Masahiro Matsumura - The Japan Times

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Masahiro Matsumura

For Masahiro Matsumura's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / Japan

Jun 6, 2018

Brace for the rise of the 'Japan question'

Whether or not North Korea denuclearizes, in the future Japan will be pushed to become more self-reliant on defense.

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / Japan

Sep 17, 2017

The time for 'nuclear sharing' with Japan is drawing near

Japan is facing an existential threat and needs to respond accordingly.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Feb 9, 2017

Japanese arms exports can boost regional stability

With the proper policy, calibrated Japanese arms export to Southeast Asian countries can be an effective policy instrument for preserving regional stability.

COMMENTARY / World

May 13, 2016

For Taiwan, the best defense is a good offense

Taipei needs to develop an approach aimed at deterring Beijing from initiating diplomatic offensives or, once they get under way, at least rolling them back.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Sep 4, 2015

The veiled cause of Abe's legislative predicament

The national debate over the security bills as been limited to constitutional issues but it should also focus on Japan's significantly enhanced responsibilities in the U.S. defense guidelines.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 25, 2015

A bellicose China only for the foreseeable future

Careful analysis of China's coming demographic changes — rapid graying unprecedented in human history — shows that Beijing's seemingly unstoppable rise is heading for a brick wall.

COMMENTARY / Japan

May 20, 2015

The AIIB has little to offer Japan and the U.S.

Japan is wise not to join China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which could end up merely as a policy instrument for Beijing.

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 9, 2015

Why Beijing is giving Hong Kong less respect

The crux of Beijing's declining respect for Hong Kong is Britain's apparent efforts to enhance its economic relationship with China amid U.S. hegemonic decline.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Jul 24, 2014

Abe's security strategy lacks strategic thinking

The Abe administration's first National Security Strategy basically continues the longtime status quo policy, indicating that the prime minister remains trapped in the ongoing domestic polemics of peace vs. self-defense.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 29, 2014

Beijing's struggle to control a military district

China's ability to bring North Korea into line may depend on the outcome of an epochal struggle to bring the Shenyang Military District, which borders North Korea, under central authority.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Apr 18, 2014

SDF should utilize Shimoji airport

A political professor assserts that Japan's air power would have a better chance of survival against possible Chinese salvos of ballistic and cruise missiles if Shimoji airport in Okinawa Prefecture were transformed into a military or dual-use facility.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Mar 13, 2014

China waging psychological warfare in the East China Sea

Japanese and Western news reports suggest that the U.S. bombers and routine Japanese patrol fighters that flew into China's air-defense identification zone right after the ADIZ was proclaimed did not encounter any Chinese interceptors or radar beams.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 13, 2013

San Francisco Treaty and the South China Sea

All parties to the South China Sea island disputes can cite geographic and historical connections to back their claims, but none has solid legal title under the San Francisco Treaty.

COMMENTARY / World

May 6, 2013

Beware China's civilian-military relationship

Do China's rulers have full civilian control of their country's military? The U.S. and Japan should ask that question as Beijing hardens its stance on its maritime claims.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 8, 2012

Revenge of the Japanese mandarins

Ever since the huge earthquake that hit Japan's Tohoku-Pacific coast on March 11, 2011, the country's mass media have obsessively focused on the magnitude of the physical damage and the loss of life. Repeated broadcasts of traumatic video images of the great tsunami and the damaged reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have been seared into Japan's collective memory.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 22, 2010

Dim outlook for Japan's muddled leadership

OSAKA — Having seen a new prime minister every year for five consecutive years, Japan has just narrowly avoided having its third in 2010. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has been elected president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), surviving a challenge from Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ's most potent behind-the-scenes power broker. Had Kan lost to Ozawa, he would have lost the premiership to him as well.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 27, 2010

Sumos and the yakuza

OSAKA — Perhaps no other sport is pursued as religiously as sumo wrestling. Before a match, referees — who double as Shinto priests — purify the seaweed, salt and sake. Wrestlers wash their faces, mouths and armpits before entering the dohyo (ring), on whose sacred sand neither shoes nor women may tread. Before a match starts, the two contestants raise their hands to show that they are not hiding weapons in the folds of their loincloth-like belt.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 4, 2010

Ozawa: Japan's secret shogun

OSAKA — With the post-general election honeymoon over, the Japanese public has become increasingly aware that Ichiro Ozawa, secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is the puppet-master behind Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Cabinet.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 16, 2009

What does Japan want from Washington?

OSAKA — Three months after the Democratic Party of Japan's landslide general election victory, the new administration's foreign and security policy appears to be increasingly at odds with that of the United States. Indeed, there is growing concern on both sides of the Pacific that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama intends to turn away from the declining U.S. hegemon and reach out to a rising China. Indeed, Hatoyama has announced his rudimentary vision of building an East Asian community that excludes the U.S.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 2, 2009

Japanese metamorphosis

OSAKA — Sunday's landslide general-election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) terminated the one-party- dominated system that the catch-all Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has controlled almost without interruption since 1955.

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

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.

For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on

By Lance Henderstein

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Students ‘study abroad’ on island of Suo Oshima

Students ‘study abroad’ on island of Suo Oshima

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