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June 08, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY

Japan

World
Japan
Japan is the world's biggest market for Iqos, a heat-not-burn tobacco product marketed by its maker Philip Morris as a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes — a claim not backed by independent scientific research.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Smoke and mirrors: How big tobacco manipulates science in Japan
In Japan, not only does the tobacco industry have close ties to government, but universities are also vulnerable to its influence. In this equation, public health loses out.
COMMENTARY / Japan
A new generation of 'Japan hands' and a changing world
For decades, Joseph Nye and Richard Armitage helped shape a vision of U.S.-Japan ties grounded in shared values, strategic trust and mutual respect.
COMMENTARY / Japan
The ground is fertile for Japan-India green economy partnerships
Japan and India can build on their long-standing relationship to spearhead the development of green and advanced technologies such as renewable energy and chips.
Akio Toyoda’s involvement in the $33 billion buyout of Toyota Industries signals a potential corporate comeback, and that’s a good thing despite criticism.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 4, 2025
For Toyota, more Akio Toyoda would be a good thing
By Gearoid Reidy
This opposition is nonsensical. Akio turned Toyota into the biggest automaker in the world during a period of intense industry change.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani meets with his U.S. counterpart, Pete Hegseth, at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 3, 2025
Why Japan isn’t panicking about Trump’s foreign policy
By Brad Glosserman
Hegseth’s SLD speech is the first extended statement about U.S. policy and it checked all the boxes.
Otakukon, an anime, manga and cosplay meet in Harare, Zimbabwe, last August. Japan should take advantage of decades worth of hugely popular cultural content by taking the big swings in bringing its own stories to global audiences.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 1, 2025
Japan can ride the anime wave to become the new soft superpower
By Douglas Montgomery
It's time for Japan to better leverage anime's global popularity, reaching international audiences via streaming platforms while opening the door to other cultural exports.
Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s push to slash rice prices could either mark a populist gesture or ignite a political revolution that challenges the entrenched agricultural lobby and the foundations of postwar conservative power.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 30, 2025
Can the 'rice man,' Koizumi, save the day?
By Kuni Miyake
Late last week, newly appointed farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi announced that he aimed to bring the rice price range down to around ¥2,000 per 5 kilograms.
Nippon Steel’s pursuit of U.S. Steel may succeed thanks to a U.S. veto-wielding golden share, but the high costs, political concessions and strategic risks suggest the deal could end up being a costly misstep.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 30, 2025
Stop the steel! Japan’s giving too much away in this deal.
By Gearoid Reidy
Nippon Steel risks handcuffing itself giving Trump a golden share.
German and U.S. soldiers participate in Allied Spirit 24, a multinational training exercise, in Hohenfels, Germany, in March 2024. Reforger, NATO’s massive Cold War-era exercise to rush U.S. troops to Europe, was shelved after the Soviet collapse. But with Vladimir Putin attacking neighbors, maybe it’s time to revive it.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 28, 2025
How can Europe deter Putin? Revive the ‘Reforger.’
By James Stavridis
The massive Cold War military exercise put a stop to Soviet aggression then, and it could do the same with Russia now.
Donald Trump’s approval of Nippon Steel’s U.S. Steel partnership signals a key step in U.S.-Japan economic and security cooperation amid rising competition with China.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 27, 2025
Nippon Steel partnership go-ahead boosts U.S.-Japan cooperation
By Jada Fraser
The move is a sharp departure from Trump’s earlier, politically motivated stance opposing foreign ownership of U.S. Steel.

Foreign tourists with unpaid medical bills in Japan to be denied entry
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during ministerial meeting meeting on foreign residents in Japan on Friday at the Prime Minister's Office.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.
Japan won’t wait for G7 summit for possible U.S. trade deal
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's top negotiator in tariff talks with the U.S. speaks to reporters at the Japanese Embassy in Washington on Friday.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
What can Kenji Yanobe’s cosmic cats teach us about humanity?
Kenji Yanobe’s spacesuited cats are the main characters of “Ship’s Cat Island,” the inaugural exhibition at Hyper Museum Hanno in Saitama Prefecture.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
New Naoshima museum bets on Asia, not the West
Detail of Takashi Murakami, “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu Byobu: Iwasa Matabei RIP” (2023-25)
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after
Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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