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JAPAN
Mar 10, 2014

Defense talks with U.S. look at 'gray zone' clash scenarios

As Japan and the United States start talks on how to respond to armed incidents that fall short of a full-scale attack on Japan, officials in Tokyo worry that their ally is reluctant to send China a strong message of deterrence.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 9, 2014

Abe's right wing threatens to cause a flap for business

One danger from Japan's nationalist rhetoric of late is that it may incite extreme nationalist reactions in China and South Korea that further damage Japanese business interests.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 3, 2014

Loved abroad, hated at home: The art of Japanese tattooing

The perception gap between international views of irezumi and those of Japanese people dates back more than 150 years, to when foreigners first laid eyes on Japanese tattoos. Since that time, however, Japanese tattooists have influenced their foreign counterparts in remarkable ways — and sometimes vice-versa.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 2, 2014

Abe courting equality or estrangement in quest

In Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's view, Japan needs to regain, wherever possible, the right of independent decision-making if it is to manage successfully the challenge posed to it by China. He seeks a policy of voluntary cooperation with the U.S.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 22, 2014

Noam Chomsky: Truth to power

Often dubbed one of the world's most important intellectuals and its leading public dissident, Noam Chomsky was for years among the top 10 most quoted academics on the planet, edged out only by William Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Aristotle.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2014

Japanese social issues await 'new dawn'

Japan is on the way up. That much is obvious from improved business confidence, its successful bid for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the early economic successes of "Abenomics," with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proclaiming to the world the arrival of "a new dawn."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2014

Drift rightward has been building for years

Fashion model Junko Amo made headlines on Aug. 15, 2002, when she initiated a visit to controversial Yasukuni Shrine with a group of some 180 people she met via 2channel, Japan's biggest Internet forum.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2014

Abe exploiting window for biggest defense change since war

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pressed by China and seeking to strengthen ties with the U.S., is considering Japan's biggest change in military engagement rules since World War II.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Feb 9, 2014

Globally focused International Baccalaureate diploma needs local-level support

The education think tanks were busy in 2013. As the Year of the Snake slithered to a close, the education ministry made headlines by announcing bolstered English education plans — again — in an attempt to better prepare Japanese students for an increasingly connected world.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Feb 5, 2014

U.S. and Japanese apologies for war crimes could pave way for nuclear disarmament

Acknowledging responsibility for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan's rampage across Asia could serve as first steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 31, 2014

Asia's emerging democratic axis

A Japan-India democratic axis, with U.S. support, could reshape the Asian strategic landscape and block the rise of a Sino-centric Asia. A rudderless India is in search of its own Shinzo Abe.
WORLD
Jan 25, 2014

'Abe-genda': nuclear export superpower

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now in New Delhi to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Indian Republic. His presence speaks volumes about closer diplomatic, security and economic ties and, at least from Tokyo's perspective, a common agenda on responding to the rise of China. India remains...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 24, 2014

Don't let ANA off the hook for that offensive ad

If ANA had really wanted to 'change the image of Japan,' it should have avoided racializing its product. Instead, it's just business as usual.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2014

Reforms open SE Asia's 'last frontier'

Newly democratizing Myanmar is a suitable destination for Japanese direct investment as it is Southeast Asia's "last frontier," two researchers based in Singapore said at a symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jan 19, 2014

China, South Korea face familiar woes in English quest

Japan isn't alone in its struggles with teaching English. China and South Korea have experienced similar frustrations, but their responses and results have been quite different.
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Jan 19, 2014

Best thing for Senkakus: Never let push come to shove

On Jan. 12, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera observed the annual drill held by the Ground Self-Defense Force's elite 1st Airborne Brigade in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 11, 2014

Seasons come and go — but when?

Another new year has arrived and a Hokkaido blizzard is tearing past my window, drifting snow onto every surface as if it means to drown out the world in whiteness. Thankfully it also brings a muffling silence into which thoughts pop and crackle.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 6, 2014

The empire strikes back: the top issues for non-Japanese in 2013

2013 saw the enfranchised elite consolidating their power further than has ever been seen in the postwar era, while Japan's disenfranchised peoples slipped ever lower down the totem pole, becoming targets of suspicion, fear and loathing.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 4, 2014

Kenya Hara: the future of design

Sitting at a plain white table in a meeting room high up on the 12th floor of a narrow building in central Tokyo, product designer Kenya Hara asks me to picture a shallow plate in my mind. "Now imagine a slightly deeper plate," Hara says, "that gets deeper and deeper and eventually becomes a bowl."
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 28, 2013

In memoriam: Those we lost in 2013

2013 saw the loss of a number of personalities who stood at the top of their respective fields. As the year quietly draws to a close, we reflect on those we lost, their contribution to the world and their ongoing legacy.
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2013

Another backward step by Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit Thursday to Yasukuni Shrine, Japan's war shrine, is a thoughtless act that could lead Japan into isolation in the international community. It also revealed his shallow understanding of the immense destruction that Japan's wars in the 1930s and 1940s brought about and...
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 19, 2013

Rift growing between allies

The gut feeling of American military leaderes is that if only to prevent war between the U.S. and China, they don't want Japan's Self-Defense Forces to possess offensive-strike capabilities.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 7, 2013

Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy that won't go away

Dec. 8 (Japan time) is the 72nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the infamous attack launched by Imperial Japanese forces against the United States that continues to reverberate in the popular imagination.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2013

English part of equation for science students

Even as Japan was praised for its English presentations during the bidding process to host the 2020 Olympic Games in September, it is no secret that Japanese are still said to be poor at communicating in English.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Nov 29, 2013

Prolific Swedish ambassador indulges passion for haiku

Over the years, Swedish Ambassador Lars Vargo has published 15 books related to Japan, but for the past decade, his love affair with the country has largely been told in one literary form: haiku.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2013

Aussie LNG an energy lifeline — for now

With its nuclear power plants mostly idled since the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Japan continues its quest to increase imports of liquefied natural gas, especially from Australia.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 28, 2013

China's move to establish air defense zone appears to backfire

It was designed as a forceful response to Japanese assertiveness. But Beijing's creation of an air defense zone may have backfired, experts said, eliciting a strong joint response by the United States and Japan.

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