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July 06, 2025
 

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Brahma Chellaney

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Brahma Chellaney
Brahma Chellaney, a longstanding contributor to The Japan Times, is a geostrategist and the author of "Asian Juggernaut" (Harper, 2010) and "Water: Asia’s New Battlefield" (Georgetown University Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Bernard Schwartz Award. He is professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi.
COMMENTARY
Jun 7, 2007
Playing the new Great Game in Asia and beyond
NEW DELHI — A nifty new enterprise to discuss security dangers in the Asia-Pacific and evolve a coordinated approach — the Quadrilateral Initiative — has kicked off with an unpublicized first meeting. U.S., Japanese, Indian and Australian officials, at the rank of assistant secretary of state,...
COMMENTARY
Mar 1, 2007
Musharraf moves to stay
NEW DELHI -- The fight against international terrorism is very much tied to the future of Pakistan and the central challenge that country faces: to move away from militarism, extremism and fundamentalism, and toward a stable, moderate state. That's what makes Pakistani military ruler President Pervez...
COMMENTARY
Feb 9, 2007
India's vulnerability bared
NEW DELHI -- Whatever may have been China's motivation, its Jan. 11 anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test is bound to have lasting global impact like no other military event in recent years.
COMMENTARY
Dec 14, 2006
Japan-India partnership key to bolstering stability in Asia
NEW DELHI -- Japan and India are natural allies because they have no conflict of strategic interests and actually share common goals to build stability, power equilibrium and institutionalized multilateral cooperation in Asia. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Tokyo this week offers an...
COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2006
Engaging India to contain it
NEW DELHI -- Managed competition is likely to define the relationship between the two demographic titans, India and China, in the years ahead, even as they seek to expand bilateral cooperation.
COMMENTARY
Sep 28, 2006
Japan's political resurgence
TOKYO -- The election of Shinzo Abe as postwar Japan's youngest prime minister signals more than a change at the helm. Abe not only symbolizes a generational change in Japanese politics but also is the face of an assertive new Japan intent on shaping the power balance in Asia in a way that China does...
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2006
Defuse crisis by letting Tehran save face on nuclear issue
NEW DELHI -- With Iran rebuffing the United Nations Security Council, yet another global hot spot is emerging in the vast but volatile region between India and Israel. This arc of volatility between the only two democracies in the region has been made worse by the developments in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza,...
COMMENTARY
Aug 19, 2006
Tokyo sends Beijing a signal
NEW DELHI -- No place of homage has generated more political heat between countries in recent years than the eye-catching Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. At the center of the storm has been a dark horse who became Japan's prime minister more than five years ago and who leaves office next month, having fashioned...
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2006
Soft target needs an antiterror strategy
NEW DELHI -- The grisly July 11 Bombay train bombings, the latest in a series of major terrorist attacks in India, are a reminder that the country needs to move from hand-wringing to a credible counterterror strategy against jihadist groups.
COMMENTARY
Jul 3, 2006
Will India-China border talks ever end?
NEW DELHI -- For 25 years, India has been seeking to settle by negotiation with China the disputed Indo-Tibetan frontier. Yet, not only have the negotiations yielded no concrete progress on a settlement, but they also have failed so far to remove even the ambiguities plaguing the long line of control....
COMMENTARY
May 13, 2006
A quiet burial of a scandal that will haunt Washington
NEW DELHI -- With global attention focused on the U.S.-led face-off with Tehran over the nuclear issue, Pakistan has ingeniously seized the opportunity to give a quiet burial to the worst proliferation scandal in world history, involving the Pakistani transfer of nuclear knowhow and equipment to three...
COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 2006
The black hole for U.S. aid
NEW DELHI -- Despite making the spread of freedom the rallying cry of his second term, U.S. President George W. Bush has found it difficult to visit the world's largest democracy, India, without also stopping to meet the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2006
Don't do mullahs' bidding
NEW DELHI -- The United States and European Union have taken the lead in framing a robust international response to a series of provocative actions by Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The wise way to tackle a renegade Iran, however, is not through punitive action, but through sustained...
COMMENTARY
Jan 5, 2006
Deal harms Indian interests
NEW DELHI -- A real problem of an ever-shifting goal post has cast a cloud over America's current negotiations with India to implement a much-heralded nuclear deal that is supposed to showcase the emerging global partnership between the world's most powerful and most populous democracies. Seeking to...
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2005
A chance to clean up terror
NEW DELHI -- The Oct. 8 South Asian earthquake struck at the epicenter of a principal recruiting ground and logistic center for global terrorists, leveling a number of terrorist nurseries and training camps in an area that serves as the last main refuge of al-Qaida. Much of the quake's destruction occurred...
COMMENTARY
Sep 26, 2005
China should face its own unsavory past
NEW DELHI -- The new foreign-policy subtleness that China has displayed in recent years is a far cry from the coarse image its earlier Communist rulers presented, especially when they set out, in then-Premier Zhou Enlai's words, to "teach India a lesson" in 1962, or when, to quote strongman Deng Xiaoping,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2005
Neo-emperor of evil genius
NEW DELHI -- History is replete with myths woven by victors. The myths about Mao Zedong, including his military exploits and triumphs over imperialism and capitalism, have helped keep the Chinese communists in power, even as a transformed China now practices capitalism and presents itself as a large...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2005
Neo-emperor of evil genius
NEW DELHI — History is replete with myths woven by victors. The myths about Mao Zedong, including his military exploits and triumphs over imperialism and capitalism, have helped keep the Chinese communists in power, even as a transformed China now practices capitalism and presents itself as a large...
COMMENTARY
Aug 10, 2005
No rationalization for Nagasaki attack
NEW DELHI -- History is written by victors and thus abounds in well-cultivated rationalizations for the winners' actions, however unjustifiable or gory they might be. Vanquishers are rarely burdened by guilt. Sometimes the rationalization stops with their first major slaughter in a war, as if their willful...
COMMENTARY
Jul 17, 2005
The international terror lab
NEW DELHI -- The July 7 London bombings, suspected to be the handiwork of British citizens of Pakistani origin, should serve as a reminder that major acts of international terrorism have first been tried out by Islamists in India before being replicated in the West. Such acts include attacks on symbols...
Japan braces for more quakes as authorities dismiss doomsday hype
Evacuees from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecuture, arrive at Kagoshima Port on Friday.
Hidden AI prompts in academic papers spark concern about research integrity
Waseda University is one of 14 institutions in eight countries found to have used hidden prompts in research papers.
A prophesied disaster (likely) won’t strike Japan this weekend
A viral manga prediction of a July 5 disaster has gripped Japan with anxiety and triggered an economic impact, but experts warn that while such dates are unreliable, the threat of a massive earthquake remains real. 
Residents of Tokara Islands begin evacuation as seismic swarm continues
Details about evacuations from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecture, is seen written on a whiteboard in the city of Kagoshima on Thursday.
U.S. military apologizes over Okinawa sexual assault case
Col. Neil Owens (right), chief of staff for the 3rd Marine Division, bows in apology at the Okinawa Prefectural Government office in Naha on Thursday.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Flag football facing challenges and opportunities ahead
Japan’s women’s flag football team at the 2025 International Bowl in Los Angeles in June. The sport is enjoying continued growth in the country.
From Hokusai’s Great Wave, shinkansen to One Piece: a cultural treasure box for Lego Japan
Michael Ebbesen, general manager of Lego Japan, says Lego bricks based on Japanese culture have a rich global appeal and are sellable around the world.
With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
As Southeast Asia heats up, a Japanese cooling giant sees a major opportunity
An employee of Daikin Cambodia explains the use of different tools during an air conditioner installation training session in Phnom Penh. Daikin is one of Japan’s oldest air conditioning companies, but as Japan’s population falls, the firm is keying in on overseas growth.

Podcast

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

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Muji has been sustainable from the beginning
Muji has been sustainable from the beginning

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