Perhaps some thought the eightieth anniversary of that brutal battle would be a chance for both the Japanese and the Americans to recognize their terrible brutality towards the people of Okinawa.
What Fujimori did with power became a cautionary tale—of how an outsider, once let in, can corrupt everything.
You might have heard the big news last month about Karolina Shiino, a Ukrainian-born Japanese citizen who won the title of Miss Japan. You have also heard earlier this month that she lost her crown due to allegations of her having an affair with a married man.
Across the ideological spectrum, a consensus is emerging: Fumio Kishida is unlikely to last another year as prime minister, and even now, he is only lingering on because no credible and attractive alternative has appeared.
US President Joe Biden celebrated an economic agreement last week among fourteen Asia-Pacific countries, including Japan, which implicitly aims to counter China’s regional economic influence.
Authoritarians are once again trying to racialize citizenship. In Asia, that’s quite normal. The problem is that conservative movements worldwide are similarly trying to shore up their dwindling popularity by undemocratically disenfranchising the very immigrants they had once invited over.
A popular video game set in a fantasy world triggered an online debate among Japanese, highlighting ideas and social attitudes regarding anti-black racism.
As you have probably have heard, SNA President Michael Penn will be moving his operations overseas. He’s leaving Japan. At his age, that’s probably a good idea. I speak from experience.
The recent efforts to encourage cooperation between Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul in diverse fields, from science and technology to diplomacy and security, comes as welcome news, especially in light of the decline in collaboration during the Trump administration. Even before that time it was never particularly vibrant.
Pushing Japan to remilitarize was never, and still is not, a good idea. This is not just because an arms race in Asia is the last thing the region needs. But also because Japan, consistently unable to face up to its own history, is simply not the country to represent the world’s liberal democracies in Asia, especially as a military power.
