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August 15, 2024
 

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Tom Plate

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Tom Plate
Tom Plate, a veteran American columnist and career journalist, is the Distinguished Scholar of Asian and Pacific Affairs at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His many books include the "Giants of Asia" series, of which book four, "Conversations with Ban Ki-Moon: The View from the Top," is the latest.
COMMENTARY
Feb 21, 2005
Seoul's survival hangs on U.S. restraint
LOS ANGELES -- Hostage theory in international relations can explain why a lot of things do not happen. There's no better example than the North Korean crisis. The reason for continuing to talk to the North Koreans is not that we like them; it's that we care about the South Koreans.
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2005
Things look up to Downer
LOS ANGELES -- They say an optimist looks at the very same glass that the pessimist sees as half-empty and proclaims it to be half-full. By that measure, one of the world's foremost optimists has got to be Alexander Downer, Australia's minister for foreign affairs.
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2005
Too soon to end U.S. military's aid effort
LOS ANGELES -- What seems truly noteworthy about the U.S. response to the tsunami disaster (especially as viewed here from the West Coast) is the dramatic duration of the caring. Even as the TV media have begun to lose interest (predictably), the general interest here seems not to be waning at all.
COMMENTARY
Dec 25, 2004
Waiting for Japan to change -- or can it?
LOS ANGELES -- For as long as I write this column on Asia, which enters into its 10th year next month, I doubt I'll ever witness anything as amusing or telling as the flareup that took place at the close of the University of Southern California's Asia Conference last month.
COMMENTARY
Dec 9, 2004
U.N. will reform or slide into oblivion
LOS ANGELES -- If the United Nations were somehow to disappear from the face of the Earth, would people care -- or even notice?
COMMENTARY
Nov 2, 2004
Bin Laden exploiting Western divisions
...
COMMENTARY
Oct 25, 2004
A dialogue that can persuade Muslims
LOS ANGELES -- Whoever emerges as the next president of the United States must work hard indeed to set U.S. relations with the global Muslim world aright. Leaving aside America's pressing domestic concerns, that issue might prove Job No. 1 for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2004
Of course, U.S. should global-test policy
...
COMMENTARY
Sep 9, 2004
Seoul is not the proliferator
LOS ANGELES -- Fundamentally, as they tend to say in particle physics, the big brouhaha over the secret South Korean uranium-enrichment experiment is an absurdity.
COMMENTARY
Aug 30, 2004
They came, they saw, they pillaged Asia
LOS ANGELES -- Financial authorities are aghast over the latest near-death international financial collision. It involved a lightening-fast dumping earlier this month of nearly $14 billion in securities. The perpetrator was Citigroup, operating out of London.
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2004
Be careful what you wish for
LOS ANGELES -- Be careful what you wish for, goes the saying: In the end, you might just get your wish.
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2004
Rumor, fear and innuendo fuel tensions
LOS ANGELES -- Anyone who knows anything about China knows that it's not just its current government but its people, too, who are ultraprotective and ultra-sensitive about the Taiwan issue.
COMMENTARY
Jul 11, 2004
Japan can't compete with a burning Iraq
LOS ANGELES -- Before too long, Asia might get weary of being declared by self-appointed Occidental experts as the new center of the political universe. For one thing, the notion is hardly novel in Asia. But, then again, it might as well enjoy the limelight so long denied this most pivotal region on...
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2004
The torture of losing moral high ground
LOS ANGELES -- John F. Kennedy was no saint as president -- and America is not God. But, indisputably, JFK did inspire countless people at home and around the world to aspire to a higher standard. When Kennedy implored Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for...
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2004
Slow down the warehousing of the old
LOS ANGELES -- In Asia, though not everywhere in the region, older people tend to be regarded differently from their counterparts in America. In many places, they're not even spurned. In some, they are even revered. Imagine.
COMMENTARY
May 27, 2004
What Asians tend to think of America
LOS ANGELES -- Asia -- home to something like 60 percent of the earth's people -- is a vast multitude of ethnicities, nationalities, religions and cultures.
COMMENTARY
May 1, 2004
Shelve NYSE derivative plan
LOS ANGELES -- Deliberately injecting a new dollop of uncertainty into the already-shaky international financial system has got to be the white-collar dysfunctional equivalent of dropping a pair of terrorism car bombs on the steps of some nation's central bank.
COMMENTARY
Apr 29, 2004
Asian values shade Japan hostage crisis
LOS ANGELES -- It's true that Asian values may not be all they used to be. But they still pop up now and again with the capacity to dazzle and astonish. It's possible to argue, in fact, that if Asian values remain a strong enough force over time, they could even mitigate emerging Asian nationalism. Two...
COMMENTARY
Apr 22, 2004
George Bush needs a new Ear
LOS ANGELES -- What did "the Ear" hear on his recent trip to Asia?
COMMENTARY
Apr 19, 2004
South Korea's youth now in driver's seat
NEW YORK -- Veteran Asia-hand Nicholas Platt isn't quite ready to canonize Roh Moo Hyun as a great contemporary Asian leader -- notwithstanding last week's stunning endorsement of the populist president of South Korea in elections that catapulted the progressive, pro-Roh party to the top of the heap...
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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