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Japan

Japan's turn to give lesson in economics
Japan and the United States have over the years alternated as role models for economic progress. Tokyo's latest ''lesson'' under Shinzo Abe appears to be showing the West how to encourage growth, at just the time that the US, and even more so the UK, are following the path that led to Japan's lost decades. - William S Comanor and Takahiro Miyao (Apr 4, '13)

South Korea, Japan: a reignited rivalry
The ascendency of K-pop as Western interest fades in facets of Japanese pop culture that so intrigued in the 1990s reflects a shift in East Asia's power dynamic as Japan's post-World War II "economic miracle" drifts into memory. With territorial disputes replacing post-colonial tensions, it seems that despite Seoul and Tokyo's overlapping economic and security interests, another delicate stage in relations looms. - Jieh-Yung Lo (Mar 28, '13)

Japan and Philippines
align strategic interests
The convergence of Japan's and the Philippines' threat perceptions of China will ultimately determine the depth of the two sides' strategic cooperation. Domestic concerns have also influenced Manila's receptiveness to Tokyo's soft power diplomacy and strategic overtures, as bilateral ties with Tokyo moved from platitudes to genuinely empowering military assets and economic assistance. - Julius Cesar I Trajano (Mar 14, '13)

Fukushima hits public purse
Public funds are being drawn to help TEPCO deal with the aftermath, two years on, of the Fukushima disaster. Yet the nuclear industry that supplied gear to the plant is protected by laws safeguarding profits, returns that could grow as atomic energy comes back into favor in Japan. - Stephen Leahy (Mar 13, '13)

Abe touches a raw nerve in South Korea
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's turning on the charm to lighten the mood in relations has done little to help and probably more to enrage Park Geun-hye, his counterpart in South Korea, amid a string of off-color remarks from officials in Tokyo. Nerves in Seoul over the countries' troubled history are raw and exposed. - Daniel Leussink (Mar 12, '13)

Reality of Fukushima cleanup hits Japan
The overturned cars still littering the coastline by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and scars there from the fight workers put up in failed attempts to prevent its post-tsunami meltdown underline that the task of decommissioning is just beginning. With isolating the remaining nuclear fuel alone expected to take 40 years, it's unlikely the tragedy has claimed its last victim. - Daniel Leussink (Mar 8, '13)

Japan accentuates the social side
The number of businesses run by young Japanese entrepreneurs who are giving social goals priority over personal gain is rising. Government polls show the value of work is being reconsidered after two decades of economic stagnation. - Daan Bauwens (Mar 5, '13)

Abe raises ghost of glories past
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Washington proclamation that Japan is "back" may have been unwelcome in a White House preferring a more stabilizing tone in the eastern Pacific. Abe's currency policy, praised by some, is also a cause for worry, its lack of neighborly concern raising the prospect of the yen as official currency of the Japan Sole Prosperity Sphere. What could possibly go wrong? - Peter Lee (Feb 27, '13)

China-Japan tango treads on regional toes
Unless Chinese and Japanese policymakers start to appreciate the consequences of "their" bilateral tensions on the wider region, realize the limitations of simply holding conferences and start to approach historic faultlines with creativity, what some see as insignificant issues - such as the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island dispute - could easily escalate into a deep freeze in relations or worse, militarized conflict. - Jean-Marc F Blanchard (Feb 6, '13)

SPEAKING FREELY
US goads Japan into China confrontation
A US delegation sent to Japan in late 2012 purportedly to diffuse island tensions with China was headed by two senior officials who in the past have stated that the US-Japan alliance can only survive if Tokyo renounces its pacifist constitution and develops a "capable military force" to face the "re-rise" of China. By becoming the US's "bait", Japan puts itself in the firing line. - John V Walsh (Feb 5, '13)

Japan beats chest in midlife crisis
As Japan's population ages, it is increasingly longing for a return to times of great economic and military success, reflected in the heightened tensions over disputed islands. Japan could cooperate with China (and South Korea), but that will not yield the greatest amount of resources or domestic political opportunity - and it will never give Japanese old men honor before their people. - Brett Daniel Shehadey (Jan 30, '13)

Japan pivots south, with eye on China
A "democratic security diamond" is a key formation for newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he intensifies a charm offensive across the Pacific to create a strategic alliance of Indo-Pacific countries that share his anxieties about China's growing naval might. The southern pivot will have profound implications for regional security. - Richard Javad Heydarian (Jan 25, '13)

Abe's Nanjing stance threatens peace
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's support of right-wing political cliques who deny the period of mass murder and rape known as the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, and his persistent efforts to suppress the "comfort women" issue, raise doubts that under his tenure Tokyo will seek East Asian peace. His revisionism also insults the post-World War II tribunal that convicted Japan as an aggressor. - Narusawa Muneo (Jan 18, '13)

Not beyond hope: Japan and TPP
New Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's determination to return his country to economic growth is commendable, but structural reform is necessary to produce the lasting recovery he is hoping for, and the most potent tool for that is joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. - Matthew P Goodman (Jan 10, '13)

US, China set for a year of surprises
Power transitions in the United States and China have left comparative moderates at each helm, but tensions are deepening in the world's most important bilateral relationship. The US military "pivot" towards Asia and its support of Japan in the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute rear as the most obvious flashpoints in 2013, but more policy surprises can be expected from both sides. - Brendan O'Reilly (Jan 4, '13)

Abe blind to Japan's lost dynamic
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe views his election victory as a call to resurrect the Liberal Democratic Party's role as architects of Japan's post-war economy, ignoring a breakdown in the economic and political dynamic that's the real source of the country's policy malaise. Unless the LDP recognizes global changes and the new optimal industrial structure needed for Japan, fiscal disaster looms. - Yong Kwon (Jan 4, '13)

US, China set for a year of surprises
Power transitions in the United States and China have left comparative moderates at each helm, but tensions are deepening in the world's most important bilateral relationship. The US military "pivot" towards Asia and its support of Japan in the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute rear as the most obvious flashpoints in 2013, but more policy surprises can be expected from both sides. - Brendan O'Reilly (Jan 4, '13)

Abe will be firm but flexible on Senkakus
Shinzo Abe, newly elected as Japan's prime minister, didn't thrill ordinary Japanese with his nationalistic rhetoric, even if it did get him elected. In office, his inflammatory comments on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, an issue that has poisoned dealings with China, are likely to be shelved so the problem can be dealt with. As in the past, Abe could yet demonstrate firm but flexible skill in handling relations with Japan's increasingly powerful neighbor. - Bert Edström (Dec 19, '12)

COMMENT
China, Japan set a confrontation course
The victory of the Liberal Democratic Party in the Japanese elections, with the hawkish Shinzo Abe back as prime minister after five years, will probably result in an escalation of tensions with China, just as Beijing is launching new provocations. As the tide of nationalism rises in both countries, the dispute over three barren islands looks like it will become a major element in the realignment of geopolitics. - Roberto Savio (Dec 19, '12)

Japan builds a Galapagos of power
Instead of pursuing smart cities, smart grids and renewable energy, political and policymaking chaos in Japan is allowing the return of a pro-nuclear power camp committed to leading the country down the same road as was followed before the Fukushima meltdown. Based on crass calculations and recession scaremongering, the revival flies in the face of international trends and Japan's history of innovation. - Andrew DeWit (Dec 14, '12)

Nintendo stutters with new console
Japanese games-console maker Nintendo is looking to its new Wii U unit to revive its fortunes after poor financial results last year. An enthusiastic response from customers in Tokyo at the weekend was not enough to impress investors. - David John Kim (Dec 11, '12)

How beauty shapes
power in China and Japan
Asian and Western history show that power relations and perceptions of hierarchy play their part in estimations of what is "beautiful" and "charming" in the human form. Ancient Chinese and Japanese depictions offer insights into how trends such as bound feet and shaved eyebrows evolved into today's double eyelid surgery. - Cho Kyo and Kyoko Selden (Dec 7, '12)

China to rule the seas - unmanned
Fast forward a few years beyond the current crop of territorial skirmishes in Asian seas and drones, rather than naval ships, will be ruling the waves. China's declared intention to deploy marine surveillance drones heralds a brave new world of perception politics, eyes in the sky and military conflict - a future in which it is likely to emerge the winner. - Elizabeth Van Wie Davis and Margaret Albert (Dec 5, '12)

Japan eyes Central Asia
for strategic resources
Japan's decision to provide $700 million to resource-rich Central Asian countries for exploitation of oil, gas and rare-earth minerals comes amid Tokyo's growing awareness of its dependence on China for some resources. It will also add weight to Japan's role in a region of increasing interest to the world's leading powers. - Roman Muzalevsky (Dec 4, '12)

Is China trying to implode Japan's economy?
China's high-handed response to the Japanese government's purchase of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands go beyond the apparent blunderings of a disoriented elite or a decision to use the dispute as a demonstration against the US pivot into Asia. Beijing may be thinking seriously about trying to kick away a key prop of the US initiative - a vital, but weakened and vulnerable ally: Japan. - Peter Lee (Nov 30, '12)

CHAN AKYA
The end of Japan as we know it
Between a dysfunctional democracy that seeks to return traditional parties that show little innovation, an economy that is losing competitiveness with every passing day, a demographic time bomb and prickly relations with its neighbors, Japan as we know it may simply cease to be a major functioning economy over the next couple of decades. Political paralysis may embody rather than be the cause of a sclerotic economy. (Nov 26, '12)

Japanese politics drift to the polls
Japanese voters face a difficult challenge after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's dissolution of parliament. The snap election called for December 16 throws a confusing cast of characters onto the ballot papers, engendering more political chaos at a time that Japan desperately needs strong leadership and an injection of fresh hope. - Purnendra Jain (Nov 20, '12)

SPEAKING FREELY
Japan: Tax matters
As Japan's parliament enters an extraordinary session to debate a financing bill essential for the continued running of government, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has a chance to become a new Junichiro Koizumi - or at least appear to be that rare thing, a decisive Japanese premier. Bert Edstrom (Oct 30, '12)

US learns hard lessons of Asia 'pivot'
The US "pivot" toward China's backyard has had the apparently unintended consequence of Beijing lashing out at America's valued allies in the region, especially Japan. To try to mend the damage, the US sent a high-powered bipartisan team of retired diplomats to Asia, but they found out what regional players already knew: China's once-cuddly "soft power" panda has grown fangs. - Peter Lee (Oct 26, '12)

Japan struggles to store
nuclear plant waste water
Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant crippled by the March 2011 tsunami, is struggling to find space to store tens of thousands of tonnes of highly contaminated water used to cool the broken reactors. (Oct 26, '12)

From Kuriles with love
A flurry of bilateral talks ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's visit to Russia in December signals mutual interest in Moscow and Tokyo in improving relations after seven decades of "cold peace". The key will be solving, at long last, the Kurile Islands dispute, and the reward will be burgeoning Russo-Japanese trade, especially in the field of energy. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct 24, '12)

Marching orders for Japan's reactionaries
Richard Armitage, former US deputy secretary of state, strikes a purely self-interested pose with a call for Japan to rectify its historical differences with South Korea that's actually meant for China's consumption. While that's no reason for intransigence, the problem for Japan is that cleaving itself to America as a vassal state, or reluctantly joining with South Korea against China, is no lasting solution. - Jon Reinsch (Oct 22, '12)

Russia and Japan try again
Russia and Japan are attempting to renew friendly relations, even as missteps over the disputed Kurile Islands have soured ties. Long-standing differences with China and difficulties with South Korea leave Japan as the only major Asian player with whom progress might be possible in the immediate future for Moscow to move forward on its ambitions to increase gas exports. - Stephen Blank (Oct 17, '12)

Agent Orange is Okinawa's smoking gun
For decades the Pentagon always denied that it kept Agent Orange on Okinawa during the Vietnam War. Now, for the first time, a recently uncovered US army report reveals that the United States stockpiled 25,000 barrels of the toxic defoliant on the island before stocks were moved and incinerated in 1977. There is increasing evidence that civilian Okinawans were poisoned. - Jon Mitchell (Oct 11, '12)

China, Japan dodge anniversary
Planned celebrations of four decades of diplomatic relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China have been put on hold as the two Asian giants remain bogged down in a dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Behind the deteriorating ties is mutual distrust rooted in history and aggravated by huge shifts in economic power and regional influence. The souring of relations, if allowed to continue much longer, will be damaging to both nations. - Brendan O'Reilly (Oct 3, '12)

Asia poll prospects make for choppy seas
It's no coincidence that the increased vitriol in Northeast Asia over sovereignty issues comes as leadership changes loom in South Korea, China and likely Japan. While Beijing is overcompensating for a mediocre economic performance by yielding to ultra-nationalist demands, Tokyo similarly needs a bogeyman to end political instability limiting the state's effectiveness. - Yong Kwon (Sep 26, '12)

US pivots toward trouble in West Pacific
Washington wants to be seen as an honest broker in the maritime disputes between China and its neighbors, but its actions betray its bias against Beijing. The result of America's meddling has been a resurgence of rivalries that had been dormant for decades, and aggravation of the underlying distrust between the nations of East and Southeast Asia and China. - Jian Junbo (Sep 25, '12)

SUN WUKONG
Beijing faces protests dilemma
The recent anti-Japanese protests, many violent, across China coincide with Japan's 1931 invasion of the country. The Chinese government now faces having to crackdown fiercely at home or allow its foreign policy to be hijacked by popular will to run into military conflict with Japan and then with other neighboring countries. Neither is desirable for the Party during a time of power transition. - Wu Zhong (Sep 18, '12)

EAST CHINA SEA DISPUTE
Beijing more sensitive to war tremors
Japan's decision to try to tighten control over disputed islands in the East China Sea looks like a serious miscalculation. It's not extraordinary that protesters in China are baying for war. The difference from times past is that rifts surfacing at the top of the Communist Party render Beijing more sensitive to the popular mood. - Brendan O'Reilly (Sep 17, '12)

Japan and China on a conflicting course
The latest handling of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands row showcases obvious misperceptions between China and Japan. In so far as China's repeated claim on the disputed islands is not recognized by Tokyo, Japan's purchase plan is seen in Beijing as a serious encroachment. - Karl Lee (Sep 14, '12)

Treaty offers way out for Tokyo and Seoul
The pit into which relations between Japan and South Korea have sunk was dug long before South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made a trip last month to disputed islets in what many see as a diversion from problems at home. Asian interests would be well-served with a fresh start, concentrating on the 1965 Basic Japan-South Korea Treaty. - Kosuke Takahashi (Sep 11, '12)

Kurile Islands get a name
Russia and Japan are displaying a strong desire to change their relationship for the better. Yet as Japanese Prime Minister prepares to visit Moscow in December, skies remain overcast. Russia's naming this week of one of the disputed Kurile Islands will antagonize Japan, while for Russian President Vladimir Putin, concerns over US missile defense systems on Japanese soil loom much larger. - M K Bhadrakumar (Sep 11, '12)

Japan is not broke
Japan has long given the impression of being bankrupt, even as it backstops much of the global financial system including the International Monetary Fund. The country is clearly much stronger than it appears, with lessons the United States can learn from. - Ellen Brown (Sep 10, '12)

Beijing steers clear of skirmishes
Beijing can hardly be accused of a sanguine response to calls to arms in China and the usual display of combativeness from Japan in their 40-year-old dispute over island sovereignty. That's because ultimately it can count on carrot-and-stick ploys to persuade Tokyo to keep emotions in check. - Willy Lam (Sep 10, '12)

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