An interview with Jon Heese, a naturalized Canadian-Japanese and elected Tsukuba City Councillor of twelve years. A Caucasian Visible Minority of Japan, Heese has long been advocating that other Non-Japanese Residents naturalize and run for office.
From 1898-1900, conservative Aritomo Yamagata returned as prime minister, largely reestablishing the dominance of Meiji oligarchs over the rising power of the elected political parties. Even then, however, he did have to make some compromises.
Ivan Parker Hall, author of landmark book Cartels of the Mind: Japan’s Intellectual Closed Shop, died in Berlin on February 1, 2023, at age 90.
As the trial of sixteen pro-democracy figures began yesterday in Hong Kong, the global human rights group Amnesty International blasted what it called the “politically motivated” charges against the defendants, urging authorities to drop the case.
Western experts and military officials continue to issue dates for a prospective China invasion of Taiwan. The latest such example is a prediction by US Air Force General Mike Minihan that a war will occur between the United States and China over Taiwan in 2025. This was written in a memo which was obtained by the news media.
From 1892-1896, Hirobumi Ito returned as prime minister and had one of the most successful administrations in Japanese history. He presided over Japan’s first modern war in which it decisively defeated Qing China, overturned the traditional East Asia political order, and created its own colonial empire.
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.
Kurt Campbell, White House Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, has indicated that Washington is keen to see India diversify away from its “reliance” on Russian military supplies, while another State Department official highlighted the potential threat to the subcontinent posed by China.
Economic sanctions and corporate boycotts have not caused the rapid collapse of the Russian economy, as some Western commentators had hoped. Sanctions are, however, pressuring economic lifelines for the Russian people and forcing Moscow to embrace Eurasian ties.
Japan is beginning construction today, January 12, of a new base intended to be used primarily by the US military on the uninhabited island of Mageshima in Kagoshima Prefecture, despite years of resistance to the controversial plan and a questionable process by which the island was acquired by the government.
