Despising China’s Green Tech Lead
China’s leadership in many green technology fields is being met by the West with feelings of wounded pride more than an appreciation of climate policy urgency.
Tanzan Ishibashi and the Road Not Taken
In the winter of 1956-1957, the liberal figure of Tanzan Ishibashi assumed the premiership, aiming to normalize Japan’s relations with the Communist world and to depart from US Cold War policy. However, he was almost immediately felled by a stroke and resigned, leaving the government in the hands of the rightwing Nobusuke Kishi, who had the exact opposite vision for the country.
The Political Coding of Climate Change
Jaguar’s “Copy Nothing” campaign is a major misstep in navigating cultural polarization while promoting the needed economic shift toward electric vehicles.
Ichiro Hatoyama and the 1955 System
When Ichiro Hatoyama finally gained the premiership from 1954-1956, he had become elderly and was in failing health. This did not stop him, however, from scoring two major achievements: he presided over the creation of the Liberal Democratic Party and reestablished diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Why Trump Won
In a stunning reversal, Donald Trump won the popular vote in the November 2024 election, leading a Republican wave that took control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress.
Shigeru Yoshida and the Conservative Client State
Shigeru Yoshida’s second premiership from 1948-1954 was one of the most transformative in Japanese history, taking the nation from its progressive, unstable early postwar era into a long period of entrenched conservative rule, ostensibly exercising independence but in reality functioning as a client state absorbed into the informal American empire.
Visible Minorities: An Obituary for Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori
What Fujimori did with power became a cautionary tale—of how an outsider, once let in, can corrupt everything.
Hitoshi Ashida and the Cold War
Hitoshi Ashida attempted in 1948 to give a reorganized Democratic Party-Socialist Party coalition a second chance at leading Japan’s government. But at this time the progressive phase of the US Occupation was ending, and pressure to create a conservative regime embracing Washington’s Cold War objectives became irresistible.
Tetsu Katayama and the Socialist Party
Tetsu Katayama served as Japan’s first socialist prime minister in 1947-1948. His moderate approach, however, proved unable to satisfy the increasingly contradictory demands of his political base and the US occupiers.
Shigeru Yoshida and Politics from Below
Conservative diplomat Shigeru Yoshida was thrust into the premiership in 1946-1947 after the US occupation forces blocked the ascendance of general election-winner Ichiro Hatoyama.