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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 14, 2002

Living outside the box

The days of Japan as the No. 1 business model for the world are long gone, but a new and perhaps more interesting model combining Japanese and Western elements seems to be developing. Unfortunately, the transition from a system based on lifelong employment, seniority and unthinking loyalty to one's company...
JAPAN
May 25, 2002

Chongryon sues publisher, lawmaker

A high-ranking official of a pro-Pyongyang group in Japan filed a lawsuit Friday against a publisher and lawmaker over claims that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il asked the official to send Japanese public funds to Pyongyang.
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2002

Don't sweat three warships

During the Persian Gulf War, I wrote that "average Americans would think friendlier and more respectful thoughts about Japan if it were able to contribute soldiers -- standing side by side with Americans in the sands of Arabia -- than if it contributes a billion or more dollars." Now, Japanese sailors...
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2002

Too early to fete a new day for Myanmar

HONG KONG -- On May 7, Vietnam inadvertently hindered 50 million Myanmarese from learning that "at last Aung Sang Suu Kyi is no longer under house arrest." The Myanmar government's authoritarian habits prevailed at the very moment when hopes of future democracy were reborn.
JAPAN
May 4, 2002

Rallies held for, against change to Constitution

Groups for and against a revision of the Constitution held rallies Friday in Tokyo to mark the 55th anniversary of the supreme charter.
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2002

Constitutional reform debate low-key

The parliamentary debate on constitutional reform is making little headway two years after it formally began in both Houses of the Diet. The Constitutional Research Committee, created in both Houses in 2000 to make a comprehensive review of the national charter, is expected to submit a report in 2005....
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2002

FTC moves raise doubts over Antimonopoly Law

For more than 120 years during the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras, the government was the primary driving force of the Japanese economy. That changed as the nation entered the Heisei era, as the private sector began to play a public role previously monopolized by the government. This is why the nation...
COMMENTARY
Feb 1, 2002

Truth and consequences

The forced resignation of Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka says a lot about Japan's sloppy politics and its emotional inability to focus on the rights and wrongs of a dispute.
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2002

Princess Takamatsu backs idea of reigning empress

Princess Takamatsu has penned an article for publication in a biweekly magazine in which she expresses her support for the possibility that Japan may one day have a reigning empress, it was learned Sunday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 23, 2001

Japan well-served by 'soft power' strategy

Japan's International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security, by Glenn D. Hook, Julie Gilson, Christopher W. Hughes and Hugo Dobson. London & New York, Routledge, 2001, 532 pp. $32.95 (paper). Problem child, kingmaker and political gadfly, Ichiro Ozawa has long been one of the most ambitious men...
COMMENTARY
Dec 19, 2001

Door to constitutional change

Last June, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi created an advisory panel on his proposal aimed at empowering the public -- not lawmakers as at present -- to directly elect the premier. The group is expected to come up with recommendations on the plan by next summer.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 25, 2001

Failed chemistry experiments in the media lab

Two weeks ago, a friend faxed me an article from the weekly news magazine Aera about a new advertising trend called "collaboration CF," which is the selling of two different companies' products in one TV commercial. I had already read about collaborations two days earlier in advertising critic Yukichi...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 27, 2001

Can God damage your health?

On Sept. 15, the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published a piece in The Guardian called "Religion's misguided missiles." With customary antireligious zeal, the Charles Simonyi professor for the Public Understanding of Science gave his explanation for the attacks on New York and Washington,...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2001

The struggle for a strategic prize

THE ORIGINS OF THE BILATERAL OKINAWA PROBLEM: Okinawa in Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations, 1945-1952, by Robert D. Eldridge. Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 2001, 280 pp., $85.00 (cloth) Of all the issues plaguing Japan's relationship with the United States, none is as contentious as the U.S....
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2001

Japan must avoid treading Gulf War path

Staff writers After last week's terrorist attacks in the United States, Japan was again haunted by the dilemma that confronted it 10 years ago.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 12, 2001

Til death or demographics do us part: the changing face of family life in Japan

At the end of each year, NHK has a ritual contest of male singers vs. female singers, but signs have been emerging of more serious gender conflict on the horizon in Japan. The diverging interests of men and women are evident in a recent book on changing attitudes toward having children and an article...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 30, 2001

Is yellow journalism in vogue again?

Why do so many foreign commentators feel they can get away with anything they say about Japan?
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2001

Another blast from Mr. Bix

To more than 80 percent of Japanese voters, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi looks like a populist reformer. But to the American winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, Koizumi is a "rightwing nationalist."
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2001

Is Japan tilting toward China?

WASHINGTON -- Key officials in the Bush administration, especially Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, have long been on record as urging Japan to play a more substantial role in East Asia's security affairs. Some of them even want Japanese leaders to repeal, or at least modify, Article 9 of...
JAPAN
May 5, 2001

Aging U.S. POWs still await slave labor redress

OSAKA -- For 56 years, Ben Comstock, 82, an American captured by Japanese forces on Wake Island in December 1941, has been waiting.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 26, 2001

Never say you've apologized too much

When Ursula Smith, my publisher friend up in Vermont, wrote to say, "I can't close without offering some (futile) form of apology, as one national to another, for that unfortunate accident off Hawaii," I said there was no need to apologize to me. It was an accident, and I wasn't too clear about the meaning...
BUSINESS
Jan 8, 2001

Reply to No-Action Letter clarifies insurance rescues

The first article on the debut of the No-Action Letter system focused on why it is necessary to create a standardized, public interface through which the Financial Services Agency can promptly respond to financial institutions' questions and concerns about compliance with regulatory issues.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

Policy cooperation key to resolving Korean issues

The politics of South and North Korea have been greatly influenced by U.S. policy. What happens within South Korean politics is also important to policymakers in the United States. The start of the 21st century coincides with the inauguration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Among South and North Korean...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 25, 2000

Emotion trumps logic in whaling debate

Over a sushi lunch with Scott Latham, I mention "whaling," and Scott, my trade-consultant friend, doesn't miss a beat: "The Whaling Wall."
JAPAN
Dec 14, 2000

Mori sues over story on gangster ties

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori filed a libel suit with the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday against a magazine that published an article and photographs allegedly linking him to a rightwing gangster, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2000

Magazine to run picture of Mori, alleged rightist

In the latest potential headache for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, a weekly magazine plans to publish photographs of Mori with a man allegedly linked to a crime syndicate in an edition that will hit newsstands this week.

Longform

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