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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
Sep 4, 2008
Fukuda hounded out of office
Japan's PR-vulnerable public and lightheaded media have done it again. Between them they have got rid of yet another of Japan's better prime ministers. I have no brief for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's policies. On two key issues I think he was wrong. One was his determination to force through legislation...
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2008
World gives Russia an unfair rap
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is an intelligent woman. So how can she possibly want to tell the world that Russia's response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia resembled the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2008
Birth of a massacre myth
With the Beijing Olympics looming we see more attempts to remind the world about the alleged June 4, 1989, massacre of democracy-seeking students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2008
Puzzle awaits G8 delegates
Spare a thought for the puzzle that will meet foreign delegations to the Group of Eight Summit in Hokkaido on July 7. On the one hand they will find a nation that organizes itself with clockwork perfection. Indeed, the summit organization will almost certainly be over-perfection, with every detail scripted...
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2008
Japan sidelined on Taiwan
Arriving at Taipei international airport en route to a Taiwanese university conference on Russia, you are hit by the headline of a local magazine on display. In translation it reads: "The New Diplomacy Will Rescue Taiwan."
COMMENTARY
May 12, 2008
Row that demonized China
So now we know, officially, that the U.S. military contemplated a nuclear attack on China during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis. But what few realize is how this then led to a violent slanging match between Beijing and Moscow, which in turn was to lead to the Vietnam and other Indochina wars, which in...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 27, 2008
U.S. democracy's history of violence
DEMOCRACY WITH A GUN; America and the Policy of Force, by Fumio Matsuo, translated by David Reese. Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 2007, 306 pp., $26 (cloth) As a child in wartime Japan, Fumio Matsuo, now a journalist, and his family were nearly wiped out by U.S. incendiary bombing of regional...
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2008
Tibet and Olympic Games
Events in Tibet have turned ugly. Once again we see the harm caused by Beijing's heavy-handed bureaucracy, and its panicky, untrained soldiers used for crowd control. But even when combined with all of Beijing's other alleged sins — Darfur, pollution, human rights and other issues — does Tibet justify...
COMMENTARY
Feb 21, 2008
Aussie personalist diplomacy
Australia is never short of surprises. One is the way it has produced a prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who can talk directly with the Chinese leadership in their language. Reports say his Mandarin Chinese is excellent.
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2008
Mistaken economic policies
Another year, another budget. And yet another increase in public debt as tax revenues yet again fail to provide the funds needed even for the budget's highly restricted outlays.
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2007
The fusillade against China
In some ways China is not my favorite country. I once went to some trouble to learn its language. I have often had to court rightwing hostility for trying to explain its foreign policies in less than demonic terms. Back in 1971 I even organized, single-handedly and over Canberra's opposition, an Australian...
COMMENTARY
Nov 1, 2007
Trumped up war on 'terror'
My French aunt died the other day. She was lovely woman. But sadly she was also a terrorist.
COMMENTARY
Oct 8, 2007
Getting Japan's politics wrong
Western media have reported Japan's new prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, as drab and unexciting and even as "lukewarm pizza." But anyone who watched him during his more than three-year stint as chief Cabinet secretary would know that he has a sharp mind and a laid-back sense of humor.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2007
Wealth related to the culture of nations
DAVIS, Calif. — Modern economists have turned Adam Smith into a prophet, just as communist regimes once deified Karl Marx. The central tenet they attribute to Smith — that good incentives, regardless of culture, produce good results — has become the great commandment of economics. Yet that view...
COMMENTARY
Sep 7, 2007
APEC's purpose is missing
Each year we have to ask the same question as world leaders drag themselves across the globe, taking days from their crowded schedules, simply to hand out platitudes on the importance of free trade, the environment or some other trendy topic of the day.
COMMENTARY
Aug 27, 2007
Hope for peace in partition?
Why is the world so reluctant to accept partition as the answer to ethnic, religious or political conflicts? The Kosovo conflict may finally be moving in that direction, but only after all sides debased themselves by years of murderous conflict. In Iraq, too, the much-needed separation into three autonomous...
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2007
Miyazawa knew economics
Obituaries for former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who died recently at age 87, agreed that he was a statesman and a genuine internationalist. But some — those from Nikkei, Japan's leading economic media group, especially — also criticized him as a Keynesian economist responsible for Japan's economic...
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2007
More compelling than common sense
The following statement appeared in an article on the opinion page of The Japan Times in July 2003: "The main result of the U.S. action (in Iraq) will probably be to turn a nation free from al-Qaida links into yet another hotbed of anti-U.S. 'terrorism,' and to push one of the few secular Middle Eastern...
COMMENTARY
Apr 30, 2007
Crucial role for trade barriers
Latin America's textile industries are in trouble. They cannot compete with cheaper imports from China.
COMMENTARY
Apr 12, 2007
Australia's anti-China pact
Australia does some strange things in its foreign policies. The latest "security" (read "military") tieup with Japan is no exception.
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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