Search Results for: "Japan"
Sam Aarons / May 4, 2013 6:20 pm
Flames billow up into the sky from the charred shell of a black Honda. The owner walks away, guilty of having just set fire to his own car. Behind the man is a sign written in Chinese exclaiming “Defeat the Japanese Demons.” This is just one of many scenes capturing the zeitgeist of the riots last September in China that occurred after the Japanese government nationalized three uninhabited islands that lie off the coasts of Japan, China, and Ta...
Yurina Ko / October 18, 2009 5:22 pm
“This is a historic election,” pronounced the morning newscaster. “This country is going to change,” announced a political leader. He posed in front of campaign posters that read, “This is change we can believe in.” To an American audience, these phrases would immediately conjure up images of President Barack Obama’s election in November 2008. But here they referred to Japan’s lower house elections on August 30 2009, leading to Yukio Hatoyama’s...
Michael Ard / March 26, 2012 2:00 pm
It has now been over one year since northeastern Japan was devastated by what has been dubbed by many as the “triple disaster” – consisting of an earthquake, a deadly tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown of the now-infamous Fukushima nuclear power plant. According to The Economist, the disaster killed more than 19,000 people and left over 325,000 homeless. The millions of Japanese people’s lives directly affected by the disaster can never be accur...
Yurina Ko / October 31, 2010 9:50 pm
Okinawa is ambiguous. It is an idyllic, subtropical vacation spot in the eyes of most Japanese as well as the site of the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, the largest land-sea-air battle of World War II. Okinawa is one of 47 prefectures in Japan, but it also doubles as a home to 14 U.S. military bases which in total occupy one-fifth of the island. Its advantageous geographical location allows easy access to East Asia and the Middle East, making the islan...
Michael Ard / September 22, 2012 4:28 pm
from Wikimedia Commons On September 18, 1931, the Imperial Japanese Army created a crisis in Manchuria as a pretext for invasion. Dynamite was detonated in a train station in the city of Mukden (now known as Shenyang, in the northern Chinese province of Liaoning). The Japanese blamed the explosion on Chinese dissidents, and launched a full invasion of Manchuria. The puppet state of Manchukuo (the “country of the Manchu”) was established a short...
Mingming Feng / May 4, 2011 4:05 am
Although the worst has arguably passed at Fukushima, the dangers posed by Japan’s recent nuclear disaster have not yet passed. As the world watched with bated breath, a catastrophic nuclear meltdown was closely averted, but only by pouring tons of seawater into the reactors and hoping for the best. Recently, aftershocks of magnitudes reaching 7.1 threatened to destabilize the nuclear reactors and create fissures in the containment, releasing t...
Michael Ard / October 24, 2011 2:30 pm
...ay’s doomsday predictions that China’s nominal GDP will surpass America’s, it is important to understand the Chinese economy’s many inherent weaknesses. China’s growth model in the last 30 years is in many ways reminiscent of Japan’s stunning rise from the 1960s to the 1980s. Aided by the state’s heavy-handed guidance and a currency kept at an artificially low rate, both China and Japan had export-driven economic booms. Just as Japan’s did, China...
James Kahmann / October 31, 2010 9:25 pm
The United States’ national deficit exceeds $13 trillion—over $42,000 per US resident. With U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at $14 trillion in 2009, our debt-to-GDP ratio is 93 percent and growing. Japan enjoyed 90 percent debt-to-GDP levels in 1995. Following two decades of stagnant growth, Japan now risks exceeding 190 percent. 15 years from now, America’s Debt-to-GDP ratio may double as well. While debt-to-GDP ratios are important to consid...
Michael Ard / November 28, 2011 2:00 pm
...c Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP). The potential seems limitless: Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Chile, Peru, and the United States have already engaged in negotiations. At the APEC Summit, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda made the stunning announcement that Japan would also take a seat at the negotiating table. It is also highly likely that other economic heavyweights—like Canada and Mexico—may also join...
Lucas Rehaut / April 5, 2011 3:05 am
The myriad risks associated with nuclear power—as recently evidenced by the horrific disasters in Japan—are clearly too great for nuclear power to continue to be heralded as a viable energy option and savior from our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels. As such the time has come to declare, no matter what nuclear supporters may say, the end of the nuclear age. Japan’s nuclear disaster illustrates the massively disruptive effects of plant...
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