Although it usually hits the global headlines due to tensions with mainland China, Taiwan is also known for its relatively progressive stance on LGBT issues, which in turn is not unrelated to its government strategies.
It was exactly a month ago today that Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara by 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami. As the passions of that event begin to settle, this is an opportune occasion to reconsider both the benefits and the costs of an administration which lasted longer than any other in Japanese history.
A year and a half after the brutal military coup, responses to the crisis in Myanmar remain muted, including towards the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya people.
As a treaty review conference kicked off in New York City, antiwar groups called out nuclear-armed countries—particularly the United States—for not complying with the decades-old agreement.
As US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi departs for an Asian trip that may include a stop in Taiwan, anti-war voices are sounding the alarm over a visit they say would needlessly provoke China during a time of already heightened global tensions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has occasioned a lot of valuable, eye-opening discussions in the media, but few if any have focused upon how Abe’s death could be seen as a form of karmic payback–what happens when you ignore the lessons of history in the pursuit of raw political power.
When former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi formed a bond in the mid-1960s with Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon over their shared anti-communist views, little did he know that he was sowing the seeds that would eventually take the life of his beloved grandson, Shinzo Abe.
The government remains on track to dump treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean in spite of fierce foreign and domestic criticism.
This SNA Speakeasy features Ulv Hanssen of Soka University on the theme of “Anti-Korean Hate Books in Japan.”
Since the Myanmar coup last February, Japan has been under pressure to cut its links with the military regime. However, far more lies under the surface of this long-running bilateral relationship than many people perceive, making policy decisions quite complex.
