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.
Kurt Campbell, the Biden administration’s National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, is the “brain” behind much of what the Pentagon and US State Department are doing in East Asia today, but his policy approaches do not correspond with the realities of a global US empire now in rapid decline.
Abby Martin, host of The Empire Files, and Paul Jay discuss how working people and the left should respond to the presidential election.
In 2019, Japan’s involvement in the Russian energy sector increased significantly, most notably with the purchase by a Japanese consortium of a 10% stake in Russia’s Arctic LNG-2 project. The Abe administration evidently hopes that these new investments will bring benefits, both in terms of energy economics, and as a means of furthering Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ambition to settle Japan’s territorial dispute with Russia. In both respects, the Japanese leadership risks disappointment.
Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam formally withdrew the controversial extradition bill last Wednesday, explaining in a five-minute television address that it was done “in order to fully allay public concerns.”
The subject of art was central to the conversations at the College Women’s Association of Japan (CWAJ) luncheon at the Tokyo American Club on May 9.
The people of Okinawa vote unmistakably to end the plan to build a new US Marine airbase at Henoko beach with the election of Governor Takeshi Onaga. Signs are few, however, that the governments in Tokyo or Washington are prepared to listen.
