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September 16, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY

Japan

World
Japan
False social media stories about Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba planning mass immigration obscure Japan’s real and growing reliance on foreign labor.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Japan needs an immigration debate, not social media myths
There’s no mass immigration from the Global South into Japan, though you might not know that if you primarily consume your news on social media.
COMMENTARY / Japan
The Liberal Democratic Party’s internal coup is complete
Ishiba came into the prime ministership last year with the odds already stacked against him. The LDP was a fractured party with waning public support.
COMMENTARY / Japan
What Japan’s political drift means for U.S.-Japan relations
Decisive political leadership is missing. Ambitious reforms and bold initiatives require political capital.
Candidates for Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election stand together on stage before a debate in Tokyo in September 2024. Pictured are future Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Yoshimasa Hayashi, Sanae Takaichi, Shinjiro Koizumi and others. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 9, 2025
Ishiba’s resignation triggers a battle for the soul of the LDP
By Edo Naito
To become the next prime minister, the new LDP leader will also need to secure enough support from one or two of the other larger conservative opposition parties.
Shigeru Ishiba’s brief, tumultuous prime ministership weakened Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, alienated conservatives and left the party scrambling to find a new leader capable of restoring credibility.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 9, 2025
Japan deserves far better leadership than this
By Gearoid Reidy
While the country is mostly back where it was a year ago, the LDP is in a much weaker position.
East Asia’s fertility plunge is driven not just by financial costs but by perfectionist cultural expectations that burden parents with intense educational and social demands.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 5, 2025
‘Confugenics’ and East Asia's demographic crisis
By Waka Ikeda
The numbers are staggering when you dig into them. Parents in Japan covered half of higher education costs in 2024 — more than double the OECD average.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama attend the LDP’s plenary meeting in Tokyo on Aug. 8. Once dominant, the ruling party is now struggling to maintain control amid calls for Ishiba to step down.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 4, 2025
Dragging on the LDP’s political drama does little for Japan
By Rintaro Nishimura
From dominance to doubt, the ruling party struggles to maintain control.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba meets with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in Tokyo on Friday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 3, 2025
Can India and Japan deliver on their energy agenda?
By Parul Bakshi
As geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific shifts, energy has become central to how India and Japan define their partnership.
Voters look at posters of candidates for an Upper House election outside a polling station in Tokyo on July 20. The young abandoned the ruling Liberal Democratic Party for other conservative and newer parties in the recent poll. REUTERS
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 31, 2025
What is a ‘Japanese conservative’ in this day and age?
By Edo Naito
My view is that younger voters saw the LDP as a group of elderly, self-absorbed elitists who were out of touch with the issues that mattered to them.
Japan faces a strategic dilemma between an unreliable U.S. security alliance and an assertive China, requiring it to pursue flexible, resilient and multilayered partnerships while avoiding dependence on either power.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 28, 2025
Japan must prepare for a post-American Indo-Pacific
By Stephen R. Nagy
Tokyo must confront an uncomfortable truth: The U.S.-led order that enabled Japan’s postwar success is dead and no one knows what comes next.

SDF spots China’s biggest aircraft carrier for first time
The Fujian aircraft carrier is seen in Shanghai in May 2024 as it leaves for its first sea trial.
Why more hotels in Japan are offering room-only service
Nipponia Hotel Ise Kawasaki Merchant Town in Ise, Mie Prefecture
Is America ready for Japanese-style 7-Elevens?
Convenience stores are a fixture of Japanese life and 7-Eleven, a chain that began in the U.S. in 1927, opened its first store in Japan in 1974 — and then became wholly Japanese-owned in 2005 through parent company Seven & I Holdings.
Final weeks of World Expo in Osaka likely to see large crowds
With one month left to go, crowds are expected to swell at the World Expo in Osaka during its final weeks.
Japan's elderly population down at around 36.2 million
The estimated number of people age 65 or older in Japan stands at 36.19 million as of Monday, accounting for record 29.4% of the country's total population, according to the internal affairs ministry.
Strikes on Qatar and Poland shake U.S. sway among friend and foe
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington on Sept. 8. Israeli strikes in Qatar and Russian drone incursions into Poland have challenged the U.S. leaders claims of global respect.
Japan's major art events converge this fall
Shinji Ohmaki’s “Tokinokage” exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.
An aesthetic escape to Hakone’s art-drenched hills
Between traditional examples of fine art and sleek, modern exhibitions that blend with nature, Hakone offers a unique escape from Tokyo's urban sprawl.
Niinami’s ouster quick but not unusual as corporations protect reputation
Takeshi Niinami resigns as chairman and CEO of Suntory Holdings.
As Manila modernizes its military, new opportunities emerge for Tokyo
A Brahmos missile system is displayed during a rehearsal for a military parade in New Delhi in January. The Philippines will soon receive its second batch of the supersonic cruise missiles from India.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’
By Alex K.T. Martin

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