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November 22, 2024
 

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Gregory Clark
Gregory Clark has been around a long time (born 1936) and has done a lot of things. As a result, he likes to comment on foreign affairs, economic policies and education plus events in China, Russia, Japan and Latin America (he speaks all four languages).
COMMENTARY
Feb 1, 2003
Changing Pyongyang's ways
The response to my Jan. 10 article "Pyongyang is the real victim," which blames the United States for its mishandling of the North Korean nuclear problem, tells me two things: First, Japan Times articles are followed abroad much more widely than I realized; second, many believe firmly in the incorrigibly...
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2003
Pyongyang is the real victim
Western and Japanese reactions to North Korea's recent nuclear activities and warnings have been strange.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2002
Abductee hysteria in Japan
That old saying about democracies being their own worst enemies is getting a good workout in Japan's abductee dispute with North Korea. By any standards, North Korea's willingness to release five Japanese abducted in the 1970s following Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Sept. 17 breakthrough visit to...
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2002
Strange public works allergy
Sunday saw the opening of the long-delayed Morioka-Hachinohe extension of the Tohoku Shinkansen (Northeast Japan bullet-train line). Local people will be happy. But don't expect great outbursts of joy elsewhere. Japan is into one of its periodic antipublic works moods.
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2002
Economic foolishness deepens
We knew that Japan's economic debate was fairly foolish when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told us that structural reforms such as privatizing highway corporations and the post office would somehow revitalize the Japanese economy. But even that looks sensible compared with the latest proposed "reform"...
COMMENTARY
Nov 2, 2002
The Asia-Pacific odd couple
Japan and Australia make a rather odd couple in Asia. Yet their officials spend a lot of time talking to each other. Thursday will see yet another talkfest in Tokyo -- this time to discuss their "creative partnership." One reason for the talkativeness is that neither nation quite has the Asian credentials...
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2002
Japan's tail-chasing economy
With the economy still moribund after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's initial round of "structural reforms," we are now told that cleaning up the banking system will save the day.
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2002
Japan ill-served by outrage
Japan's powerful rightwing seems determined to use the abduction and other problems with North Korea to wreck Tokyo's stunning breakthrough in relations with that once-secretive nation. Even moderates here have let themselves get involved in the attempted demolition.
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2002
Label that foils compromise
Sept. 11, 2002, brought us no closer to sensible thinking about the causes of events a year earlier. The United States concentrated on its own sufferings, and plans for revenge against "terrorists." In Japan, a high-level NHK roundtable dragged out that favorite of aid agencies seeking bigger budgets,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 7, 2002
Scandal's dangerous fallout
The nuclear-plant faults that Tokyo Electric Power Co. tried for years to cover up may not have been serious in themselves, but the effects of the coverups on Japan's nuclear debate will be catastrophic.
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2002
Terrorism or simply war?
Soon after last year's Sept. 11 attack on the United States by Islamic militants, I got into a debate with a hawkish member of the private consultative committee set up by then-Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka. He was demanding angrily that Japan should help eliminate something called global "terror."...
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2002
The scrapheap of the brave
The fuss surrounding the Diet resignation of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka has seen Japan and its media at their shallow, group-think, conservative, anti-individualist worst.
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2002
The U.S.-Japan management roundabout
What goes round, comes round. In the 1950s and '60s, U.S. experts warned Japanese businessmen that they had to get rid of their feudalistic management systems if they were to go ahead.
COMMENTARY
Jul 13, 2002
New asylum policy would benefit Japan and refugees
In the wake of the May 8 Shenyang consulate incident, Tokyo is reviewing its refugee policy. Predictably, it has set up a committee to think about it all. This writer is a member. What he sees is not encouraging.
COMMENTARY
Jun 30, 2002
Tollgate mentality in Japan
Straddling the Keiyo Expressway linking Tokyo and Chiba is the Funabashi tollgate. A long row of booths collects a 200 yen toll from most drivers. Perennial jams at the tollgate have long caused frustration to me and others heading toward Chiba. People late for planes at Narita suffer even more.
COMMENTARY
Jun 15, 2002
Japan remains very abnormal
When the framers of Japan's postwar Constitution included the much-debated Article 9 prohibiting the nation from ever having armed forces or from ever going to war, they had a reason. They saw Japan as a nation with an incurable propensity to slip into militarism.
COMMENTARY
Jun 5, 2002
Debunking free-market dogmatism
Washington's propensity to say one thing and then do something quite different wins few friends. But U.S. determination to protect its domestic steel industry with high antidumping tariffs may not be quite as wicked as most assume. The move flies in the face of claimed U.S. devotion to free-trade principles....
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2002
Japan at its inconsistent worst
Japan's overheated reaction to the May 8 North Korean refugee incident at the Japanese consulate-general in Shenyang, northeast China, is worrying.
COMMENTARY
May 11, 2002
Koizumi's pain, media's gain
Japan's gossipy media kingmakers have finally gone too far. Not content with creating Japan's system of revolving-door prime ministers, they now want to dump a creature of their own creation, Junichiro Koizumi, only a year after he took office. They want Tokyo governor, Shintaro Ishihara, as his successor....
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2002
'Cures' are killing the patient
The Japanese economy is said to be showing signs of recovery. And so it should. You can't keep a strong economy down for ever -- though a lot of people have been trying hard to do just that.
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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