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May 16, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2010
TPP zone will test commitment to free trade
By Michael Richardson
SINGAPORE — China is outpacing the United States and Japan as Asia's top trading partner. Can Washington and Tokyo make up lost ground in the competition for economic influence that is shaping future geopolitical alignments and institutional architecture in the region?
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2010
Pyongyang's new centrifuges
Mr. Siegfried Hecker, former chief of the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory, said Saturday that he saw "more than a thousand" centrifuges to enrich uranium and an "ultramodern control room" at a plant at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex when he visited there Nov. 12. North Korea told him and...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2010
Always expect the unexpected in politics
By Tom Plate
LOS ANGELES — Sometimes truly strange things happen in life. For those of us on America's West Coast, who would have thought that Jerry Brown would become governor of California again? His first time out as our chief state executive (in his 30s, and full of rather unconventional ideas), they called...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2010
Japan's declining prestige
By Hugh Cortazzi
LONDON — Japan's prestige abroad has continued to decline despite the change from the clapped out Liberal Democratic Party with its series of old hack prime ministers to a government led by the Democratic Party of Japan. Foreign observers thought that surely a DPJ government must represent a change...
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2010
Scrutiny of dam projects
Examining the worthiness of dam projects is an important promise of the Democratic Party of Japan. The party's manifesto for the 2009 Lower House election called for halting the construction of the Yanba dam in Gunma Prefecture and the Kawabegawa dam in Kumamoto Prefecture.
COMMENTARY
Nov 23, 2010
Let trade transform Burma
By Brahma Chellaney
NEW DELHI — The election process in Burma has altered its political landscape, giving birth to new institutions and players, triggering a generational change in the armed forces, bringing to power the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), and facilitating the release of prodemocracy...
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2010
Uncovering government waste
In a Nov. 5 report to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the Board of Audit said that in fiscal 2009, ministries and agencies as well as other government entities wasted public money in 979 cases. The total reached a record ¥1.79 trillion — some 7.5 times the fiscal 2008 figure.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 23, 2010
White House Iraq policy pumping up Iran
By Feisal Amin Rasoul Al-Istrabadi
BAGHDAD — The Obama administration's Iraq policy is in chaos. Seven months after Iraq's national elections, the United States has publicly denied taking sides in the wrangling over who will be prime minister. Privately, however, the U.S. is backing the incumbent, Nouri al-Maliki.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2010
Another setback for Mr. Kan
Justice Minister Minoru Yanagida resigned Monday over his frank but offensive statement about his Cabinet job. His careless words not only cost him his position but have damaged the credibility of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who appointed him to the Cabinet post.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2010
U.S. forecast from November
By Michael Boskin
STANFORD, Calif. — November's midterm elections were a sharp rebuke to the vast expansion of government spending, deficits and debt in the United States. Elected in the midst of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, President Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership of Congress seemed surprised...
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2010
Iran feels the pressure
While Iran's leaders are generally wary of revolution — having come to power on one — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pushing his own economic revolution. He rightly notes that extraordinary sums spent on subsidies distort the economy and must end if it is to return to solid footing. The problem...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Nov 22, 2010
Japan shouldn't bet farm on China's 'middle class'
Many Japanese corporations are pinning their hopes on what they see as the expanding "middle class" in China, which they think will offer a huge potential market for their products. In reality, that class is a mirage created politically by the Chinese Communist Party and is on the verge of disintegrating....
Success of Chinese-made fighter jets against India raises alarm in Asia
Chinese J-10 fighter jets from the People's Liberation Army Air Force August 1st Aerobatics Team perform during a media demonstration at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, in November 2015.
Japan to recognize Taiwan as place of origin in family registration system
Masataka Yuhara, secretary-general of the Friends of Lee Teng Hui Association in Japan, which has been calling for "Taiwan" to be permitted as a place of origin in family registers.
Japanese retailers turn to California rice for cheaper alternative
U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass eats California rice at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday along with Mitsuko Tsuchiya, vice president of retailer Aeon.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Two crew feared dead after ASDF training jet crashes in Aichi
Self-Defense Forces personnel collect apparent parts of an Air Self-Defense Force T-4 training jet from a reservoir in Inuyama, Aichi Prefeture, on Thursday. The jet crashed shortly after takeoff a day earlier.
Sumo title contenders already emerging in early stages of Tokyo meet
Onosato (left) battles Abi on Day 3 of the Summer Basho in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Harmfully hot days for pregnant women in Japan nearly doubled over past five years
New research by a U.S. climate scientists’ group reveals that extreme heat has increased the risks of preterm births and other pregnancy complications in Japan, nearly doubling the number of days that are harmfully hot for pregnant women over the past five years.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Tokyo Stock Exchange wants stocks to be affordable for the average investor
The Tokyo Stock Exchange building in Nihonbashi. The exchange wants companies to lower the entry cost of investing in their shares.
Consumption tax set to dominate Upper House election debate
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters his office in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Podcast

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

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?
By Tomoko Otake

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