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July 07, 2026
 

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Mark Leonard
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 1, 2022
The decline and fall of ‘Davos Man’
The Ukraine invasion loomed large at this year’s annual World Economic Forum, where political and business leaders once gathered to celebrate globalization and pursue more of it.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2022
Europe’s soft-power problem
What is most off-putting is the way that Europeans tend to universalize their own experience, often assuming that what is right for them is right for others.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2022
Beijing becomes a rising star in the global rule-maker race
In the coming decades, the biggest global threat will not be China the rule-breaker, but China the rule-maker.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2021
In an ‘age of unpeace,’ civilians become new pawns of war
While migration has become a political football in Western Europe, it has been fully weaponized in an obscure strip of land between Belarus and Poland.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2021
Why the COP26 climate summit will fail
From Brazil and Australia to China and the U.S., countries are trying to game climate negotiations in order to shift the costs of adaptation onto others.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2021
The false promise of AUKUS
AUKUS comes hot on the heels of the U.S.’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and thus is being held up as evidence that the Biden administration is competent on foreign policy.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2021
The end of the ‘forever war’ in Afghanistan will not bring peace
Many in the West who attack Joe Biden’s Afghanistan policy are in fact upset about the return of brutal geopolitical competition.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2021
Germany’s patriotism paradox
As German public sentiment in the EU collapses, its leaders could come under public pressure to go it alone on policies ranging from vaccine procurement, migration, trade and energy.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2021
The new China shock
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s new strategy centers on the concept of “dual circulation.” Behind the technical-sounding phrase lies an idea that could change the global economic order.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2021
The Russia strategy Europe needs
Europe no longer has any illusions that Russia is on a trajectory toward liberal democracy that could be accelerated through engagement.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2021
Five cheers for 2021
But as 2021 nears, things look a lot better than they did just a few months ago. We now have at least five reasons to celebrate the New Year.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2020
Building back a better trans-Atlantic alliance
Trump may just be the accidental father of European sovereignty
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2020
The Middle Eastern past is never dead
If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fails to develop a viable Palestinian state, his escape from history could prove very short-lived.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2020
The European Union’s self-help moment
The COVID-19 crisis has created an opening for stronger collective European action.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2020
The end of Europe’s Chinese dream
Three developments have led the EU to abandon its goal of closer economic ties.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2020
The end of the EU’s Brexit bounce
Negotiations over the future of U.K.-EU relations will divide Europeans and offer fodder to Euroskeptics
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2019
The accidental Atlanticist
Europeans must heed Mike Pence’s dark warnings to achieve Joe Biden’s bright vision
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2018
The U.S. and China are the closest of enemies
Both countries are becoming more alike — particularly in their belief that there can be only one winner.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 2, 2018
The new tyranny of the dollar
Under U.S. President Donald Trump, however, a sophisticated set of tools known as secondary sanctions has become a bludgeon with which to threaten allies.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2018
Europe must stand for itself
Europeans can no longer assume that their interests are synonymous with those of the U.S.
Japan might be giving the currency market the silent treatment
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has issued verbal warnings recently using the same language and the same tone, saying authorities “will take appropriate action at any time, as necessary.”
Murakami says his novels are ‘different’ from AI literature
Haruki Murakami's first book in three years hit shelves in Japan on Friday.
Suspected Asian fraud ring exec served fresh warrant in Japan
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Osaka Prefectural Police have issued arrest warrants for three people, including a suspected fraud network leader, over alleged immigration and residency violations.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Tokyo hospital baby hatch accepts 20 newborns in first year
Hitoshi Kato (left), head of San-ikukai Hospital in Tokyo's Sumida Ward, speaks during a news conference at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on Thursday.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Japanese nail salons are tourists’ new obsession
Tourists in Japan have always been interested in quintessentially Japanese approaches to modern culture, and, increasingly, visits to nail salons have become the new hot thing.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.
‘Defense,’ not ‘warfare,’ stressed as pacifist Japan beefs up capabilities
Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi attends an annual training session near Mount Fuji at Higashifuji Training Field in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, on June 7.

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