Japan

Typically, much of the initial foreign policy interest in a new (or slightly revised) Japanese government tends to look towards the United States – to consider the adjustments necessary to the alliance, to plan the first face-to-face meeting, to determine the nickname that will characterise

Will the bell Toll? The quiet flood of Japanese investment into Australia over the past few years amid at times mounting alarm about much lower levels of Chinese investment has been regularly noted here. But the astounding story of corruption and mismanagement inside the largest single Japanese

What makes the Quad foreign ministers conversation this week in Tokyo consequential? Probably the strategic setting – a pandemic, global economic contraction and an accelerated Sino-US strategic competition on one hand, and rising regional tensions from the Himalayas to the South China Sea and

Arguably the greatest, most visible and most impactful legacy of the British Raj in India is the train network that criss-crosses the country. So it perhaps comes as little surprise that India’s favourite regional friend is shoring up their relationship by investing heavily in, yes, more trains

Suga Yoshihide’s moment in Japanese politics arrived with the premature resignation last month of Abe Shinzo. Suga was considered the indispensable architect of the Abe administration, controlling Japan’s political nerve centre as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2012. On Monday this week, he was

With Abe Shinzo’s unexpected announcement last Friday that he would step down as prime minister, Japanese politics stands at a crossroads. Abe became the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s parliamentary history, with more than seven and a half years in office since he came to power second

On Sunday 5 July, Tokyo goes to the quadrennial polls to elect its governor, the position occupied since 2016 by Yuriko Koike, the city’s first female chief executive. Koike is seeking another term and is the leading candidate among 21 others. The international media typically doesn't pay much

The tale has become accepted diplomatic folklore. In the telling, it was Australia, back in 2008 in the early days of the Rudd government, that decided to scuttle the then-nascent Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the four-way talks also involving Japan, the United States and India. To compound

There have been plenty of Japanese officials weighing in on Tokyo’s Olympic rescheduling plans over the last few months. At times, it’s been hard to know who to focus on, especially when trying to follow the whole affair from Australia. From the ageing Tokyo 2020 President Mori Yoshiro to

In early 2020, Japan reopened its National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty. Displays at the museum in Tokyo assert that islands disputed by Japan, South Korea and North Korea are Japanese territory and refer to these islands as Takeshima. South Korea’s government, which also claims sovereignty

The last ten days in Japan have been extraordinary. First, the global Covid-19 pandemic forced the International Olympic Committee to postpone the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics until July 2021. And now, after a slow response, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has announced a state of emergency for

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were meant to be a welcome stimulus for the Japanese economy, and an opportunity to showcase Tokyo as a vibrant, “must visit” global city. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was also hoping that the Olympics and subsequent wave of nationalism would give him a

The legacy for Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo will be defined by how skilfully he navigates fluid geostrategic and geo-economic variables in the US-Japan-China triangle, at a time when regional order is fragmented and global governance is heavily contested. And of those points, China poses a

A curious anomaly in Japan is that official hospital ships have not been built or used since the end of the Second World War. This is despite the fact that Japan has regular disasters, such as earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, and floods. In such devastating disasters, medical

Carlos Ghosn’s fall from grace is one of the most amazing recent episodes in international corporate life. It seems just like yesterday that Carlos Ghosn was the “rock-star executive” who in 1999 restructured and saved the highly indebted Japanese motor vehicle maker Nissan on behalf of

The annual release of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report is always a moment of great shame for Asia’s leading economies. The relative gaps between Asian women and men on measures of health, education, economy, and politics are enormous, and not improving sufficiently, as

The US, Australia, and Japan have joined together to establish a trilateral “Blue Dot Network” to help develop infrastructure “in the Indo-Pacific and around the world”. The plan was announced on the sidelines of the 35th ASEAN summit in Thailand last week. This sounds impressive. The Indo

Typhoon Hagibis was the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in decades. The storm’s ferocity was extraordinary, and the level of destruction immense. At least 78 people have been killed, and more than 230,000 evacuated. Notably the typhoon, the 19th to hit Japan this year, struck the east coast

Only last week The Interpreter featured an article about the pitfalls of importing a major international sporting event into a country that didn’t have enough domestic interest or emotional investment to support it. That may have been the case in Qatar, but having just returned from two weeks and

Last week, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet after his Liberal Democratic Party’s healthy electoral success in the July upper house election. Abe said he wanted to ensure “stability” as well as tackle “challenges”, and to that end he retained some key allies and

Between April and June this year, Chinese Coast Guard ships entered the contiguous zone around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea for a record 64 consecutive days. In this flashpoint area between China and Japan, the number of Chinese incursions into the islands’ territorial

Already at its lowest ebb in decades, the Japan–South Korea relationship looks set to plummet further still. Leading this diplomatic descent are the perennial “history problems”, which have seen significant developments over the past year. Consequently, the issue of compensation for colonial-

Japan’s upper house election is set to be held this weekend but has attracted little media attention internationally. Doubtless this is because the House of Councillors is a less consequential body of Japan’s parliament, the national Diet, than the lower house, the House of Representatives,