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.
From 1906-1908, aristocrat Kinmochi Saionji established the first stable government based on political party rule. Its leading achievement was to nationalize the country’s railroads and create the Japan National Railways system.
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.
From 1901-1906, Taro Katsura served a highly consequential term as prime minister which featured the emergence of a new generation to the top leadership post and a war which established Japan as a Great Power in international affairs.
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.
As garbage islands floating in the Pacific Ocean have grown to the area of entire countries, Japan and other nations’ use of plastic fishing nets is believed to not only take a major toll on sea life, but is even threatening the future of the fishing industry itself.
The near-disappearance of China’s vital Yangtze River, the mouth of which opens next to the major port of Shanghai, is creating a great deal of consternation, prompting government promises to address the environmental crisis.
New US government figures have revealed that the wealthiest 1% of Americans now own over one-third of the country’s wealth, prompting renewed calls from progressives for systemic reforms to tackle the highest economic inequality of any major developed nation in the world.
