PROTECTING THE SEAS
INTERVIEWER What is your view of the recent flap over the Senkaku Islands from your perspective as an expert on international maritime law? A problem also emerged in 2005 involving a dispute between...
View ArticleA PRINCIPLED STANCE IN RELATIONS WITH CHINA
TAHARA SŌICHIRŌ In mid-October, when the Sino-Japanese diplomatic situation finally seemed to be calming down after the September 7 collision of a Chinese trawler into two Japan Coast Guard vessels,...
View ArticleTHE LINGERING SPECTER OF A CURRENCY WAR
Two years have passed since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 triggered the worst economic crisis in half a century. The aftereffects of the “Lehman shock” are now fading, but so, it...
View ArticleTOKYO’S CHINA PROBLEM: CLAIMING THE HIGH GROUND
In 2010, China overtook Japan in gross domestic product to become the world’s second-largest economy–a distinction Japan had held for nearly 50 years. But this ballyhooed “reversal” is a purely...
View ArticleFREE TRADE AGREEMENTS: AN URGENT PART OF JAPAN’S AGENDA
Emerging countries are enjoying robust growth that contrasts sharply with the increasingly uncertain outlook among advanced countries. In relation to this, we need to remind ourselves that Japan...
View ArticleTHE LAUGHINGSTOCK OF EAST ASIA
North Korea launches an artillery bombardment against Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea, while a Chinese fishing trawler rams a Japanese Coast Guard patrol vessel in the seas off Japan’s Senkaku...
View ArticleEASY MONEY WON’T END JAPAN’S STAGNATION
In August 2010 the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City hosted its regular symposium on monetary policy in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Attention centered on the paper “After the Fall” by Carmen and Vincent...
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THE SWEEPING CHANGES IN JAPANESE POLITICS SINCE THE 1990S
In countries with well-established democratic political systems, major political reforms are unusual, and drastic reforms of a comprehensive or multifaceted nature are rare indeed.[1. James G. March...
View ArticleOVERCOMING JAPAN’S CRISIS WITH POLITICAL REFORM
Japan is in a very difficult position, both domestically and internationally. On the external front we have seen a string of recent developments, notably the confrontation with China over the Senkaku...
View ArticleREVIVING THE SPIRIT OF THE XINHAI REVOLUTION
Speaking to a Chinese diplomat at a symposium on Japan-China relations about six months ago, I remarked on the fact that 2011 was the centennial of the Xinhai Revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty....
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