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March 21, 2025
 

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COUNTERPOINT

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 30, 2015
The geopolitics of coping with a rising China
Last week I examined the logic and consequences of the "Abe Doctrine," whereby Japan has beefed up its alliance with the United States by agreeing to expand what it is prepared to do militarily in support of U.S. global security operations. This is not a settled issue domestically as few Japanese support...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 23, 2015
The 'Abe Doctrine' transforms security policy
The ink was barely dry on the new Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, which were unveiled during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Washington last month, when Sen. John McCain, chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a wake-up call to the Japanese people. He said he...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 16, 2015
Are forces of darkness gathering in Japan?
Certainly it's worse in China, South Korean security recently beat demonstrators and Spain faces a blanket gag rule, but are concerns about the anti-democratic forces of darkness in Japan unduly alarmist? How bad can it be if protestors in Hibiya Park can carry placards depicting Prime Minister Shinzo...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 9, 2015
Academics fail Abe administration on history
On May 5, in an open letter in support of historians in Japan, an international group of 187 scholars (of which I am one) urged Japan to acknowledge and atone for the forced prostitution that occurred during wartime, stating: "Denying or trivializing" what happened to the "comfort women" is "unacceptable."...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 2, 2015
Foreign media feels the heat from prickly government minders
Last month, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Carsten Germis wrote about the Japanese government harassing him just for doing his job. In his view, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is overly sensitive to criticism, especially reporting about what Germis calls "a move by the right to...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 25, 2015
Abe primed to shine in Washington's limelight
The bar is set low for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's April 29 speech at a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage says everyone will be "looking to see if Mr. Abe can put history behind him." In his view, the key is speaking sincerely rather than repeating...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 18, 2015
History problems cast a shadow over Abe's Japan
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is dogged by history problems largely because he courts controversy with his revisionist views and efforts to rehabilitate Japan's wartime past. It's not only moderates and leftists who worry about this: Liberal Democratic Party Vice-President Masahiko Komura has also urged...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 11, 2015
Abe gets negative reviews ahead of U.S. visit
At the end of this month Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Washington, D.C. He can expect the red carpet treatment because he has ticked more boxes on the Pentagon's wish list than all his postwar predecessors combined.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 4, 2015
America's memory wars and the Vietnam debacle
April 30 marks the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, as Americans remember it — the day that the North Vietnamese army captured the capital of South Vietnam and reunified their country.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 28, 2015
China benefits from Washington's bumbling diplomacy
The surge of nations agreeing to participate in China's new development bank — the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — marks a stunning success for Beijing, which has overcome U.S. opposition and arm-twisting to lure key American allies.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 21, 2015
Celebrating 50 years of antipathy, recriminations
On March 1, South Korean President Park Geun-hye renewed her call for Japan to come clean on its colonial and wartime atrocities, including the sexual enslavement of women. Her speech was delivered on the anniversary of the anti-Japanese uprising by Koreans in 1919 and in a year when South Koreans will...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 14, 2015
Indonesian preview for pending Abe statement?
Next month Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will attend the 60th commemoration of the 1955 Bandung Conference of Asian and African leaders in Jakarta.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 7, 2015
Centennial lessons for Abe from the '21 Demands'
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and fellow revisionists prefer to think that Japan's 20th century imperialist aggression has been misunderstood. But on this score they are isolated not only from the international community, but also within Japan.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 28, 2015
China inadvertently promotes Islamic extremism
March 1, 2014, was China's 9/11. That was the day Islamic Uighur terrorists slashed their way into the collective consciousness of the country's ethnic Han majority.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 21, 2015
Militant monks rabble-rousing in Myanmar
With the people of Myanmar heading to the polls later this year, there are troubling signs that some extremists are intent on stirring up trouble.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 14, 2015
Japan's public diplomacy is expensive and errant
Global understanding does not come cheaply. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has budgeted ¥70 billion — yes, that's more than $500 million — to help get the word out about Japan and ensure that China and South Korea aren't the only ones controlling the narrative.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 7, 2015
Abe acts quickly to exploit Japan's 'nightmare'
On adjacent televisions at my gym, I watched breaking news on the beheading of journalist Kenji Goto by the Islamic State group next to a "One Piece" anime segment in which fresh-faced youth defended their boat from marauding pirates. The kids routed them in a jiffy and suffered no casualties, a metaphorical...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 31, 2015
Diplomatic blundering on hostages and history
Japan's latest hostage crisis has exposed shortcomings in Japan's public diplomacy and raises questions about the advice Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received in publicly announcing $200 million in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by conflict with the Islamic State group.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 24, 2015
Can the DPJ reinvigorate Japanese democracy?
Columbia University's Gerald Curtis recently wrote, "It is a sad commentary on Japan's politics that after nearly 70 years of democracy a competitive party system has all but disintegrated."
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 17, 2015
Sri Lanka votes against fear and kleptocracy
The stunning ouster of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Jan. 8 was good news for that island nation of 20 million, and further evidence of a universal yearning for good governance.
‘DEI’ purge prompts Pentagon to remove webpage on Iwo Jima flag-raiser
A signed picture by photographer Joe Rosenthal of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima is shown as part of a display at the new National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, in November 2006.
Musk says aid cuts haven’t killed anyone. That's not true.
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's assertion that U.S. aid cuts to programs including PEPFAR and USAID in Africa aren't causing harm is not true. Children and others are already dying as a result.
Japan’s twin obsessions meet as MLB visits sumo’s heartland
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw takes part in a sumo demonstration in Tokyo on Friday.
Tariff threats spur TSMC’s Taiwan peers to seek U.S. expansion
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with C.C. Wei, chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., at a news conference in Washington on March 3.
Pakistan’s economy is back. But so is terrorism.
A soldier stands guard at a railway station in the Sibi district of southwestern Balochistan province, Pakistan, on March 12 as part of a security operation after militants hijacked a passenger train the previous day.
In pictures: Tokyo's weeklong celebration of baseball's best
Shohei Ohtani belts a home run in the fifth inning of the second game of the Tokyo Series between the Dodgers and Cubs.
What's the fuss over Ishiba's gift vouchers?
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waits for a session of the House of Councillors Budget Committee to begin in Tokyo on Friday.
At Tokyo Dome, a stage so big that even Shohei Ohtani felt nervous
Shohei Ohtani tips his batting helmet during the opening game of the MLB season between the Dodgers and Cubs on Tuesday at Tokyo Dome
Assassin’s Creed Shadows puts samurai style over substance
Releasing on March 20, Assassin's Creed Shadows excels in atmosphere and open-world gameplay but falls short of narrative expectations.
At Ventinove, Tuscan specialties taken to new heights
Tucked away behind the historic Tsuchida sake brewery, Ventinove's location and sleek, angular architecture make for impressive destination dining.

Podcast

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

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo
By Alex K.T. Martin

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