More Commentary Articles - The Japan Times

January 31, 2025

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY

Apr 4, 2006

Hope dims for plebiscite bill

By Keizo Nabeshima

Now that the budget bills for fiscal 2006 have cleared both houses of the National Diet, one of the focal issues for the remainder of the current session will be how to reconcile conflicting views between the ruling and opposition parties over legislation on plebiscites, a process indispensable for amending...

COMMENTARY

Apr 3, 2006

If 'affluence' fails to please

By Takamitsu Sawa

One measure of "affluence," whose meaning can be ambiguous, is per capita gross domestic product. While GDP growth indicates a quantitative expansion of the economy, its size is by no means a measure of social well-being or people's happiness.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 3, 2006

Challenges, opportunities for the Japan-U.S. alliance

By Christopher Sigur and Brad Glosserman

HONOLULU -- As its 55th birthday approaches, the Japan-U.S. alliance faces new challenges and new opportunities. Ironically, new security threats -- and new demands for cooperation -- provide the best opportunities to revitalize the alliance. The bilateral security relationship is in better shape than...

COMMENTARY

Apr 3, 2006

Protectionism has returned to Europe

By David Howell

LONDON -- The big idea was that Europe would do away with economic nationalism, sweep away frontiers and stand as a shining example to the rest of the world of free trade and open markets. That was the dream. The reality is turning out rather differently.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 2, 2006

Engaging with China beats other option

LOS ANGELES -- Is China only playing nice with the United States now in order to buy time and consolidate its power so that it has the capacity to hurt it later? You'd be surprised how many Americans think this -- or maybe you wouldn't!

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT

Apr 2, 2006

A torso squeaks -- but what does it say about the media?

By Roger Pulvers

OK, this is confession time. Even though I have lived in Japan for decades, there is something that still absolutely drives me up the wall -- so high up the wall, in fact, that I feel like Spiderman on a Shinjuku skyscraper.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 31, 2006

Let free trade offset guest-worker limits

By Melvyn Krauss

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Negative public opinion in the United States was the key factor behind the defeat of the proposed deal to turn over management of six U.S. ports to an Arab company. But the rejection of Dubai Ports World has disturbed America's trading partners and globalization advocates, who see...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 31, 2006

Emotional clash of cultures

By Dominique Moisi

WARSAW -- Throughout the so-called war on terror, the notion of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West has usually been dismissed as politically incorrect and intellectually wrongheaded. Instead, the most common interpretation has been that the world has entered a new era characterized...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 30, 2006

Reshaping U.S.-ROK alliance

By Brad Glosserman and Scott Snyder

HONOLULU -- The U.S.-South Korea alliance is at a turning point. South Korea has become a modern, vibrant democracy and a dynamic economy with global reach. Despite the nuclear crisis with North Korea, inter-Korean reconciliation has taken root and South Korea feels confident enough to seek a more independent...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 30, 2006

Canberra-Jakarta ties sink

By Alan Goodall

SYDNEY -- Fragile relations between Indonesia and Australia have taken a nosedive, again, and Canberra is concerned that any sudden venting of anger in Jakarta may wreck years of painstaking efforts at building up mutual good will. The Indonesian ambassador has been recalled from Canberra "for consultations."...

COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK

Mar 27, 2006

Ishibashi's 'alternative reality' for Japan

By Hiroaki Sato

NEW YORK -- A reader of my Jan. 30 column ("Another side to Japanese-Korean history") wrote to comment and, in the course of subsequent correspondence, wondered about an "alternative reality" or a "what if" in Japan's history before World War II. He had in mind, in particular, "Secretary (Cordell) Hull's...

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 27, 2006

Hamas sets out to put first things first

By Daoud Kuttab

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- As it struggles to form a government for the Palestinian territories, Hamas seems to be clutching the biblical verses of Ecclesiastes rather than the desires of the Quartet (United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations), which is charged with trying to bridge...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.

Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports