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November 24, 2024
 

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Jeff Kingston
Jeff Kingston lives in Tokyo, teaches history at Temple University Japan and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 1988. "Contemporary Japan" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) is his most recent book.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 10, 2014
The Sewol tragedy: for whom the bell tolls
South Korea is a nation in mourning, sharing the unfathomable grief of parents who lost their teenage children on what should have been a festive school trip. It is a nation experiencing collective depression, where many are tormented by the heartbreaking and endless grim news about the students who...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 3, 2014
Obama's pivot to Asia: Rebalance and reassure
Summits are all about symbolism and optics and on that score U.S. President Barack Obama's swing through Asia was a qualified success. Another few nails were hammered into the coffin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with officials now edging toward a face saving TPP-Lite, but Americans paid little...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 26, 2014
Asian paradox: Closer but cooler
The mini-Cold War between Japan and South Korea has kept Washington busy as it tries to forge closer security ties between its allies to offset the rise of China. Policymakers confront the Asian paradox of deepening distrust and conflict in tandem with widening economic and human exchanges. Relations...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 19, 2014
Team Abe's alternate-reality Kool-Aid
Japan's relations with China and South Korea are in tatters, there has been no progress on dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, strains with Washington persist, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are at an impasse, whaling got harpooned and hopes for a deal with Russia on the northern...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 12, 2014
Weapons for peace and proactive pacifism
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has relaxed curbs on arms exports and sees great market potential in Asia. In the Pacific Century, Asia's impressive economic growth is funding expanding defense budgets, making the region the most lucrative global arms market. Alas, it is also a region of significant flash...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 5, 2014
Lessons of Fukushima: Reactor restarts are unwise
Kyle Cleveland, my colleague at Temple University Japan, recently published a report in the online Asia-Pacific Journal, "Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty" that has drawn widespread media attention. Based on numerous interviews with government officials,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 29, 2014
Unpersuasive logic for death penalty in Japan
The death penalty in Japan is imposed in cases of murder, and robbery and/or rape leading to death. In such cases, capital punishment is not mandatory and is usually only imposed in cases of multiple killings, though since 2006 this criteria has not been strictly observed.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 22, 2014
Okinawa redux: Democracy and an alliance at risk
U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy made a meet-and-greet trip to Okinawa last month, an opportunity to gauge the lay of the land and listen to some of the stakeholders in the longstanding controversies over plans to reduce America's military footprint in the prefecture.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 15, 2014
The Fukushima tragedy justifies nuclear skepticism
The findings of a Kyodo survey conducted in February this year reveal a stunning level of reluctance to restart Japan's nuclear reactors in the host cities, towns and prefectures that stand to gain from revving them back up.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 8, 2014
Tsunami zone's village culture fades into fog of history
We can better appreciate what Tohoku's shoreline villages represented now that they have been washed away and former residents are marooned in soulless temporary housing ghettoes where the greatest risks are isolation and boredom.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 1, 2014
Japan's reactionaries waging culture war
The contemporary culture wars that have erupted over Japanese identity and history are undermining the country's national interests and damaging its reputation.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 22, 2014
Abe's culture wars boomerang against Japan
Japan's culture wars are heating up to the detriment of the nation. The Financial Times is right to warn that the jingoism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and attempts to stifle public debate, are grave threats to Japan's open society. Most Japanese don't want to go where Abe is trying to drag them, but...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 15, 2014
Tokyo firebombing and unfinished U.S. business
Last week in this column, I suggested that Caroline Kennedy, the American ambassador to Japan, would be well advised to get the ball rolling on U.S. apologies for past misdeeds.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 8, 2014
Blast from the past: Lucky Dragon 60 years on
Sixty years ago, on March 1, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat named Lucky Dragon No. 5 was doused by radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen-bomb test, codenamed Castle Bravo, on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Although the bomb was over 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 1, 2014
Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival
The title of "Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival" refers to an old Japanese proverb about making the best of a bad situation or transforming crisis into opportunity. Japan is no stranger to crisis, or to monumental "bending," but will the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 serve...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 1, 2014
Can local voices derail the Super Shinzo Express?
Voters in Nago, northern Okinawa Island, threw down the gauntlet on Jan. 19 when they reelected as mayor the incumbent, Susumu Inamine, a staunch opponent of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the congested city of Ginowan in the south to the Henoko...
Japan Times
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...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 25, 2014
Spinmeister Abe: crisis-mongering and distractions
The news media tends to hyperventilate because this generates a buzz that attracts attention.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 18, 2014
Lexicon for today's Japan: Reading between the lies
Plowing through the news, one is often struck by the proliferation of acronyms, jargon, new names and terms. It can be a baffling experience, so I thought I would provide some explanations, keywords, synonyms, associative notions and interpretations to aid comprehension — even at risk of differing...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 11, 2014
A new-year Asian reading list to savor and inspire
At this time of year, many newspapers publish such lengthy lists of must-read books that it's daunting to even imagine them all piled up gathering dust on the bedside table. So let me narrow the field by sharing some amazing titles about or from Asia that I have enjoyed over the past year.
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Woman dies after train collides with car in Tochigi
A Moka Railway train car
Japan will spend ¥325 million in government funds on Princess Yuriko's funeral
Princess Yuriko waves during the New Year's public greeting at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in January 2019.
133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world
mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

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