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November 22, 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
Jun 6, 2015
History is harsh unless you erase it
On his visit to the United States in April, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addressed Congress and told them: "History is harsh. What was done cannot be undone."
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."
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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

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