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COMMENTARY / World

Dec 29, 2002

Modernization model for Islamic nations

By Richard Halloran

HONOLULU -- With all due respect to his office, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia got it wrong when he suggested in Tokyo in mid-December that the Japanese help Americans and Europeans to understand Islam.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 28, 2002

Saber-rattling leaves Asia cold

By David Wall

CAMBRIDGE, England -- I was in Beijing last week for a conference and research visits that focused on regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. While I was there, Chinese newspapers reported on Japan's dispatch of the Aegis missile detection system-equipped warship, Kirishimi, to the Indian Ocean.

COMMENTARY

Dec 28, 2002

Keep a close eye on prisons

By Hugh Cortazzi

LONDON -- The basic objectives of a judicial sentence of imprisonment are deterrence, rehabilitation and punishment. To deter criminals, it is first necessary to arrest them and ensure that those who are guilty are convicted. The criminal must then recognize that imprisonment, which means in the first...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 28, 2002

BJP hardliners besiege Indian secularism

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

MADRAS, India -- Indian secularism is in danger. Last spring the western state of Gujarat, perhaps the most economically prosperous region in the country, was the site of the nation's worst communal carnage since the days of partition in 1947 when the British divided the subcontinent into India and Pakistan....

EDITORIALS

Dec 28, 2002

Playing with human rights

China is once again engaging in human rights diplomacy. This week the government in Beijing released dissident Xu Wenli, one of the country's most famous human rights activists. It is tempting to applaud this long-overdue development, but the truth is that Mr. Xu should not have been in jail in the first...

EDITORIALS

Dec 27, 2002

Resuscitate local economies

Japan's economy for 2003 poses inevitable questions. Will deflation get worse or better? How far will banks go to shed their dud loans? If the United States goes to war with Iraq, how will it affect the economy? In these increasingly uncertain times, forecasting is a tricky business. Offering stock answers...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 27, 2002

ASEM painfully short on substance

By George Sioris

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- ASEM, the Asia-Europe meeting process, was born in a climate of general euphoria in 1996 in Bangkok. The idea to bring together the combined potentials of the European Union and of several important Asian players looked promising and, fundamentally, it is still valid today.

COMMENTARY

Dec 26, 2002

Marketing matters in foreign policy

By Brad Glosserman

HONOLULU -- Call me a cynic, but I've long believed that one of the greatest foreign-policy advantages the United States has enjoyed is the ineptness of the governments it has confronted. It's always good to have right on your side, but sometimes that isn't enough. Nor is might the answer: The reality...

COMMENTARY

Dec 26, 2002

A rising China lifts Asian economies

By Frank Ching

HONG KONG -- For many years now, a debate has raged over the political and economic implications of a rising China, both for the region and for the world. That China is rising is not a matter of debate.

EDITORIALS

Dec 26, 2002

Nuclear blackmail won't fly

Once again, North Korea is playing a game of nuclear brinkmanship. In an eerie throwback to 1994, when a nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula pushed the United States and North Korea to the brink of war, Pyongyang has removed seals and disabled monitoring cameras at nuclear facilities that had been...

EDITORIALS

Dec 25, 2002

A bridge from science to life

The government's Biotechnology Strategy Council deEfines biotechnology as a pillar industry of the 21st century along with information technology. This perception, expressed in the council's "outline of bioEtechnology strategy" issued last week, should serve as an important guide for Japan. Such a national...

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 25, 2002

Put America's Korea policy on track

By Victor D. Cha and Joel S. Wit

WASHINGTON -- With South Korea's critical presidential election decided, the Bush administration's Korea policy is in need of a midcourse correction.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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