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May 06, 2024
 

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COUNTERPOINT

Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 10, 2016
Same-sex marriage sparks a 'culture war' in Taiwan
Taiwan is one of the most LGBT friendly societies in Asia, with an active gay community and possibly the largest annual gay pride parade in the region. In recent weeks expectations spiked that it would soon legalize same-sex marriage. On Dec. 3, The Economist opined, "It would be even better if the country that hardly any others recognize became the first in Asia to recognize that gay people deserve equality." But this won't happen until mid-2017 at the earliest due to President Tsai Ing-wen's lukewarm support and a backlash from powerful conservatives.
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 and snake-oil salesmen are finding redemption.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 26, 2016
Trump, Putin and Kim make Abe miserable
What a bad week for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. His foreign policy initiatives lay in tatters with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's plans to dump the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Russian President Vladimir Putin pouring cold water on Abe's hopes of regaining some of the Northern Territories.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 19, 2016
Can Asia survive the shock of Trump-ageddon?
Donald Trump made some outlandish promises to win the U.S. presidential election. America and the world will survive, but he poses significant risks to the global economy and the peace that has prevailed in East Asia since 1979. His denial of global warming also means America will provide no leadership on climate change and the world will likely pay a high price for his ignorance.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 12, 2016
An age of anger imperils the West — and the East
Around the Western world we are witnessing an age of anger and fear. This is manifested in the vitriol of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's scorched earth presidential campaign and the fear-mongering by the pro-Brexit British. Across the EU, jingoistic messages are also gaining sway, if not respectability.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 5, 2016
Modi and Abe are at the nuclear altar again
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan for a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Nov. 11 and 12, and it is expected they will finally seal the deal on an elusive civil nuclear cooperation accord. When Abe visited India last year there was widespread speculation that the agreement would be signed but, instead, both sides settled for agreeing in principle while allowing more time to iron out remaining differences — chiefly Japan's reluctance to enter into an agreement with a nation that has not signed the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 29, 2016
Could nuclear advocacy be Abe's undoing?
Voters have elected anti-nuclear governors in Kagoshima and Niigata prefectures in recent months. These elections can be considered referenda on nuclear power because that issue was the main focus of debate in both campaigns. The results have put Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — and his plans to rev up the country's fleet of nuclear reactors — behind the eight ball of public opinion and prefectural politics.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 22, 2016
Why is Japan refusing to pay UNESCO its dues?
The Japanese government announced that it is withholding its payments owed to UNESCO. This is a $37 million expression of displeasure over the organization's decision last year to include a Chinese submission on "Documents of Nanjing Massacre" in the Memory of the World Register. It is also a warning shot aimed at the expected submission next month of a new "comfort women" dossier to UNESCO nominated by 15 organizations and institutions from 11 nations: South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and Australia.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 15, 2016
Koike exposes the dark side of the 'Iron Triangle'
When Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike was elected by a landslide in July, I don't think there were high hopes that she would take on the old-boy network of vested interests with such tenacity and verve. But she has defied expectations, exposing the seamy ways and means of a corrupt system run by the Liberal Democratic Party.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 8, 2016
Typhoon Trump could pummel Asian region
Should Asian leaders be worried about Trump? Hell yes. The world managed to survive the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, but the alarming prospect of a Trump presidency recently prompted 50 senior Republican national security officials, including former aides and Cabinet members, to sign a letter declaring he "would be the most reckless president in American history." Trumpkins like it when they make the Republican establishment uncomfortable, but the world really doesn't need more of their jingoism, racism and isolationism.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 1, 2016
Asia and the threat of untethered nationalism
George Orwell famously commented that nationalism is one of the "worst enemies of peace," feeding on grievance and insecurities, appealing to primordial instincts and unifying by invoking past traumas. Indian author Rabindranath Tagore also warned about this "great menace," arguing that nationalism enables people to escape responsibility for their immoral actions. More recently, Haruki Murakami wrote that it is "like cheap alcohol. It gets you drunk after only a few shots and makes you hysterical. It makes you speak loudly and act rudely ... but after your drunken rampage you are left with nothing but an awful headache the next morning."
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 24, 2016
Troika of female politicians under scrutiny
The media has been abuzz about the emergence of three prominent Japanese female politicians: Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and Renho, the head of the Democratic Party. However, the significance of this development is limited. Overall, politics in Japan remains a man's world — less than 15 percent of Diet members are women.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 17, 2016
Memories of 1931 Mukden Incident remain divisive
Today marks the 85th anniversary of the 1931 Mukden Incident (also known as the Manchurian Incident), when Japanese troops staged a bombing of their own railway by placing explosives near the train tracks. Even though the explosion did minimal damage and a train managed to pass the damaged section soon thereafter, this "attack" was blamed on the Chinese and used as a pretext to invade and pacify Manchuria. This was the beginning of the Fifteen Year War (1931-45), a Japanese-instigated conflagration that caused widespread regional devastation. China suffered the brunt of that mayhem, which is why this day has become engraved in the collective memory as a trauma inflicted by Japan.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 10, 2016
National trauma and the memory wars of Asia
It has been 15 years since 9/11, and America's nightmare has metastasized beyond anyone's wildest imagination. It is a bad dream that includes former President George W. Bush's Iraq War debacle, which plunged the Middle East into its current turmoil. But America's trauma pales when compared with the traumas it has subsequently inflicted. The seeds of blowback have been sown; a bitter harvest awaits the angry superpower.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 3, 2016
Complicating Taiwan's love affair with Japan
This month, the Ama (grandma) Museum will open in Taipei. It will be a venue dedicated to Taiwan's wartime "comfort women" who provided sexual services under duress at Japanese military brothels.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 27, 2016
Bears encroach on blurred human boundaries
It is puzzling that the black bears have become aggressive recently, given their previous inclination to retreat when confronted by humans. My theory is that winters are shorter and that means shorter hibernations and more active time spent consuming dwindling supplies of food. They love beech nuts but, when they exhaust the supply, they come down the hills toward human settlements.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 20, 2016
Bears: close encounters of the furred kind
As my wife and I listened to a news bulletin in June about bears killing four people in Akita Prefecture, she gave me one of those silent looks pregnant with meaning. Let me try to translate as best I can: It was one of those looks that say, "You see, you are nuts!" I am guilty as charged, but claim mildly mitigating circumstances.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 13, 2016
A new Taiwan dreams of transitional justice
The newly elected Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government of President Tsai Ing-wen has hit the ground running in a flurry of initiatives that highlight how powerfully the past resonates in contemporary Taiwan. Only in office since late May, she has positioned Taiwan on the progressive side of history and put it in line with other liberal democracies where it is assumed that the path to the future requires addressing unresolved historical grievances. In Taiwan, the fractious politics of transitional justice implicates the Kuomintang (KMT), the dominant party throughout most of the post-World War II era that is now in opposition.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 6, 2016
Why did Japan surrender in World War II?
The contentious debate among scholars about why Japan surrendered in World War II continues to rage.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 30, 2016
Is Japan ready for the LGBTQ revolution?
This past spring, at a restaurant in Tokyo's upscale Omotesando neighborhood, I encountered something new in Tokyo: a prominent sign written in English on the door of the communal WC declaring it "gender-free."
South Korea couple beat same-sex barriers to parenthood
South Korean lesbian couple Kim Kyu-jin (left) and her wife, Kim Sae-yeon, pose with a "pregnant woman" badge during an interview in Seoul last month.
Japan unveils new overtourism countermeasures
The majority of tourists in Japan tend to stay in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto, resulting in overcrowding in popular tourist spots and a strain on transportation systems.
Opportunities await the bold in the Year of the Wood Dragon
2024 marks the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, with the year predicted to be a good time for fresh starts.
Don’t worry about global population collapse
Most projections show the world will hit peak humanity in the 21st century as people choose to have smaller families and women gain power over their own reproduction.
Japan pharma startup developing world-first drug to grow new teeth
A new tooth is seen in a ferret's mouth after it was administered a drug to stimulate the growth of tooth buds.
'Monster' Inoue ready to tear down Luis Nery in title defense at Tokyo Dome
Naoya Inoue (left) and Luis Nery following a pre-fight news conference in Yokohama on Saturday, two days ahead of their super bantamweight title fight.
Debate on constitutional revision at a standstill despite Kishida's pledges
With less than two months left before the conclusion of the current session of parliament, any possibility that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can deliver constitutional reform before the end of his term as Liberal Democratic Party president in late September, as he has promised, appears remote.
Sapporo court ruling on Ainu fishing rights presents tough questions
A traditional Ainu preserved food called <i>satchep</i> (dried fish) being made at the government-run National Ainu Museum and Park, nicknamed Upopoy, in the town of Shiraoi, Hokkaido, on Dec. 25. The Sapporo District Court ruled last month that the Raporo Ainu Nation's rights as an Indigenous people did not extend to having an inherent right to fish for commercial reasons.
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
By Stephen Mansfield

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