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November 22, 2024
 

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Harvey Stockwin
COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2003
Iraq changes U.S. presidential scenarios
HONG KONG -- Seen from East Asia, American politics appear to be undergoing a sea-change. Mainly under the pressure of events in Iraq, President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004 has become much more uncertain, and it has become easier to see some of the Democratic Party's potential candidates becoming...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2003
Secrecy robs space feat of its glory
HONG KONG -- For those who have labored long and hard to keep China's space program alive and moving forward, it must have been a wonderful moment when, on Oct. 15, the complicated machinery of initiating space travel performed flawlessly, and China scored a first.
COMMENTARY
Oct 20, 2003
ASEAN further devalued itself at summit
HONG KONG -- It is almost impossible to see the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' ninth summit in Bali earlier this month as having regenerated the regional body, even though that was the objective asserted by the participants.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2003
Lee's intensity hardly dulled by age
HONG KONG -- A rare and remarkable Asian leader passed a milestone on Sept. 16. Former Singapore Prime Minister, now Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew celebrated his 80th birthday. He has been running Singapore, in substance if not in title, since his People's Action Party swept the polls in 1959.
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2003
Talks on North Korea face usual impasse
HONG KONG -- At long last, the four major powers in East Asia and the two Koreas aim to honor Clause 60 of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement. Clause 60 was supposed to have been implemented within three months of the July 27, 1953, signing of the ceasefire in the war. Now the stage looks set in Beijing...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2003
50-year testament to the absence of war
HONG KONG -- Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the signing of a document that has lasted much longer than expected and has had a profound influence on the course of modern Asian history.
COMMENTARY
Jul 19, 2003
Hong Kong's democratic hopes vs. authoritarian fears
HONG KONG -- July 1, 2003 -- when at least 500,000 Hong Kongers marched in nonviolent protest -- will live long in memory, provided that Hong Kong remains an oasis of freedom set in China's authoritarian sea. But it was also a day that will almost certainly be expunged from the Chinese collective memory...
COMMENTARY
Jun 29, 2003
Six lies of Myanmar's junta
HONG KONG -- Myanmar's military junta has reacted to growing international disquiet over its current crackdown on the country's duly elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy by telling lies that only increase fears for her personal survival.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2003
Hong Kong's blurred sense of identity had a role in SARS fiasco
HONG KNG -- In the end, it took the Chinese Communist Party's nine-member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) 5 1/2 months to take a public stand on handling the current atypical pneumonia crisis with much greater openness. Guangdong Province experienced the first outbreak of the previously unknown disease...
COMMENTARY
Apr 9, 2003
Outsiders neglectful as China hid SARS
HONG KONG -- Chinese officialdom continues to both avoid reality and to invent it. The Chinese people still suffer because of the absence of freedom of information. Ironically, Hong Kong residents are still receiving phone calls from friends and relatives in Guangdong, asking them what is going on in...
COMMENTARY
Mar 28, 2003
China's systemic incompetence can sicken world
HONG KONG -- An ugly new strain of atypical pneumonia has medical scientists working overtime in their research laboratories across the world, as they strive to discover why a growing number of patients are now suffering and dying in many nations from this previously unknown virus that is being blamed...
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2003
Undoing a dictator's legacy
HONG KONG -- There was a largely unseen symmetry underlying two political bombshells that recently exploded in the northern Philippines, one after the other: Early on Dec. 29, the effigy of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, seemingly carved into rock in northern Luzon, was at long last blown up. Then,...
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2003
Silence isn't golden for Korean peace
HONG KONG -- As the latest Korean crisis has developed, one contradiction has been obvious: The Bush administration refused to talk with North Korea until Pyongyang abandoned nuclear blackmail and returned to honoring all the treaties and agreements that it has recently repudiated. Yet the Bush administration...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2003
Koreans on either side sweep offbeat honors
HONG KONG -- The two Koreas swept the board with the most Asian Institute of Discord Analysis (Aida) "awards" for 2002, in a way reminiscent of the glory days of the Indo-Pakistani antagonism, before those two South Asian nations won the "Rivalry of the Year" award in perpetuity.
COMMENTARY
Jan 3, 2003
Little love lost in year of discord
HONG KONG -- Once again, it is time to give away the Asian Institute of Discord Analysis (Aida) "awards" for the just concluded Year of the Horse, an offbeat listing made exclusively for The Japan Times.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2002
A healthy contrast to politics in Beijing
HONG KONG -- The openness, mutual personal criticism and freedom displayed during the latest Taiwanese election were a refreshing contrast to the secrecy, sycophancy and control displayed before, during and after the Chinese Communist Party's 16th Congress.
COMMENTARY
Nov 29, 2002
A state led by the power of nine
HONG KONG -- While many foreign press reports recently stressed the ways in which China was becoming more capitalist, only London's Financial Times cautioned readers about how the country remains indubitably communist.
COMMENTARY
Nov 21, 2002
Hu inherits but Jiang still leads China
HONG KONG -- As Chinese Communist Party's 16th Party Congress convened on Nov. 8, the delegates stood for two minutes of silence in memory of past leaders. Along with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, one of the names read out was that of Liu Shaoqi. It was a pointed reminder of CCP tumult and strife in past...
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2002
Bali crisis energizes Indonesian democracy
HONG KONG -- The Bali bombing atrocity demonstrated, in a profoundly tragic fashion, how a politically weak, poorly organized, yet struggling democracy like Indonesia is intensely vulnerable to the forces of extremism and terrorism.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2002
Speculation rife as CPC Congress nears
The Communist Party of China's leadership-succession process remains shrouded in secrecy, but six broad scenarios have been identified by China-watchers as likely to unfold in the next six months as that process is completed at the 16th Party Congress starting Nov. 8, and then at the National Peoples'...
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.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
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.

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