Tag: China-Japan

  • Staging for the Beijing Olympics—in Japan

    Noted without comment. A large travel agency is planning a big promotion overseas to get foreign sports teams to stay in Japan before going on to Beijing for the start of next year’s Olympic games. They are touting the facilities, the lack of pollution, the variety of food, the public safety, and the ease of…

  • Japan's New Foreign Policy: Step Back and Focus on Asia

    Fukuda tells the Washington Post that Asia is Japan’s top responsibility, sending a signal to the United States on Japan’s expired Afghanistan refueling mission. This is also a departure from Abe and Aso’s aspiration to “Eurasian” reach. It wasn’t too long ago that then-Foreign Minister Aso Taro declared that Japan would work for an “arc…

  • Hillary Release Sets Up China–U.S. Competition

    A press release from the Hillary Clinton campaign uses China as the primary “other” for the United States, a nation to which the United States should compare its progress. An Oct. 10 press release outlining Clinton’s agenda on “Rebuilding the Road to the Middle Class” comes with several policy proposals and an attempt to frame…

  • A Textbook Demonstration … In Japan

    Japan’s history problem (歴史問題, rekishi mondai) is well-known in Asia, and it’s a common topic of discussion in Japanese political journals. Many are familiar with international criticism of Japan’s reckoning with its 20th century aggression, and the repeated approval by the Education Ministry of textbooks that underplay or gloss over the Nanjing Massacre and other…

  • Back to Blogging: Some Things I've Missed

    After almost two months in China (Friday makes it official), I’ve settled in to a rhythm of life in Beijing and I think it’s time to revive this site. I’ve missed a lot of news, which is OK with me. In the future, this blog will be less news-oriented (though as a journalist I can’t…