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 Brad Glosserman

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Brad Glosserman
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2001
A textbook lesson for Japan's leaders
HONOLULU -- The controversy over middle school textbooks continues to damage relations between Japan and South Korea. Last week, the Seoul government announced that it was canceling military exchanges and the introduction of Japanese cultural products in retaliation for Tokyo's failure to meet South...
COMMENTARY
Jun 24, 2001
In diplomacy, two tracks is better than one
There is a better than even chance that this is the only article you will ever read about the Asia Pacific Roundtable that was held earlier this month in Kuala Lumpur. That's a pity. Not only because the meeting has some history behind it -- this year marked the 15th annual get-together -- or because...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 17, 2001
China no threat to Asia just yet
CHINA AND THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY: Great Power or Struggling Developing State? by Solomon M. Karmel. MacMillan, 2000, 229 pp., 35 UK pounds (cloth). China is a revisionist state. It wants to challenge the existing international order -- or at least the way things work in Asia. The country's history,...
COMMENTARY
Jun 14, 2001
Solving Asia's nuclear-waste dilemma
Nuclear energy is news again. It has always been an issue for some people -- environmental activists and energy industry groups -- but nuclear power has largely faded from public consciousness, despite periodic incidents that highlighted fears of a catastrophic mishap at a nuclear power plant. The luxury...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 3, 2001
Past obscures Korea's nuclear future
SOLVING THE NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR PUZZLE, edited by David Albright and Kevin O'Neill. Washington, D.C.: ISIS Press, 2000, 333 pp., $29.95 (paper). We may never know how close the world came to war in 1994, but most accounts suggest the margin was slim. Suspicions about North Korea's nuclear program...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 1, 2001
Dour and dark outlook pulling Japan farther from neighbors
Japanese hopes to play a leading role in Asia are endangered by a growing split between its views and those in other countries in the region. In its most recent survey on global values, the Dentsu Institute for Human Studies depicts a pessimistic country that is groping toward an uncertain future.*
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2001
Charting a course as wide as the region
To understand the logic that is driving the Bush administration's redesign of U.S. military strategy, overlay two maps. The first focuses on wealth and population. It highlights Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, some of the world's richest and most important trading nations. China, India and...
BUSINESS
May 21, 2001
Blazing policy paths in Kasumigaseki
It's a little before 9 a.m., and Masahiko Aoki is discussing complex adaptive systems and path dependency. It's an odd conversation even though the topics are familiar ones for Aoki, a professor of economics at Stanford University and an author of several standard texts on the Japanese economy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2001
Cooling South China Sea competition
The Sino-U.S. spy-plane crisis is a reminder of the ever-present potential for confrontation in the South China Sea. The world has been lucky so far. Despite a stream of provocations by the various claimants to the area, there have been no recent clashes. But as the EP-3 incident makes painfully clear,...
CULTURE / Books
May 6, 2001
Hot spot needs the 'virtual alliance'
U.S.-KOREA-JAPAN RELATIONS: Building Toward a "Virtual Alliance," edited by Ralph Cossa. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1999, 207 pp., paper. ALIGNMENT DESPITE ANTAGONISM: The U.S.-Korea-Japan Security Triangle, by Victor D. Cha. Stanford University Press, 1999, 373 pp., $49.50 (cloth),...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2001
A high price for textbook flap
Japan ignores the history-textbook controversy at its peril. While many Japanese dismiss the tempest -- exaggerated attention, they say, given to a small group of nostalgic conservatives or a freedom-of-speech issue best left to constitutional scholars -- South Koreans see the new history textbook as...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2001
Tradition and mother nature make classic Piemonte wines
Poor Piemonte. Tucked away in the northwest corner of Italy, its gentle slopes have produced grapes for over 2,000 years and extraordinary wines for nearly two centuries. Yet, for many wine drinkers, Chianti is the only Italian wine they will ever know. Pity.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2001
Shattering the myth of a leaderless Japan
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's term in office is just about finished. He has had his summits, the budget has been passed, and he has completed one year in office. Gaffes notwithstanding, Mori can now step down with a clear conscience and some tangible accomplishments. Attention now focuses on picking...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 27, 2001
States, nations and identities
ASIAN NATIONALISM, edited by Michael Leifer. Routledge, 2000, pp. 196, 17.99 British pounds (paper). In many ways, an understanding of nationalism is essential to understanding contemporary Asia. For many Asian nations, the colonial experience is only a generation away. They are still wrestling with...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2001
Bush's crash course in global diplomacy
U.S. President George W. Bush has just concluded a crash course in Northeast Asian politics. In the past three weeks, he has hosted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen. Now Bush has to make sense of those visits, digest the various messages...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Mar 21, 2001
Unfit to print
I was planning to write about the rivers of blood that are running through world stock markets. Paper losses of $4.5 trillion have a way of drawing the eye and demanding an explanation. But the world intervened. (Devoted cybernauts may get that column yet; stay tuned, kids.)
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2001
Taking the long view on history
EAST ASIA AT THE CENTER: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World, by Warren I. Cohen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 516 pp. You don't have to believe in the Asian Century or any other form of that nonsense to admit that Western understanding of Asia is woefully inadequate. The intellectual...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2001
Let China set the human-rights debate
One of the least attractive rituals of spring -- skirmishing between Beijing and Washington over Chinese human-rights practices -- is already under way. The first volley was fired last month with the publication of the U.S. State Department's annual human-rights report. It took Beijing to task for a...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2001
A convenient but fragile liaison
BROTHERS IN ARMS: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance 1945-1963, edited by Odd Arne Westad. Cold War International History Project Series, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Stanford University Press, 2000, 404 pp. (paper). At least once a year, the leaders of China and Russia get together...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 16, 2001
Get out of my inbox
How much e-mail do you get a day? How much of it is junk mail? I get about 80-100 messages daily, and random sampling (i.e., the day I wrote this) shows that about 25 percent was unsolicited mailings, better known as spam.

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’