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December 22, 2024
 

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Andrew Sheng
The U.S. Federal Reserve's cutting of the federal funds rate from 5.3% to a range of 4.75-5%, its first monetary-easing cycle in over four years, has provided China with greater flexibility to stimulate its struggling economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2024
What U.S. interest-rate cuts mean for China
The Fed's easing cycle means lower debt burdens and higher liquidity, allowing countries to cut rates without fearing excessive capital outflows.
Decades after Bhutan introduced its Gross National Happiness index, the idea that gross domestic product is an inadequate indicator of human well-being and social progress is gaining ground.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2024
Is gross national happiness the way forward?
The World Happiness Report's top-ranked countries tended to be smaller Western countries, led by Finland. Larger Western economies tend to perform worse.
Taiwan’s experience offers valuable lessons for China, the most important being the “financialization of innovation,” whereby technology investment is funded by risk capital from the stock market rather than by the risk-adverse banking system.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2024
China should emulate Taiwan’s tech policies
A small island with few natural resources, Taiwan punches well above its weight. From 1980-2008, its annual real GDP averaged 6.8%.
A robotics company’s research and development center in Shenzhen. Chinese firms struggle to attract the private equity and venture capital funds that U.S. companies enjoy.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2024
China needs a better innovation ecosystem
Chinese firms struggle to attract the private equity and venture capital funds that U.S. companies enjoy, putting a damper on their ability to innovate.
Despite vast coal reserves, China has always been geopolitically vulnerable on the energy front.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2024
China navigates myriad of energy-driven challenges
Rising fuel prices are a thorn in the China's side amid deflation concerns.
China is the world’s second-largest investor in research and development, having spent $410 billion in this area in 2022, 10% more than the previous year.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2024
China is lowering transaction costs for greater innovation
With projects such as a cooperation zone between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China is championing small- and medium-sized firms as the engine of innovation.
A wind farm near near Golmud, Qinghai province, China
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2023
The promise of China’s sustainable-development path
As of this month, China has (since 2017) approved 572 “ecological civilization construction demonstration zones.”
By 2060, it is estimated that the combined gross domestic products of China, India and Indonesia will equal $116.7 trillion, making the bloc's economy three times larger than the United States.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2023
The irresistible rise of the rest of the world
With 90% of the world's population, non-Western countries will no longer accept being excluded from global decision-making.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2023
China’s stunted transformation
China has run into major road blocks as it has attempted to implement its 'dual circulation' growth strategy.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2023
How to restructure Chinese supply chains
China must reconfigure its industries and supply chains to meet the challenges posed by rising geopolitical tensions and rapid population aging.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2023
Are we sleepwalking into a prolonged global recession?
The current wave of interest-rate hikes has slowed inflation but also popped several asset bubbles, potentially triggering additional debt and financial crises.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2023
Reimagining global development
With the global economy teetering on the edge of a financial crisis, it is time for emerging-market and developing economies to revise their development strategies.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2023
Everyone loses in a fractured world
The dominance of national-security hawks distorts economic policy and impedes the delivery of global public goods — and could lead to an all-out global conflict.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2023
The fate of the global balance sheet and economic health
Whether global wealth continues to fall in 2023 will depend significantly on two factors: The effectiveness of Chinese policy and the strength of international economic cooperation.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2022
Quantitative easing the Chinese way
While most major central banks are now reversing quantitative easing and raising interest rates, China may need to head in the opposite direction.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2022
China girds for tough times
Historically, China has carried out its most important reforms in times of crisis.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2022
In search of a development plan for Asia
No matter how compelling a top-down development plan for Asia might be, it is highly unlikely to ever be implemented.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2022
Sustainable development is a matter of market design
High-level sustainable development objectives need to be implemented at grassroots levels and with the right market structures and incentives.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2022
The Group of 20 in an age of war
From a demographic perspective, the G20 is a much more legitimate grouping — in terms of representing a diverse, complex world — than the G7.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2022
It takes a smart village to build sustainable prosperity
To improve the quality of life, we need to expand access to high-quality services — including water, energy, transport and internet — even to far-flung rural areas.
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.
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.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Mother hopes for reunion with daughter ensnared by Tokyo host clubs
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo, where the daughter of a woman in her 60s fell deeply into the host club culture.
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

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

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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