Search - 2016

 
 
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 23, 2017

Neighbors see China using tourism as 'diplomatic weapon'

With 6 million Chinese tourists expected to travel abroad over the Lunar New Year break, China's Jan. 27 to Feb. 2 holiday is crucial for Taiwan tour agency operator Li Chi-yueh, who relies on mainland visitors for a third of his revenue.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2017

Is Davos man ready for a Xi change?

China's president is the star attraction, but selling the Beijing consensus to the Davos elite won't be easy.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / DAVOS SPECIAL 2017
Jan 17, 2017

Improved innovation through gender equality

Gender equality is one of the areas that the World Economic Forum strongly emphasizes as the organization, which has been publishing the annual Global Gender Gap Report since 2006, believes that half of the world's talent — women — should be better integrated into the workforce to boost the world...
Japan Times
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Jan 15, 2017

Japan gropes for cyberattack solution as victims suffer in silence

Last November, chilling news made headlines nationwide — the internal communications network of the Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces had been hacked in September, possibly by another nation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 14, 2017

Media sidesteps calling Japan Tobacco out on advertising conflicts

When I want a coffee I seek out Starbucks, not because I think it has the best product, but because it's the only coffee shop I know of that's 100 percent nonsmoking. Almost all others in Japan have separate smoking and nonsmoking sections, which are useless in terms of keeping smoke away from people...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2017

Pitfalls of strongman populism

Democratically adopted policies have more staying power than those imposed by autocrats.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / Sound Off
Jan 8, 2017

Where Japan's club culture needs to go in 2017

Last month, I was invited to speak at the inaugural Tokyo Dance Music Event — a conference consisting of workshops and talks, loosely modeled on long-running international equivalents like the Amsterdam Dance Event.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 7, 2017

Heavy metal in Japan: Love of craft runs deep

Although 2017 is the Year of the Fire Rooster, fire is not the only element destined to influence the next 12 months. Each of the 12 Chinese zodiac years is governed by one of five elements: wood, fire, earth, water and metal, resulting in 2017 taking the element of fire. According to the Five Elements...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2017

Bidding good riddance to an unpleasant year

The year 2016 resembles a china shop after a visit from an especially maladroit bull.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 3, 2017

With U.S. security umbrella at stake, Abe to go all out forging ties with Trump

Japan's foreign policy this year is drifting into uncharted waters inhabited by President-elect Donald Trump.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 31, 2016

Buried alive in the shadow of a Kyushu volcano

"Is the temperature alright for you ma'am?" my Japanese attendant asks in a polished U.S. accent as he cheerfully heaps another pile of hot sand on my torso.
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....
BUSINESS
Dec 30, 2016

Political upheavals around world may herald trouble for mega-deals in 2017

As companies brace for the impact of 2016's political shocks and looming elections next year, global appetite for mega-mergers may slow amid the prospect of increased protectionism.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Dec 29, 2016

Japan's students face uncertain future under cloud of debt

Kengo Kyogoku borrows about ¥122,000 ($1,035) per month in addition to a scholarship and a part-time job, because his mother can't afford to pay his college fees at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2016

The fiscal 2017 budget

The government should avoid relying on overly optimistic economic scenarios to cover its bloated expenses.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2016

Trump's win was unusual but not historic

The truly historic elections reshape or realign U.S. politics. There are many reasons to believe that 2016 isn't one of them.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 20, 2016

Slow progress for Japan and Russia

Siberian energy deals are set to warm Japan-Russia ties while the peace treaty is put on ice.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2016

U.S. may be losing East Asia to China

Emerging rifts between a number of East Asian states and the U.S. will likely grow worse with Donald Trump in power.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 18, 2016

World energy hits a turning point: solar that's cheaper than wind

There is a transformation happening in global energy markets that is worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity.
WORLD
Dec 7, 2016

U.S. lawmaker: Sony breach may have inspired Russian election hacking

The U.S. failure to retaliate strongly for the 2014 cyber attack against Sony Pictures may have helped inspire Russian hackers who sought to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, a senior congressional Democrat said on Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 3, 2016

Abe, Trump and Modi get on the wrong side of climate change

Oxford Dictionaries proclaimed the word of 2016 to be "post-truth," a scary concept that was popularized by the repulsive presidential campaign waged by Donald Trump. It refers to his chronic dissembling, invention of facts and intermittent grasp of reality heralding a new era where fabulists, revivalists...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2016

U.S. post-election hype doesn't reflect reality

The grim diagnoses for the Democratic Party are overdone — and other truths gleaned from election statistics.
Japan Times
PRESS / Publications
Nov 18, 2016

アメリカ大統領選特集号『The Japan Times News Digest』発売

COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2016

A disruptive yet ruinous triumph for the GOP

Republicans are riding high now but demography will dictate a grim destiny for the party unless it acts to counter adverse trends.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2016

Getting site-specific installations down to a fine art

Kenpoku Art 2016! is one of the latest projects to appear in an area for which art has been a relatively niche concern. Despite the fact that Okakura Tenshin, one of the central figures of Japanese art history, set up shop in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1906, and Art Tower Mito consistently provides top-class...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 6, 2016

Festival/Tokyo speaks with a defiant voice

Press conferences are usually upbeat affairs, but at the one held to herald Festival/Tokyo — a two-month theater festival that kicks off Oct. 15 — Artistic Director Sachio Ichimura appears looking worried and begins proceedings by bemoaning the event's financial situation and wondering aloud about...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 24, 2016

Japan's future typhoons: disruptive, deadly and destructive

Six typhoons have made landfall this year on the Japanese archipelago, already giving 2016 the distinction of being the second-worst year in terms of direct typhoon hits in modern times. But it's only Sept. 25 — the season's not nearly over and we're getting closer to matching or surpassing the 2004...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2016

North Korea sends a clear message, but who's listening?

North Korea is getting to the point where it'll have nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles ready to fly.
Japan Times
SOCCER
Sep 2, 2016

Allardyce era begins with qualifier against Slovakia

The reaction will be as predictable as it is meaningless.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 31, 2016

The making of a Chinese consumer society

China's transformation into a consumer society is good news for the future of the global economy.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami