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COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2001

For an unfettered peace role

The Diet last Monday enacted an antiterrorism bill that would allow the Self-Defense Forces to give an unprecedented level of support to U.S.-led forces overseas, along with two related bills. The main bill, which provides for rear-area support, does not let the SDF take part in combat operations. It...
BUSINESS
Nov 3, 2001

Takebe hits back at criticism from Washington over WTO

Farm minister Tsutomu Takebe rebuked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick on Friday for criticizing Japan's "narrow minded" attitude toward the launch of a new round of trade liberalization negotiations under the World Trade Organization.
BUSINESS
Nov 3, 2001

Takebe hits back at criticism from Washington over WTO

Farm minister Tsutomu Takebe rebuked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick on Friday for criticizing Japan's "narrow minded" attitude toward the launch of a new round of trade liberalization negotiations under the World Trade Organization.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2001

SDF antiterrorism bill wins quick Diet passage

An antiterrorism bill allowing the Self-Defense Forces to lend an unprecedented level of support to U.S.-led forces overseas cleared the Diet on Monday.
COMMUNITY
Oct 28, 2001

Kazuo Ishiguro: In praise of nostalgia as idealism

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954, and at age 5 he moved with his parents to London, where he has lived ever since. In 1986, his second novel, "An Artist of the Floating World," was nominated for Britain's leading award for fiction, the Booker Prize. Three years later, his next and arguably...
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2001

Opinions clash over SDF role in war on terror

Two days after U.S.-led forces launched a bombing campaign on Afghanistan, six Air Self-Defense Force C-130 cargo planes arrived in Islamabad with relief supplies for refugees.
JAPAN / VIEWS ON KABUL
Oct 12, 2001

Middle East specialist says give aid but keep SDF home

Last in an interview series on Afghanistan In the U.S.-led antiterrorist campaign, Japan should not only emphasize its diplomatic relations with the United States but give more consideration to sentiments in the Islamic world, according to an expert on Islamic society.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 7, 2001

Failure on a grandiose scale

DOGS AND DEMONS: Tales From the Dark Side of Japan, by Alex Kerr. Hill and Wang, New York, 2001, 432 pp., $27.00 (cloth) Staff writer What has happened to Japan? Coming on the heels of the "lost decade," the January government reshuffle and a series of reforms that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2001

Koizumi, Mbeki plan science pact

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South African President Thabo Mbeki will agree at a meeting in Tokyo this week to start negotiations on a science and technology cooperation pact, government sources said Saturday.
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2001

Full text of Koizumi's policy speech to Diet

Following is a provisional translation of the policy speech delivered by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to an extraordinary Diet session that opened Thursday for a 72-day session.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVE
Sep 17, 2001

Inflation targets no substitute for needed structural reform

The 0.8 percent contraction in the second quarter gross domestic product, coupled with dive in Tokyo share prices, has increased pressure on the Bank of Japan to further ease its already loose monetary grip by setting inflation targets. Tuesday's terrorist attacks in the United States and the ensuing...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 16, 2001

The ideology of Japanese identity

MULTIETHNIC JAPAN, by John Lie. Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press, 2001, 248 pp. $35 Japan and many of its observers have avoided the confusion and contention associated with diversity by assuming, asserting and elaborating a monolithic, monoethnic Japan that jostles uncomfortably...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 9, 2001

A long-term relationship that works

PARTNERSHIP: The United States and Japan 1951-2001, edited by Akira Iriye and Robert A. Wampler. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2001, 333 pp., 3,800 yen (cloth). On Sept. 8, 1951, Japan and the United States, along with 47 other governments, signed a peace treaty that officially ended the Pacific...
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2001

Tokyo fails to stem suspected oil exploration

After two hours of nothing but the vast expanse of the East China Sea, a steel structure topped by a streak of flame and a helicopter pad appears on the horizon, growing rapidly in the window of a Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C patrol plane.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2001

Changing defense role raises questions

By far the most important relationship to the United States in the Asia-Pacific region is that with Japan, and Washington hopes to strengthen these ties, a former deputy secretary of defense said.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2001

China's new envoy warns relations are at low ebb

Sino-Japanese relations are facing their "toughest situation" since the two countries normalized ties nearly 30 years ago due to issues related to history, trade and Taiwan, new Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wu Dawei said Friday.
JAPAN / 50 YEARS SINCE SAN FRANCISCO
Aug 29, 2001

American culture now just part of the furniture

Following decades of hot pursuit, Japan feels it no longer needs to catch up with the U.S. Fifth in a series Staff writer Who would have believed 50 years ago that the hatred spawned during World War II could dissipate to the extent that former enemies now reminisce about shared cultural experiences,...
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2001

'Two plus two' to get bilateral defense plan

A report on mutual cooperation planning under updated 1997 Japan-U.S. defense guidelines will be submitted to a bilateral defense meeting in New York next month, according to Lt. Gen. Paul Hester, commander of the United States Forces Japan.
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2001

Koizumi's unfinished business

HONOLULU -- Last week was rough for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The last thing he wants to do now is revisit the Yasukuni Shrine question, but there is unfinished business that he must attend to.
COMMENTARY
Aug 16, 2001

Missed chance at Yasukuni

Japan's neighbors are expressing great indignation over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Aug. 13 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of 14 convicted World War II war criminals are enshrined among some 2.5 million of Japan's war dead over the past two centuries. His decision to go early,...
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2001

Venture capitalists bank on restructuring mood

During the heady days of the information technology boom of the late 1990s through early 2000, many foreign venture-capital firms were lured to Japan in search of Internet-related business startups.
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2001

Yasukuni issue shows little has changed

August used to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the focus for Japan's wartime remembrances. But this year the focus has violently shifted to Yasukuni Shrine. Either way we see Japan's inability to come to terms with its militaristic past.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 12, 2001

Victimhood in the national psyche

THE VICTIM AS HERO: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan, by James J. Orr. University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 271 pp., $22.95 (paperback). August 15 approaches, and once again Japan's neighbors are up in arms over the prospect of a prime minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine. In...
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2001

Wine exporters focus on Asia

BORDEAUX, France -- Japan is firmly back on the agenda for many wine exporters despite its continued economic slump, and value for money at the lower end should improve further. However, futures prices already indicate the prestige 2000 Bordeaux vintages won't be cheap.
EDITORIALS
Aug 2, 2001

Fishing in troubled waters

Talks between Japan and South Korea over the latter's fishing activity in waters around the Russian-held Northern Territories have broken down as both sides have dug in their heels. With little prospect of the two governments reaching agreement soon, the dispute could develop into yet another knotty...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan