For Tim Kelly's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Toyota Motor's Japan Taxi, born in a government committee and designed to be an all-things-to-all-people cab, has become a high-priced icon of Tokyo's budget-busting 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Launched in 2017, the indigo car is the realization of a government project to put a ...
The Kaga helicopter carrier is not the biggest, fastest or most powerful warship to sail the seas, but its 500 crew wage a daily war on dirt and grime to keep it the cleanest. At sunset each evening on a nine-day goodwill voyage from Indonesia ...
Japan's largest warship, the Kaga helicopter carrier, sailed into Sri Lanka's Colombo harbor this weekend, marking Tokyo's highest profile salvo in a diplomatic battle with China for influence along the region's vital commercial sea lanes. Japan has long provided low-interest loans and aid to Sri ...
Northrop Grumman Corp. is eyeing a Japanese jet fighter project that could pit it against Lockheed Martin Corp. three sources said, almost three decades after it lost a similar competition to build an advanced stealth jet for the U.S. Air Force. "Northrop is interested," said ...
Tokyo’s upgrade could help ease trade friction with Washington and provide cutting-edge protection against the arsenals of North Korea and China.
On a cold day in February, Takuto Okamoto guided his first tour group to a panorama few outsiders have witnessed in person: construction cranes looming over Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Seven years after deadly tsunami ripped through the ...
U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. plans to offer Japan a stealth fighter design based on its export-banned F-22 Raptor and advanced F-35 Lightning II aircraft, two sources said. Lockheed has discussed the idea with Japanese defense ministry officials and will make a formal proposal ...
North Korea's growing missile arsenal might be the most obvious and immediate military threat facing Japan, but defense planners in Tokyo are focused on a much larger and more challenging foe as they prepare for the years ahead. China has stepped up military spending and ...
Japan plans to buy at least 20 additional F-35A stealth fighters over the next six years, some or all of which it may purchase directly from U.S.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. rather than having them assembled by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., its primary defense contractor, ...
Japan will build four coast guard radar stations on islands in the Sulu Celebes Seas separating the Philippines and Indonesia to help Manila counter a surge in piracy by Islamic insurgents, two sources said. An agreement to fund the facilities and provide training to local ...
