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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2005

CCP smacks of hypocrisy

LONDON -- At the end of his visit to India last week, China's Premier Wen Jiabao made a strong political attack on Japan. With respect to Japan's bid for a seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Wen opined that "Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history and wins...
EDITORIALS
Apr 19, 2001

Beyond the textbook controversy

A junior high-school history textbook edited by a nationalist group continues to stir controversy and provoke anger, especially in South Korea. The textbook in question, written by the Japanese Society for Textbook Reform, which calls existing history textbooks "masochistic," recently cleared censorship...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 31, 2016

Japan and the world enter a long night of 'post-truth'

In an essay titled "The Future of Mankind," British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) laid out three possibilities: "The end of human life," "a reversion to barbarism" or "unification of the world under a single government." He saw the third as the only alternative to either of the first two....
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

Why not teach students what's going on now?

Who do textbook publishers think it's smart to start a fourth-grade history textbook with prehistoric humans who lived 10,000 years ago? Why not begin by teaching students what's going on now?
Reader Mail
Mar 26, 2014

Curious caller on Anne Frank

Regarding the March 25 Reuters article "Abe hails 'lessons of history' on visit to Anne Frank house": A couple of factors need to be addressed.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2013

Inaction during 'scandal' will undo a presidency

Few, if any, similarities exist between the redactions of the Benghazi e-mails and the deletions and distortions made by Richard Nixon in his taped conversations.
COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2012

Power shifts outstrip reforms

The international institutional structure has remained largely static since the mid-20th century rather than evolving with the changing power realities and challenges. Reforming and restructuring the international system poses the single biggest challenge to preserving global peace, stability and continued...
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2010

War epics on screen skip mass slaughter of civilians

SAN FRANCISCO — Does the history diet fed to Americans by Hollywood promote an unhealthy national memory? The latest screen epic about American heroism in World War II — the HBO miniseries "The Pacific" — is clouded by an unintended irony.
COMMENTARY
Dec 15, 2005

Time for a Yasukuni deal

HONOLULU -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi remains in denial over the negative impact his continued visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine are having on Japanese and U.S. national security interests.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2003

Scholars fear dangers of igniting patriotic fervor

Scholars from Japan, South Korea and China warned against a resurgence of nationalism in Japan when they gathered at a symposium on history textbooks and related issues this week in Tokyo.
JAPAN
May 18, 2001

Koizumi rejects Beijing's demand for text revision

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Thursday rejected China's demand to revise a controversial junior high school history textbook, but said he will work to improve ties with Beijing.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 2001

Historian battles to redeem the past

JAPAN'S PAST, JAPAN'S FUTURE: One Historian's Odyssey, by Saburo Ienaga. Translated by Richard H. Minear. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001, pp. 202, $19.95. For the past four decades, Saburo Ienaga has crusaded as the conscience of Japan, fighting to protect intellectual freedom and challenge...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 18, 2000

Lessons of the Nanjing debate

THE NANJING MASSACRE IN HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY, edited by Joshua Fogel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000; 238 pp, $49 (cloth), $15.98 (paper). Did the Nanjing Massacre really happen? In a review of Katsuichi Honda's excellent book on this subject last year ("The Nanjing Massacre:...
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 5, 2020

Spaces for living: How Tokyo’s urban landscape deals with change

Exploring the city's constant flux — and the cost to its heritage.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Dec 5, 2019

Wat Misaka leaves an admirable legacy

When Wataru "Wat" Misaka passed away on Nov. 20, he left an indelible legacy on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. He showed what was possible for someone who looked like he did on the basketball court. And to his eternal credit, he reached the highest level.
Special Supplements / Emperor Naruhito’s Ascension
May 1, 2019

A lifelong passion for water studies

Emperor Naruhito, who ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne on Wednesday following the abdication of his father, Emperor Emeritus Akihito on Tuesday, is the first emperor who has studied outside Japan. He is known for his wide range of interests in foreign countries and also for his compassionate personality....
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / japan since the Meiji Restoration
Nov 19, 2018

Reconjuring the vision of the Meiji Centennial

Japan has thus far succeeded in preserving its national character while fulfilling its growing responsibility toward the international community.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2016

The most dangerous problem in Asia: Japan-China relations

China and Japan have a thousand-year history of fighting each other. What if that pattern repeats itself?
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jul 2, 2016

Memories all that remain of bj-league

First in a two-part series
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 16, 2016

Obama has unfinished business in Hiroshima

Barack Obama will attend the G-7 Ise-Shima summit of leading industrial nations in Mie Prefecture next month, sparking speculation that the U.S. President might venture to Hiroshima to pay respects at the Peace Memorial Park.
Pages from a new Otaku Dictionary catalog the lexicons of Japan’s various subcultures.
PODCAST / deep dive
Nov 30, 2023

A problematic otaku dictionary and the Japanese approach to sitting

An “Otaku Dictionary” has Japan’s subcultures upset at an attempt to define them.
Shohei Ohtani connects on his 50th home run of the season during the seventh inning against the Marlins in Miami on Thursday. Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to reach 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season.
BASEBALL / MLB
Sep 20, 2024

Shohei Ohtani records baseball's first 50-50 season with huge night in Miami

Shohei Ohtani is the first player in MLB history to reach 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season.
A school voucher supporter in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed executive orders promoting parental choice in school selection and ending federal funding for curricula that he called the "indoctrination" of students in "anti-American" ideologies on race and gender.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 30, 2025

Trump issues orders to promote school choice, end 'anti-American' teaching

Trump and his allies say public schools teach white children to be ashamed of themselves and their ancestors over slavery and discrimination against people of color.
Ashikaga Takauji was a 14th-century warrior whose shifting alliances had a profound impact on the turbulent politics of his day. More than 500 years later, imperial loyalists were moved to channel their lingering fury at Takauji's betrayal of Emperor Go-Daigo.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
May 17, 2025

The emperor and the shogun: A power struggle across the centuries

For imperial loyalists of the late Edo Period, the experiences of Emperor Go-Daigo from five centuries past were an inspiration — and a warning.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic