There’s an oft-used expression in Japanese: sekinin tenka. Best translated as “passing the buck,” it’s a reflex of dodging blame for one’s own actions by transferring responsibility to others. For too long, Japan has done so on the world stage with impunity—even when it affects the world adversely.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the first half of February 2020.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the first half of September 2019.
For the first time in 31 years, commercial whaling boats have returned to the Japanese ports with their first catch of minke whales, having set out on July 1. While conservationists around the world are appalled by the apparent revival of the industry, a lack of demand for the meat it produces may, in fact, lead to its ultimate demise.
The Shingetsu News Agency has been keeping a running log of the major developments in Japanese politics since January 2012. The following is our contemporary account of the entire year 2012.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the second week of June 2019.
Gökberk Durmaz of the University of Tsukuba joins WTR to discuss the potential threat to Japan which is inherent in the rise of China.
While the Abe administration presents Aegis Ashore as an essential and relatively uncontroversial contribution to the defense of Japan from the North Korean threat, in reality the deployment of this missile defense system risks further destabilizing the security situation in Northeast Asia, especially with regard to Russia.
Global warming is progressively creating a new reality that ships from East Asia, including Japan, might soon be regularly able to reach Europe more quickly via the shipping route that runs along Russia’s Arctic coast, from the Bering Strait in the east to the Kara Sea in the west, rather than using the conventional route via the Suez Canal.
Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in Ginowan, Okinawa, must close—on that much everyone agrees. But the insistence by the United States and the Japanese central government on building a replacement facility in another part of Okinawa is bitterly opposed by Okinawa’s people and prefectural government.
