Search - japan

 
 
CULTURE / Books
Jan 16, 2001

New looks at an enduring alliance

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS, edited by Gerald Curtis. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2000, 302 pp., paper. JAPAN-U.S. ALLIANCE: New Challenges for the 21st Century, edited by Nishihara Masashi. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2000, 191 pp., paper. It's...
COMMENTARY
Jan 1, 2001

It's time for bold diplomacy

In the 21st century, Japan should rise to the diplomatic challenge of developing strategies to create a new order in East Asia, where confusion still reigns after the end of the Cold War.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 1, 2001

Odd echoes of the Meiji Restoration

JAPAN'S EMERGENCE AS A MODERN STATE: Political and Economic Problems of the Meiji Period, by E. Herbert Norman, 60th Anniversary Edition, edited by Lawrence T. Woods. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, Sept. 2000, 336 pp., $75 (cloth), $25.95 (paper). It's hard to fault E. Herbert Norman's analysis of Japan....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

Policy cooperation key to resolving Korean issues

The politics of South and North Korea have been greatly influenced by U.S. policy. What happens within South Korean politics is also important to policymakers in the United States. The start of the 21st century coincides with the inauguration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Among South and North Korean...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

Wanted: a leadership strategy

Japan has stepped into the 21st century under not-so-comfortable political circumstances. Public approval ratings for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori remain extremely low, and half of the nation's voters say they have no political party to support. While the government has launched one stimulus...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 26, 2000

Cold War roots of a noisy marriage

AMERICA AND THE JAPANESE MIRACLE: The Cold War Context of Japan's Postwar Economic Revival, 1950-1960, by Aaron Forsberg. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 332 pp. $45. Recurring Japan-U.S. trade disputes have hogged the limelight for way too long, forcing assiduous readers...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2000

Flexibility the key to success of alliance

Foreign policy focuses on change. New leaders, new technologies, new conditions -- all create the need for new policies. Experts are always planning for contingencies -- the crisis to come -- and when they hit it's usually because governments failed to recognize the new realities that created them. ...
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2000

At long last, signs of progress

During his Tokyo visit in October 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi signed a joint declaration on the bilateral partnership for the 21st century. In the document, Obuchi expressed "keen remorse" and apologized for the historical fact that Japan, through...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2000

The stage is set for genuine change

This is the final article of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2000

Parents driven to 'kidnap' children

Dutchman Engel Nieman took his 2-year-old daughter to Osaka this fall to board a slow boat for the Netherlands to visit his dying father.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 28, 2000

The charm of an autocratic Frenchman

The big mistake many Japanese people make with Philippe Troussier is thinking he doesn't have a sense of humor. If he didn't, he probably wouldn't have survived over two years of dealing with the Japan Football Association.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2000

Textbooks in the service of the state

CENSORING HISTORY: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 301 pp., $24.95. History loomed over the recent visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji like a threatening storm cloud. But other than some scattered...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2000

China refuses to let history be

The recent visit to Japan by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji has certainly created a favorable impression among the Japanese -- a contrast with Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit two years ago -- but it has had no significant politi cal impact on public opinion in this country.
COMMENTARY
Oct 30, 2000

Zhu puts relations to rights

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to Tokyo this month marked a turning point in Sino-Japanese relations, which have been strained for the past two years as a result of disagreements over wartime history. In a Tokyo news conference Oct. 16, Zhu said the Japanese people, as well as the Chinese, were "victims...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2000

Revealing the nation one grain at a time

THE POLITICS OF AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN, by Aurelia George Mulgan. London & New York: Routledge, 2000, 856 pp.,82 British pounds/$125 (cloth). In 1890, a young German academic agreed to evaluate a survey of landowners in the German provinces east of the Elbe River. Overcoming the limitations of biased...
LIFE / Travel
Oct 18, 2000

Toronto gets a taste of Japanese culture

TORONTO -- The Japanese and Canadian communities here in Ontario recently kicked off a six-week celebration showcasing Japanese culture and lifestyle.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Zhu tones down stance on wartime atonement

Visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said Monday that Japan needs to admit its wartime aggression and be careful not to repeat the same mistake.
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2000

Mori, Zhu vow to build a better future

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji agreed Friday to build a new relationship in the coming century through enhanced economic cooperation and by steadily resolving bilateral disputes, such as Chinese marine research activities within Japan's economic waters.
JAPAN
Oct 7, 2000

Agency to target whale poaching with revised rules

The Fisheries Agency will clamp down on the possession and sale of illegal whale meat by revising regulations to impose fines and prison sentences amid criticism that poached whale meat is being sold in Japan, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2000

Foreign residents on slow boat to get vote

The Japanese woman was unhappy.
JAPAN
Sep 22, 2000

Full text of prime minister's speech to the Diet

Following is the full text of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's policy speech given to the 150th Diet session Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 18, 2000

Toward peace with Pyongyang

While North and South Korea are moving dramatically toward rapprochement as a result of the inter-Korean summit in June, Japanese and North Korean officials are set to meet again next month to discuss ways to normalize relations. Establishing diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, along with settling the territorial...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2000

U.S. whaling sanctions smack of hypocrisy

Japan's whale-research vessels are now scheduled to return to port after completing their observations and sampling in the northwestern Pacific. Meanwhile, the United States continues to criticize Japan's research program and threaten trade sanctions. One can't help but suspect that all the antiwhaling...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2000

High costs a barrier for foreign students

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- An editorial in The Japan Times a few weeks ago focused on the Japanese government's efforts to increase the number of foreign students in Japan. No one would disagree with the government's dual aims of assisting in the development of human resources of poorer Asian countries...
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2000

Mori-Putin talks stay at impasse

Japan and Russia began negotiations Monday in Tokyo on sovereignty over Russian-held islands off Hokkaido but failed to narrow their differences, making a peace treaty, the conclusion of which has been targeted for year's end, appear as distant as ever.
BUSINESS
Sep 4, 2000

Japanese seen embracing a risky future

At 30, Tetsushi Nakamura is a seasoned stock investor. The system engineer from Hibarigaoka, Saitama Prefecture, got his hands on stocks when he was in his fourth year of elementary school, buying shares of a construction company on his dad's advice.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?