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July 06, 2025
 

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Tom Plate

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Tom Plate
Tom Plate, a veteran American columnist and career journalist, is the Distinguished Scholar of Asian and Pacific Affairs at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His many books include the "Giants of Asia" series, of which book four, "Conversations with Ban Ki-Moon: The View from the Top," is the latest.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 9, 2015
Repairing Japan-China ties
Are the domestic politics of Japan and China antithetical to continued peace between Asia's leading powers?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2015
Where political 'fox' LKY stands in Singapore history
The late Lee Kuan Yew showed the world that economic self-improvement in Singapore had to have public policies grounded in best-practice pragmatisms rather than in ideological schematics.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2014
Indonesia, Thailand: rising and falling stars
At the moment, no spot on our troubled planet offers a better illustration of the dynamic of citizen participation in politics than Southeast Asia, with triumphant Indonesia and tragic Thailand.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 30, 2014
Will Hong Kong go beyond self-flagellation?
Hong Kong and mother China should be working together on ameliorating the social and economic pressures threatening to pull Hong Kong down far more dramatically and dangerously than today's governance dispute.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2014
Double-edged media sword
What was not widely known about the late Benjamin C. Bradlee, the Washington Post editor during the Watergate Scandal of the early 1970s, was that he was quite sensitive to the risk of the news media abusing its power when it came to presidential politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2014
U.S.-China partnership without tears or fears
In his new book, 'World Order,' Henry Kissinger wants you to accept what he believes is the 21st reality of China in a 'partnership' with the U.S. He warns that a purely military definition of the Asian balance of power 'will shade into confrontation.'
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2014
Indonesia gets a sprout with a new president
Having conducted an election that produced a successor president without excessive tumult or corruption, Indonesia may well be on its way to emerging as a major global player.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2014
Ironies of Iraq without end despite the best-laid plans
For President Barack Obama to stay true to his vision, judgment and instinct, he must ride out the extremely uncomfortable unpopularity of openly conceding that the Iraq war — of which he is now the prime custodian — never made sense.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2014
It's a Thai thing: ditching the new for the old
More than almost any other political crisis on the face of the earth today, it is the crisis in Thailand that saddens American columnist Tom Plate.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2014
Beyond good and evil in Ukraine
The U.S. fools no one with its high-minded condemnations of Russan President Vladimir Putin's designs on Ukraine when its own sense of international political morality is also defined by cold calculations of national interest.
COMMENTARY
Mar 15, 2014
Special Asian wisdom for skating on thin ice
Olympic skater Kim Yuna's classy, gracious performance, on and off the ice, at Sochi — even as her fellow Korean countrymen complained that she had been robbed of the gold medal for women's figure skating — makes her a model in sports and in East Asian politics.
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2014
Huge stakes on the line in crisis-center Thailand
The stakes in the outcome of the Thai Crisis are huge and extend well beyond the country itself. One has to wonder whether President Barack Obama, and the world for that matter, are taking it seriously enough.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 2, 2014
The conspicuous tendency to wish China well
If China fails and falls, the rest of the world will suffer more than a headache or a short-term setback. We need to be cautious about pessimism that might fuel self-fulfilling prophecy.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2013
The tragedy of Thailand's politics
For America, the proper question is what, if any, is its role as thousands of angry protesters in Bangkok march not for democracy but, in effect, for an end to it?
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2013
The good side of Singapore icon Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore icon Lee Kuan Yew, who just turned 90, is known to have despised Western journalists. One American, however, has never been denied an interview if Lee was available.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2013
The scoop on print media tragedies
The effect of the digital revolution is uneven. While China seems to launch newspapers almost weekly, in the U.S. they seem to be folding or changing ownership.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2013
Inside the mind of Deng's intellectual successor
A new book at last puts Zhu Rongji, Shanghai's former mayor and the economic intellectual successor to the late Deng Xiaoping, into the pantheon of Chinese giants.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2013
When the 'Iron Lady' bent to the will of Beijing
With regard to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Margaret Thatcher got some good advice from Singapore: Be neither defiant nor submissive.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2013
Finding a way out of the Pyongyang imbroglio
It is probably a good idea to regard the latest bombast of threats from North Korea as as the antics of an angry child hurling the rattle out of the crib in hopes of getting parents to pay more attention.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2013
Did Rodman lay up a net gain in North Korea?
Clown-job or not, former pro basketball star Dennis Rodman's fast break to North Korea did draw our attention to monstrous problems on the Peninsula.
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.
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.
A prophesied disaster (likely) won’t strike Japan this weekend
A viral manga prediction of a July 5 disaster has gripped Japan with anxiety and triggered an economic impact, but experts warn that while such dates are unreliable, the threat of a massive earthquake remains real. 
Residents of Tokara Islands begin evacuation as seismic swarm continues
Details about evacuations from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecture, is seen written on a whiteboard in the city of Kagoshima on Thursday.
U.S. military apologizes over Okinawa sexual assault case
Col. Neil Owens (right), chief of staff for the 3rd Marine Division, bows in apology at the Okinawa Prefectural Government office in Naha on Thursday.
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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SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning
Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

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