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December 23, 2024
 

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Robert A. Manning
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2001
Kim seeks survival, not reform
WASHINGTON -- It is time to begin facing up to reality on the Korean Peninsula: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is neither a serious reformer nor a likely visitor to Seoul this year. Despite a valiant effort by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, North Korea is trapped in its own system with the pace...
COMMENTARY / World
May 17, 2001
Tactical genius, strategic fool
In less than a year, the image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has gone from one of an erratic bon vivant and playboy to that of a wily statesman. But as North Korea braces for yet another winter of starvation and North-South reconciliation grinds to a halt, it may be time to reappraise the "Dear...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2001
The choice is North Korea's
WASHINGTON -- The curtain has come down on the first act of the Bush administration's Asia policy, and there are far more questions than answers about U.S. policy after President Kim Dae Jung's visit to Washington. The media feasted on the mixed messages from a skeptical President George W. Bush and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2001
Korean relations under Bush
WASHINGTON -- One legacy that U.S. President Bill Clinton will not rush to claim credit for is a surfeit of Asian candidates for the likely first foreign-policy crisis inherited by the new Bush administration -- Taiwan, Indonesia and India and Pakistan among them. But certainly North Korea is near the...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2000
More symbol than substance?
With U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gearing up to visit North Korea, it is a good time to take a deep breath and assess where this political roller coaster is headed. We have barely digested the last photo opportunity: the remarkable image of North Korea's top general, Vice Marshal Cho Myong...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 2, 2000
Kim Jong Il still an enigma
WASHINGTON -- Now that the novelty and euphoria of the remarkable Korean summit have faded, the world is left scratching its head and wondering what it all adds up to. Has one of the world's most dangerous flash points suddenly been defused? Have the tectonic plates of the East Asian strategic equation...
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2000
The limits of peacekeeping
There is a troubling sense of deja vu in the tragedy befalling the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Sierra Leone (it is really peace enforcement, a euphemism for getting sucked into someone else's war). And more than just putting at risk future U.N. operations, recent events pose vexing questions about how...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2000
Irrational intransigence
Was I the only one who noticed? Ever since the end of the Cold War (that breeding ground of massive numbers of nuclear warheads), U.S. policy toward Russia has been to get rid of as many Russian nuclear weapons as possible. Yet when the Russians recently proposed eliminating up to 1,000 strategic nuclear...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 1999
Global cop or rogue power?
WASHINGTON -- Completely unnoticed by most Americans, the Washington elite has become ensnared in a yet another false, narcissistic foreign policy debate. Yet when French President Jacques Chirac stood side-by-side with Chinese President Jiang Zemin recently and denounced U.S. nuclear and antiballistic...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 1999
New policy left driverless
Nine months in the making, revision of a now admittedly flawed policy toward North Korea is an important step in the right direction in dealing with a problem where there is no good option. But there is a troubling gap in logic between former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry's sagacious assessment...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 1999
Grim lessons from East Timor
"Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little" was the truly mind-boggling statemen of U.S. President Bill Clinton before the United Nations Sept. 21. Now he tells us. So much for the "Clinton Doctrine" of humanitarian intervention. Yet as international peacekeepers pour into a devastated...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 1999
NATO steps into a quagmire
Call it the first humanitarian empire. For a moment, look beyond the horrific slaughter and the terrible plight of ethnic Albanian refugees. The immediate crisis obscures a host of profound long-term -- and largely unintended consequences -- of the current Balkan intervention that will impact U.S. foreign...
Bankruptcies and suicides rise as Japanese struggle with mounting debt
Lawyers estimate that personal bankruptcies in Japan are on track to reach the highest since 2012 this year.
Honda and Nissan consider mutual production of vehicles, report says
Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe at the Japan Mobility Show 2023 at Tokyo Big Sight in October 2023.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

Podcast

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