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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 2, 2005
Commemorating a mistake
Chaos theorists like to speculate how a butterfly flapping wings in Beijing might cause an earthquake in Latin America. But history could have something even more chaotic to say -- how a Japanese soldier's toilet stop near Beijing in 1937 plunged Japan into an eight-year war with China, rescued Europe...
COMMENTARY
Aug 14, 2005
Reform mantra mesmerizes
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's decision to call a Diet Lower House election Sept. 11 solely on the question of post office privatization is curious.
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2005
Selling evil without a cause
If British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to prevent more London bombings, he needs to come up with some better arguments to condemn Islamic militancy. His claim that Britain confronts an "evil ideology" was both naive and foolish.
COMMENTARY
Jun 15, 2005
Free to take exceptions to 'free trade'
The harsh treatment handed out to European Union ideals by French and Dutch voters this month was in part a reaction to excessive EU bureaucracy and expansionism. But it was also a gut rejection of so-called globalization -- the foolish effort to deny economic and social differences between nations....
COMMENTARY
May 30, 2005
Western lies blackened Beijing's image
China's successful moves to improve ties with India have done more than sabotage Tokyo's hopes for an anti-China alliance with New Delhi. They have also put an end to the myth that China's alleged aggressions against India since the 1960s would prevent any rapprochement between the two countries.
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2005
Soviet concessions at Yalta
U.S. President George W. Bush rained heavily on Russian President Vladimir Putin's 60th anniversary war-end parade when he said the United States had renounced the Yalta agreement that conceded to Moscow postwar control over Eastern Europe. Putin had every right to be annoyed.
COMMENTARY
Apr 15, 2005
Shedding imposed war guilt
Tokyo is right to blame the Chinese authorities for failing to prevent damage to Japanese diplomatic and other properties during recent anti-Japanese demonstrations. But the Chinese authorities probably had their reasons. Demonstrations in China can easily turn into ugly antigovernment riots when confronted...
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2005
Northern Territories dispute highlights flawed diplomacy
Japan is now in serious territorial disputes with all of its neighbors -- Taiwan, China, South Korea and Russia. True, this could prove there is something wrong with all of Japan's neighbors. But it could also prove that there is something wrong in the way Japan handles territorial problems with its...
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2005
Racist banner looks frayed
Understanding Japan and the Japanese was never meant to be easy. This is especially true for the Japanese attitude to foreigners -- at times exclusivist and at other times extremely open. There is an answer to the seeming contradiction, but it requires outsiders to accept that the Japanese might have...
COMMENTARY
Jan 18, 2005
Same old contrived hysteria
Japan seems headed for yet another bout of emotional confrontation with North Korea and China.
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2004
Price of exclusivity too high
"Nippon Chinbotsu" -- Japan Sinks -- was the title of a 1980s best-selling novel that predicted how massive earthquakes would push the Japanese islands below the waters of the Pacific. The drenched survivors would head for Australia.
COMMENTARY
Nov 23, 2004
Irony lost on conservatives
The Japan Times editorial of Oct. 11, titled "Almost all wrong on Iraq," strongly criticized the foreign policies of the conservative U.S. administration. But on the same day and on the same page the conservative U.S. commentator George Will was quoting heavily from a book written by two London Economist...
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2004
New mindset is the only salve
Japan-China relations are in trouble, again. The latest recriminations began with the fierce booing of a Japanese soccer team in Chongqing in July of this year. Few of Japan's many indignant commentators seemed to know that this large central China city had been the defenseless target of relentless Japanese...
COMMENTARY
Sep 26, 2004
Blame supply-side policies
Toyoo Gyohten was the senior Ministry of Finance (MOF) official handling international affairs back in the early '70s, and a source of wisdom to those of us trying to understand Japan's financial maze. He now heads Japan's Institute for International Monetary Affairs. In a recent address to the Aspen...
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2004
The Tiananmen Square massacre myth
China's recent ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping have given the Tiananmen massacre myth yet another lease of life. Most media commentators, the BBC especially, have rehashed the standard condemnation of Deng as a hardliner who instigated a massacre of...
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2004
Barbaric immigration policy
Japan's current campaign against visa overstayers is both puzzling and cruel.
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2004
Myths of intelligence exposed
One reads with anger the conclusions of the U.S. Senate report and the British Butler report on the false intelligence reporting used to justify the U.S.-British attack on Iraq.
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2004
Shifting rightwing goal posts
Japan's increasingly powerful rightwing has gone to some strange lengths to condemn Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent admirable efforts to improve relations with North Korea.
COMMENTARY
May 25, 2004
Iraq and the end of history
U.S. President George W. Bush says often that the American aim in Iraq is to promote something called "democracy." But what is this democracy?
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2004
Don't credit PM for recovery
The Japanese economy is recovering. Why? Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi can hardly take the credit.
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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