Tag - relations

 
 

RELATIONS

The head office of Chugoku Bank in Okayama
BUSINESS
May 28, 2025
Japan’s ‘Middle Country’ bank is puzzling Chinese tourists
When written in Japanese, Chugoku Bank's name is identical to that of Bank of China.
People queue up for events at various pavilions during the 2025 Osaka Expo in Osaka on May 21.
JAPAN
May 28, 2025
'Expo grandma' completes tour of all Osaka Expo pavilions
Tomiyo Yamada visited her last remaining pavilion, the Netherlands pavilion, on Wednesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivers remarks at the National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
May 28, 2025
Hegseth to face questions on U.S. commitment at top Asian defense conference
The event comes amid growing anxiety over Washington's tariff program and uncertainties about U.S. defense policy.
Demonstrators hold signs during a protest in support of international students at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
May 28, 2025
Japanese universities urged to open doors to students blocked from Harvard
The education ministry has asked universities nationwide to support students affected by the White House's push against foreign enrollments at Harvard.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Icelandic President Halla Tomasdottir at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday
JAPAN / Politics
May 28, 2025
Ishiba and Tomasdottir agree to deepen cooperation between Japan and Iceland
The Icelandic president said Japan is Iceland's most important partner in Asia, and expressed her eagerness to collaborate on geothermal energy and gender equality.
Peter Mandelson, British Ambassador to the U.S.
WORLD
May 28, 2025
U.K. envoy urges trans-Atlantic tech alliance, citing China threat
Ambassador Peter Mandelson warned of the consequences if China continues to get ahead in AI and other key technologies.
Nippon Steel headquarters in Tokyo. The U.S. government is poised to receive a so-called golden share in U.S. Steel as a condition for approving Nippon Steel's proposed acquisition of the American company.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 28, 2025
Golden share fix proposed for knotty Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel deal
The plan would give the U.S. government a veto over certain company decisions.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has reached an agreement with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to strengthen security cooperation.
JAPAN / Politics
May 27, 2025
Japan and Italy agree to advance security cooperation
The cooperation includes a project between Japan, Italy and Britain to jointly develop a next-generation fighter jet.
Japan Coast Guard on Monday spotted a Chinese maritime survey vessel "extending what appeared to be a wire into the waters in Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) 270 kilometers east of Okinotori island," government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
JAPAN
May 27, 2025
Japan says China conducted research near Pacific atoll
The alleged activity took place on Monday near the remote atoll of Okinotori in the Philippine Sea.
Mika Sasaki (center) checks a scene of her film "Bougainvillea no Yume" ("Bougainvillea Dream") while shooting it in Kolkata, India, in February.
JAPAN
May 27, 2025
Japanese student in India reflects on her grandfather while filming World War II movie
The filmmaker's late grandfather is believed to have survived one of the fiercest battles during the war in India, though he never spoke of it.
Donald Trump’s approval of Nippon Steel’s U.S. Steel partnership signals a key step in U.S.-Japan economic and security cooperation amid rising competition with China.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 27, 2025
Nippon Steel partnership go-ahead boosts U.S.-Japan cooperation
The move is a sharp departure from Trump’s earlier, politically motivated stance opposing foreign ownership of U.S. Steel.
Takahiro Mori, executive vice president of Japan's biggest steelmaker Nippon Steel, speaks about its strategy in its headquarters in Tokyo on Nov. 28, 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
May 26, 2025
Garage meets and sleepless flights: How Nippon Steel's negotiator stuck at U.S. merger
With Biden's incoming successor Donald Trump also voicing opposition to the planned purchase, the outlook was bleak.
A United States Steel plant in River Rouge, Michigan. The guessing game continues as to what a "partnership" between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, as announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, actually entails.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 26, 2025
Even Nippon Steel is unsure about what a ‘partnership’ with U.S. Steel means
U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for the steelmakers has left the markets guessing and the participants keen to remain mum.
Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, speaks during a campaign event in the city of Uijeongbu, South Korea, on May 20.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 26, 2025
South Korea's Lee pledges to restore hotline with North Korea
The front-runner in South Korea's presidential election laid out a noticeably softer approach to the nuclear-armed North than his predecessor.
The beach on Aka Island, Okinawa Prefecture, where U.S. forces first landed in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Kyushu
May 26, 2025
How a remote island escaped mass suicide in Battle of Okinawa
Residents had been told that, if captured, women would be assaulted and men mutilated by U.S. soldiers.
Members of the Okinawa Prefectural Police and the U.S. military conduct a joint patrol in the city of Okinawa in April. Prefectural police arrested a U.S. Marine for an alleged hit-and-run case on Sunday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 26, 2025
U.S. Marine arrested for Okinawa hit-and-run that injured four
Lance Cpl. Ivan Garcia-Martinez’s breathalyzer test showed an alcohol level approximately twice the legal limit, police said.
Japan may offer cooperation on shipbuilding expertise and an Alaska natural gas project as part of trade talks with the United States.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 26, 2025
Japan touts ships expertise and LNG investment, with tariff talks key
There is rising momentum in the negotiations as the U.S. tariffs threaten to drag Japan’s economy into a technical recession ahead of the Upper House election.
The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning sails through the Miyako Strait in Okinawa Prefecture on its way to the Pacific in April 2021.
JAPAN
May 26, 2025
Chinese aircraft carrier conducts fighter jet operations in East China Sea
This was the first time Japan announced that the Liaoning aircraft carrier was conducting training in the area home to the disputed Senkaku Islands.
U.S. President Donald Trump says U.S. Steel will be "controlled by the United States, otherwise I wouldn’t make the deal” on what he called a "partnership" with Nippon Steel.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 26, 2025
Trump backing for Nippon Steel deal comes with big questions
The U.S. leader's unexpected announcement stopped short of explicitly endorsing Nippon Steel’s proposed takeover, instead asserting that U.S. Steel would "remain American.”
Drawn to tea ceremony while volunteering at a Japanese garden in Phoenix, Arizona, Michele Laudig (right) came to learn a “common language of movement and ritual” that brought her into new communities in New York City and Tokyo.
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
May 26, 2025
A moving meditation: Finding serenity in tea ceremony across space and time
After an American writer ventured into the world of tea ceremony, its lessons transformed her relationship to Japan and brought her into communities bonded by movement and ritual.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’