Disarmament advocates and nuclear experts responded with alarm to reporting that the Trump administration is urging countries that support a United Nations treaty to ban nuclear weapons to ditch the pact before it reaches the fifty ratifications necessary to enter into force.
Eric Blanc of Jacobin magazine fears a US corporate Democrat repeat of the 2000 elections when Al Gore refused to fight once the Supreme Court gave the election to George W. Bush.
Throughout its nearly eight years in power, the Abe administration pressed forward with all its might to build a new US airbase at Henoko, Okinawa.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the last half of September 2020.
This SNA Speakeasy features Glen S. Fukushima on the theme of “US Presidential Election and US-East Asian Relations.”
On August 28, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan’s foreign minister, was giving an official press conference to reporters in Japanese. A foreign reporter for Japan Times, Magdalena Osumi, asked some questions in Japanese. When Osumi followed up on a point he left unclear, Motegi responded to her in English.
The Tsai Ing-wen administration surprised last week with the announcement that it intended to open Taiwan up to beef and pork imports from the United States. This move is clearly aimed at removing one of the major political hurdles to a bilateral trade agreement with Washington, which had made this a precondition for a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan for well over a decade.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the last half of July 2020.
On June 15, Defense Minister Taro Kono announced a suspension of the deployment of the Aegis Ashore missile interception system—a suspension that ten days later became a cancellation. The progression from deciding to deploy Aegis Ashore, to cancelling it, to considering alternatives, reveals policy formation fraught with dysfunction.
How bad does it have to get? I’m talking about Japan’s cruelty and meanness towards its Non-Japanese residents. How bad before people think to step in and stop it? With Covid-19, we might have an answer.
