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The Philippines emerges as an Indo-Pacific security pivot

The Philippines emerges as an Indo-Pacific security pivot

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S.-Philippines alliance has been the sick man of the U.S. regional security architecture. (The alliance with...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

Trump’s superpower, unpredictability, has given way to unreliability

Trump’s superpower, unpredictability, has given way to unreliability

When U.S. President Donald Trump served Chinese leader Xi Jinping chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago in 2017 while casually informing his guest that the...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

Modi’s India is looking like a one-party state

Modi’s India is looking like a one-party state

It took him 12 years, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally brought the world’s most-populous nation to the precipice of an...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Andy Mukherjee

The risk of the Iran war restarting is irrationally high

The risk of the Iran war restarting is irrationally high

The ancient Athenians didn’t really have a word for sin. They had one for error, hamartia and they of course coined hubris — an offense of pride...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Marc Champion

Putin should be challenged to restore local democracy in Russia

Putin should be challenged to restore local democracy in Russia

CHICAGO – As Hungarians celebrate their defeat of authoritarian populism and Americans mark 250 years of freedom, Russians may also look forward to...

previous day 30

The Japan Times

Roger Myerson

Is the global financial system making the Hormuz shock worse?

Is the global financial system making the Hormuz shock worse?

ADDIS ABABA – The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused severe price spikes, which are hitting the world’s most vulnerable people the...

previous day 40

The Japan Times

Hanan Morsy

Britain’s political center crumbles as Reform surges

Britain’s political center crumbles as Reform surges

The dominant message from Britain’s recent local government elections is that the extreme right Reform U.K. party has swept the country, gaining...

previous day 40

The Japan Times

Max Hastings

Why the Trump-Xi summit will be underwhelming

Why the Trump-Xi summit will be underwhelming

Donald Trump’s visit this week to China, the first by a U.S. president since Trump himself visited eight and a half years 8½ earlier, is unlikely...

previous day 20

The Japan Times

Matthew Fulco

Canada’s China recalibration: Rapprochement or risk-hedging?

Canada’s China recalibration: Rapprochement or risk-hedging?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney drew global attention at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he argued that middle...

monday 50

The Japan Times

Kenichi Doi

Why Indian companies don’t want to invest in India

Why Indian companies don’t want to invest in India

Indian business rarely does exactly what the government wants it to. For the past decade or so, for example, it has obdurately refused to invest as...

monday 40

The Japan Times

Mihir Sharma

If Iran agrees to everything, was the war worth it?

If Iran agrees to everything, was the war worth it?

The outcome of the U.S. war with Iran and the future status of the Strait of Hormuz remain uncertain. But thanks to a carefully placed Trump...

monday 50

The Japan Times

Marc Champion

Is Japan’s recent diplomatic offensive ‘strategic’?

Is Japan’s recent diplomatic offensive ‘strategic’?

Every year around this time, I find myself asking a simple question: Why do overseas trips by the country’s prime minister, Cabinet ministers and...

10.05.2026 40

The Japan Times

Kuni Miyake

OpenAI is so yesterday — even for SoftBank

OpenAI is so yesterday — even for SoftBank

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son is known for making audacious multibillion-dollar bets. Some acquisition deals, such as chip designer Arm...

08.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Shuli Ren

Indonesia-Japan defense pact reshapes Indo-Pacific security

Indonesia-Japan defense pact reshapes Indo-Pacific security

The signing of a defense cooperation agreement between Indonesia and Japan in Jakarta this week was more than another bilateral milestone. It signals...

08.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Ronny P. Sasmita

The hantavirus outbreak is cause for caution, not panic

The hantavirus outbreak is cause for caution, not panic

A suspected outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship sailing the Atlantic Ocean has all the hallmarks of a nightmare scenario: A handful of people have...

08.05.2026 50

The Japan Times

Lisa Jarvis

Asian budget carriers need help to avoid Spirit’s fate

Asian budget carriers need help to avoid Spirit’s fate

The global jet-fuel crunch is hitting Asia’s low-cost airlines much harder than their full-service counterparts. Governments should be preparing...

07.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Juliana Liu

To counter China, the West must first understand its phobias

To counter China, the West must first understand its phobias

By observing Beijing’s assertive military posturing in the South China Sea, its track record of economic coercion and its sweeping internal...

07.05.2026 70

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

Shifting costs to allies won’t ‘restore’ U.S. maritime dominance

Shifting costs to allies won’t ‘restore’ U.S. maritime dominance

The longstanding maxim that “whoever controls the sea controls the world” reflects the central role of maritime power in ensuring the security and...

07.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Rintaro Inoue

Into Africa: China continues its dominance on the continent

Into Africa: China continues its dominance on the continent

On May 1, China eliminated all tariffs on imports from African countries, with the exception of one, Eswatini. The tiny South African kingdom is being...

07.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

An Indian nuclear reactor milestone proves doubters wrong

An Indian nuclear reactor milestone proves doubters wrong

Anyone who’s ever dealt with it has a long list of complaints about the Indian state. They will point out that it rarely invests in long-term...

05.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Mihir Sharma

What China will learn from Orban’s defeat

What China will learn from Orban’s defeat

NEW YORK – Ever since the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the country has served as a cautionary tale about the dangers of political reform in...

05.05.2026 70

The Japan Times

Sam chetwin george

Will the Iran war make Trump gun-shy or trigger-happy?

Will the Iran war make Trump gun-shy or trigger-happy?

The Iran war, which Donald Trump started in February for no good reason and which could flare up again at any moment, broke a streak of easy American...

05.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Andreas Kluth

The EU needs new security partners

The EU needs new security partners

PARIS – For decades, much of Europe viewed military engagement through the lens of NATO or the European Union, since these structures have long...

05.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Nicu Popescu

Oil shock will hit Asia harder than the 1970s

Oil shock will hit Asia harder than the 1970s

The dizzying changes wrought by energy shocks are only ever seen in the rearview mirror. When the 1973 and 1979 oil crises first swept the world,...

04.05.2026 50

The Japan Times

David Fickling

Putting Africa’s savings to work for its people

Putting Africa’s savings to work for its people

CAMBRIDGE – African economies will not be able to meet their development goals unless they can mobilize their own resources. But to do that,...

04.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Gomez agou

From despair to action: Tragedy is reborn as hope.

From despair to action: Tragedy is reborn as hope.

PARIS – We live in a world of senseless suffering and impending catastrophe, where it would seem the idea of moral progress has become...

04.05.2026 50

The Japan Times

Chiara Cordelli

Silicon Valley made AI powerful. Tokyo wants to make it work

Silicon Valley made AI powerful. Tokyo wants to make it work

There was a time when Tokyo felt light years ahead of the world. The flip phone I used in the 2000s was a marvel to every American I showed it to,...

04.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Catherine Thorbecke

From Paris on May Day: Rethinking work and solidarity in Japan

From Paris on May Day: Rethinking work and solidarity in Japan

Paris – May Day came and went last Friday in the City of Lights, prompting me to reflect on its meaning here in France and in my native Japan. On...

04.05.2026 50

The Japan Times

Kumiharu Shigehara

Meta is making workers train their AI replacements

Meta is making workers train their AI replacements

Four years ago, Mark Zuckerberg, feeling like the admiral of the good ship Meta Platforms, sent a memo to employees encouraging them to refer to...

03.05.2026 70

The Japan Times

Mark Gongloff

Asia’s economic diplomacy for tumultuous times

Asia’s economic diplomacy for tumultuous times

LONDON – For decades, global development efforts reflected the assumption that international cooperation, however imperfect, was ultimately guided...

03.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Ashok lavasa — roli asthana

Sustainability has left the AI chat

Sustainability has left the AI chat

I was chatting with a friend over coffee the other afternoon about nothing in particular, and inevitably the topic turned to AI. After all, I...

03.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Jerome silla

Memo to Xi: There is no downside to freeing Jimmy Lai

Pressure to free imprisoned Hong Kong newspaperman Jimmy Lai continues to mount ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned mid-May summit in...

01.05.2026 80

The Japan Times

Mark L. Clifford

‘Sakura diplomacy’: One tree, two men, three wars

A hundred years ago this week, on April 27, 1926, an Edwardian Englishman gave a speech in Tokyo to an elite group of business and government leaders...

01.05.2026 70

The Japan Times

Naoko abe

Japan’s space systems face growing cybersecurity threats

In November, less than a month after taking office, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi established the Japan Growth Strategy Headquarters to...

01.05.2026 60

The Japan Times

Kota Umeda

Why Beijing can’t quit ‘open’ AI

China’s AI ecosystem has one defining difference from Silicon Valley: it’s embrace of open source. While America’s biggest companies race to...

01.05.2026 70

The Japan Times

Catherine Thorbecke

How Asia should deal with the ‘Malacca dilemma’

If the Iran War has taught us nothing else, it’s that weaponizing shipping routes is now the military move du jour. That’s rightly turned...

30.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Karishma Vaswani

AI is coming for our aging parents, ready or not

At first glance, AI companions for lonely seniors can seem dystopian, looking less like innovation than a bleak sign of social failure. Spending a...

30.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Catherine Thorbecke

Japan can help Asia learn to live without the U.S.

It has been almost two decades since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood in India’s parliament and told the assembled legislators that "it...

30.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Mihir Sharma

Japan’s balancing act in an era of U.S.-China dominance

For all the talk of a coming multipolar world, the reality for Japan is simpler: The international system is still shaped above all by the United...

30.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

U.S. adopts China's playbook on tech and security

OK, that’s rich. A prominent Chinese academic warned that the United States now views technology competition between itself and China “less as a...

30.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

Get ready for another summer of rage in Asia

Asia’s Gen Z is facing a summer of discontent. Already grappling with bleak job prospects and lackluster growth, it is now being stung by the shock...

30.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Karishma Vaswani

Netanyahu’s Trump alignment leaves American Jewish community at risk

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE – Jewish history includes three episodes of flourishing in exile: the Babylonian diaspora’s great academies; the...

28.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Steven Simon

Cherry blossoms are proof of a planet going awry

Earlier this month, a group of climate-change deniers gathered at the Hotel Washington in the U.S. capital to celebrate their takeover of the...

28.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Mark Gongloff

Japan’s constitutional theater: Revising Article 9 would be a mistake.

Since Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s Liberal Democratic Party secured 316 seats in Japan’s Lower House, the largest majority seen since the end...

28.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Andrew Latham

Decoupling and South Korea’s new capitalism

South Korea’s economic performance appears to be decoupling from that of the United States. While economic growth in 2025 was around 1%, less than...

27.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Keun Lee

The West is still getting Russia wrong

Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western observers still do not understand the Kremlin’s strategy. Some think there is...

27.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Inna bondarenko — daniel sleat

Hungary’s shift unlocks new opportunities for NATO and Ukraine

The ousting this month of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a landslide electoral defeat has generated a flood of commentary. Much of it has...

27.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

James Stavridis

Trump has made the case for international law

As the tragic consequences of U.S. President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran continue to accumulate, one hears a cry of desperation: Are...

26.04.2026 90

The Japan Times

James A. Goldston

Social science’s low replication rate is not a crisis

Let’s say you do a job that involves making predictions about human behavior — you manage money, you sell things, you write opinion columns. Just...

26.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Justin Fox

Iran war is a renewable energy wake-up call

Two months into the war in Iran, energy markets are still in turmoil — and nowhere has felt the havoc more acutely than Asia. Nearly 90% of the oil...

26.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Sonia dunlop - takeaki masukawa