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Kuni Miyake
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 9, 2019
Three front-line nations drifting into chaos
Let's hope that Washington has enough wisdom to keep Ukraine, Turkey and South Korea on our side.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 2, 2019
Should Tokyo cancel Xi's visit due to Hong Kong?
A patriotic but pragmatic prime minister like Yasuhiro Nakasone would never try to show Japan's displeasure by canceling Xi's upcoming state visit.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 25, 2019
Was Seoul's decision on GSOMIA strategic?
This is not the end of the Japan-South Korea dispute, but rather the beginning of a new round.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 18, 2019
Will Tokyo's 'deep state' strike back?
Can and will Japanese bureaucrats revolt or speak out, when necessary, against the incumbent prime minister of the day the way their U.S. counterparts are in the Ukraine scandal?
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 11, 2019
Why Japan's English education is a fiasco
The first step toward improving Japanese student's English-speaking ability is to ensure their English teachers can speak the language.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 5, 2019
Will Japan be a loser in U.S.-China trade war?
Preconceptions and wishful thinking are always the biggest obstacles for understanding reality.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 28, 2019
Erosion of America's reliability for allies
The Trump administration's actions raise questions about the credibility of the Japan-U.S. alliance.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 21, 2019
Ending a war isn't the same as winning it
If we can't restore the Japan-U.S. alliance, we must work to refine it together — maybe with a new administration in Washington.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 15, 2019
Trump's move in Syria should alarm U.S. allies
The ramifications of the mistake Trump made are so grave that no leader of an ally or friend of American can ignore it.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 7, 2019
Simple, serious and fatal mistakes in politics
When it comes to rational, sophisticated and consistent policymaking, dictators like China's Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan have the advantage.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2019
Keep South Korean judiciary independent
What is truly at stake now is the future of democracy in South Korea.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 24, 2019
What’s really happening in the rest of the world
The conventional wisdom from the past 70-some years in Japan may no longer be conventional anymore.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2019
Saudi Arabia drone attacks and trilateral coordination
Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, but nobody in Tokyo believes that.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 9, 2019
Boris Johnson's dismay over whaling
Britain's prime minister shouldn't allow the U.K.-Japan relationship to be unduly defined by a still important but strategically irrelevant issue like whaling.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2019
Protests in 1969 Tokyo and today's Hong Kong
The Hong Kong authorities cannot simply continue their wack-a-mole game against the protestors.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 26, 2019
The silent foreign policy establishment
The South Korean decision will potentially derail the traditional tripartite security alliance mechanism that has stabilized Northeast Asia for the past seven decades.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 19, 2019
How to deal with the Trump tantrum?
The dichotomy of the Trump administration is here to stay.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 13, 2019
How to deal with the Islamic Republic
Japan should do what it can under existing laws and regulations. Nothing more and nothing less.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 5, 2019
Who lost South Korea?
Japan and South Korea made need a few more decades before reaching a true rapprochement.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 29, 2019
The 'Chinese Union' and the Korean Peninsula
Unless a diplomatic genius appears out of the blue and solve this small but serious spat between Tokyo and Seoul, the two neighbors may have to reach an extreme end of their game of chicken.

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Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone. 
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan