, the conditions under which they are conducted -- the presence of security and the absence of intimidation, the degree of public participation (or apathy), including the openness to all segments of the society, the quality of political parties and candidates contesting the election -- are part of a free and fair electoral process.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 8, 2004

U.S. must engage North Korea directly

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Caught in the crossfire of the first presidential debate between U.S. President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, most Americans were likely taken aback by Korea's prominence and prospects.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 23, 2004

Look for a larger Russian role in Korea

SEOUL-- With the six-party talks in the deep freeze, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun is looking east to help break the ice. In his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week Roh is expected to both press Putin to play a more active diplomatic role in resolving the nuclear standoff with North Korea, and deepen bilateral economic relations.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 11, 2004

U.S. troop shift rightly raises concern

SEOUL -- It was inevitable that Korea, at some point, would rear its complicated head as a campaign issue. In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry said the withdrawal of 12,000 of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea would destabilize the Peninsula "at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea, a country that really has nuclear weapons."

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 17, 2004

A fresh start in the West Sea

SEOUL -- Although the recent agreement between North and South Korea to set up a hotline, a shared radio frequency and a mutually recognizable naval signaling system to avoid future West Sea clashes -- which claimed scores of lives in 1999 and 2002 -- is certainly good news, it treats the symptoms and not the cause of tensions.

COMMENTARY / World

May 16, 2004

Iraq has thrown off Bush's game plan

LONDON -- When the legendary New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel left the dugout for the pitcher's mound, there was only one question. Would he stick with his pitcher or signal to the bullpen for a reliever? Sometimes there was a brief discussion and Casey would walk back to the dugout. Often, however, his right hand went up and relief was soon on the way. The only remaining question was whether he would go with a left-hander or a right-hander? That depended on the opposing lineup.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 19, 2004

Roh's fate hangs on political pulse

SEOUL -- The always contentious South Korean political scene was shattered last week with the impeachment of the sitting president, Roh Moo Hyun, with both Korea watchers and Koreans themselves who take their young democracy very seriously caught off guard.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 13, 2004

Iraqi sovereignty remains a distant goal

SEOUL -- Let's start with the obvious but often overlooked topic of what isn't taking place in Iraq today. Commentary to the contrary, sovereignty is not being handed back to Iraqis on June 30; it isn't even on the table.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 25, 2004

Ties that bound Seoul's foreign minister

SEOUL -- Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan's resignation Jan. 15 grabbed headlines in Seoul with South Korean-American relations at the heart of it. Although his successor and career diplomat, Ban Ki Moon, has promised to clean house, this won't be easy.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 5, 2004

As axis turns, Pyongyang feels the squeeze

SEOUL -- It turns out that the construct of the "axis of evil" was more than an applause line in the 2002 State of the Union speech by U.S. President George W. Bush. What it really has come to convey is the interaction between axis members, which was little appreciated by Bush speechwriters at the time.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 7, 2003

Avoiding the pitfalls of Korea in Iraq

SEOUL -- Regrettably, the preference of U.S. policymakers to look to occupied Germany and Japan for policy guidance has blinded them to the pitfalls they are now facing in Iraq. Instead, they should be immersing themselves in the six-volume, thousand-page "History of the American Military Government in Korea 1945-1948" for a sobering reality check.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 9, 2003

APEC future rests on political relevancy

SEOUL -- Another APEC summit has come and gone but has anything really changed? The question that needs to be asked is whether the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is still relevant? No one attending the recent APEC summit in Bangkok really wanted to leave -- especially after the magnificence of the royal barge procession -- but was APEC itself left stronger or weaker as a result?

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 13, 2003

Roh's dangerous game of equivocation

SEOUL -- Roh Moo Hyun is agonizing publicly over a difficult decision he must make over the next several weeks: whether to commit a 5,000-strong South Korean brigade to Iraq.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 4, 2003

Time for creative diplomacy

SEOUL -- British statesman Winston Churchill once remarked, "It's better to jaw-jaw than to war-war." In effect, the United States and North Korea have been doing both. Their war of words continued at the six-nation talks in Beijing last week, held in check only by multiparty diplomacy.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 3, 2003

What will succeed the Korean armistice?

SEOUL -- One of the ironies of the Korean War, whose legacy was commemorated last Sunday, is that one cannot be sure that it is finally over. While the armistice has held for 50 years, the parties to it are still engaged in controversy, with the Korean Peninsula drifting deeper into crisis and the prospect of a nuclear North Korea looming ever closer.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 26, 2003

Take another shot at Four Party talks

SEOUL -- While the United States and North Korea remain stuck in a standoff over the format of future meetings to deal with the North's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, a scout on the upper deck has sighted an iceberg -- not landfall ahead. The warnings of this seasoned statesman issued in ominous tones to The Washington Post earlier this week drove home the message that, without a course correction, the ship is doomed.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 28, 2003

Asia's future leaders take center stage

SEOUL -- "If you've got it," as the saying goes, "flaunt it!" And Asia's "New Leaders" have got "the right stuff" in spades. But what to do with it?

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 18, 2003

U.S. occupation of Iraq recalls failure in Korea

SEOUL -- The spectacle of political confusion in Iraq today provides a window into the past. Rather than emulating the successful occupation of Germany or Japan as originally envisaged by U.S. policy planners, it is increasingly a carbon copy of the occupation that failed in Korea. And as Yale historian Paul Kennedy reminds us, "although history never repeats itself exactly, it should never be ignored entirely."

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.

The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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