May 11, 2021
China regularly forces us to check our assumptions about how the world works. The country’s return to regional and global prominence challenged preconceived notions (in the West) about leadership. Then, there was the stubborn defiance of expectations that one-party communist rule would give way to democracy. Sharpening tensions between China and the West (and its neighbors) reflect a whole series of inaccurate priors about ways that Beijing’s policies would evolve.
Now, China is forcing us to reassess how capitalism works and how the world should adjust to its refusal to mimic Western corporate and business practices. These differences assume great significance in the race to catch up with and overtake the West in the development of leading-edge technologies. Make no mistake: China is in many important ways a capitalist country; but Chinese capitalism is a very different animal from that practiced in the West.
May 4, 2021
Two geologists walk into a bar. The first one says to the bartender, “You know, soon there’s going to be a shortage of sand.” The bartender looks up, waiting for the punchline. The second geologist says, “He’s not kidding and that’s not a joke.”
Conjure up images of the Sahara, Gobi deserts or the dunes of Tottori there are plenty that work; roughly one-third of the Earth’s surface is officially classified as desert, much of it sandy and it’s hard to believe that worries about a sand shortage aren’t an inside joke among environment researchers.
Apr 27, 2021
So far, so good. Whatever anxieties may have lurked in Japanese imaginations upon the launch of Joe Biden’s presidency, they should have dissipated in recent weeks. It would be hard to script a better start to the new U.S. administration and its relationship with Japan.
U.S. diplomacy has underscored the primacy of the Japan-U.S. alliance in Biden’s foreign policy, the alignment of views between the two countries on key regional issues and the administration’s readiness to follow through on candidate Biden’s promises of multilateralism and consultation.
Little noticed among the many highlights of the first three months is the U.S. embrace of a more expanded conception of security, one with greater attention to economic issues a hitherto undervalued dimension of the competition for regional (and global) leadership. This new emphasis will not only pay immediate dividends, but it plays to Japan’s strengths and will allow this country to better contri
Economic issues, once divisive, now bind Japan and the U S japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Apr 20, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden announced last week that he will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 of this year, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida terror attacks on the United States. It is a controversial decision, especially when Afghanistan remains divided by civil war and the government in Kabul is weak and tottering.
But it’s the right choice, one that shows that Biden thinks strategically and has his priorities right. The ongoing U.S. presence in Afghanistan was a distraction and a drag on the United States; withdrawal will allow the Biden administration to focus on real threats to U.S. interests and better marshal resources to address them.