Japan
Okinawa’s vocal anti-US military base movement
In early January this year, US military bases in Okinawa, Japan, were again the subject of criticism after the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was detected among US base personnel and…
Delivering promises will show steel in Quad
The German naval chief, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, lost his job during a visit to Delhi last month. During an interaction where he went woefully off-script, he urged the…
Australia–Japan defence cooperation in the grey zone
Over the last several years, the relationship with China has become increasingly awkward for both Australia and Japan. Other nations have also been similarly afflicted and…
Japan’s low-tech world
Japan is a high-tech country, right? It is, after all, the home of bullet trains, robots, computer games and all sorts of gadgets.
But there is another side of the story: low…
Japan and Australia ties blossom
Japan and Australia this month formally signed a “landmark” Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), establishing a defence cooperation framework that will allow the stationing of…
AUKUS? Quad? FOIP? A fragmented approach cannot counter China
Although a substantive movement has developed aiming to contain China – AUKUS being only the most recent example, adding to the reconstituted Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or…
Economic diplomacy: Japan’s new PM joins the (supply) chain gang
Securing the decks
For a country renowned for churning through ministers, perhaps the most remarkable thing about Japan’s new ministry under freshly appointed leader Fumio…
Meet Japan’s new PM
In a fiercely contested vote on Wednesday, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Fumio Kishida as party president. He is now set to form government as Japan’s…
Tokyo2020+1 wraps up as Japan’s next race begins
No sooner was the Paralympic flame extinguished, with the athletes filing out of Tokyo’s National Stadium for one last time, that all sporting psephologists turned their eyes to…
Japan’s nuclear identity and the complicated endgame
Book Review: Akimoto Daisuke, Japan’s Nuclear Identity and its Implications for Nuclear Abolition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
It has been rare in recent years for the…