Lester Tenney, commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, a veterans organization, who spent most of the war as a prisoner of war in Japan working in a Mitsui mine, spoke yesterday at a hall in the shadow of the Japanese Diet.Mr. Tenney is currently visiting Tokyo, hoping to raise awareness of what …
Tag: US-Japan relations
Japan just as invisible as always
MOFA has released its latest Gallup-conducted poll of American public and elite attitudes concerning Japan. (English summary here; more detailed Japanese documents available for download here.)Gallup conducted a telephone poll of 1500 Americans over age 18 in February and March of 2008, and telephone interviews with 250 "opinion leaders" in "the fields of government, business, …
The campaign comes to Guam
This weekend, the US presidential campaign comes to Guam, the island territory closer to Japan than the continental US that will soon be home to a vastly expanded US military presence, if all goes according to plan.Guam will be holding a Democratic caucus, and with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton struggling for every delegate, the …
Ashamed
I am back in Chicago for a bit, and have managed to make it out to Wrigley Field twice to see Fukudome Kosuke, the first Japanese addition to the Chicago Cubs roster. Readers will recall that I was quite pleased about this, and so far I haven't been disappointed. With a .317 batting average and …
More trouble headed Fukuda’s way?
According to the Washington Post, in exchange for North Korea's "acknowledging" US concerns about its nuclear activities, disabling Yongbyon, and provide a full accounting of its plutonium stockpile, the US will be prepared to "remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and to exempt it from the Trading With the …
The right laying low?
Since former prime minister Mori and Prime Minister Fukuda called attention to the crisis facing the LDP on consecutive days in mid-January — with Mr. Mori explicitly criticizing Nakagawa Shoichi's flirtations with Hiranuma Takeo — it seems that the ideological conservatives have backed out of the spotlight.Part of the reason, I think, is because of …
The weakness of Fukuda’s (and Japan’s) carbon campaign
As the Fukuda government has insisted at every chance it has to remind Japanese citizens and foreign governments that the focus of this summer's G8 summit in Hokkaido will be climate change policy. Tokyo is eager to be at the forefront of the quest for a post-Kyoto climate change pact.This weekend Mr. Fukuda took this …
Continue reading The weakness of Fukuda’s (and Japan’s) carbon campaign
The fantasies of "true conservatism"
For a glimpse into the twisted thinking of the Japanese right — the revisionist right — in the aftermath of the downfall of Abe Shinzo, there is no better place to look than the conversation between Sakurai Yoshiko and Hiranuma Takeo published in the January 2008 issue of Voice.The bizarre, distorted facts and outright fictions …
Fukuda’s "catch ball" diplomacy
Fukuda Yasuo is in China, and the contrasts, both with his earlier trip to Washington and Ozawa Ichiro's trip to China, are stunning, if not surprising.Recall how earlier this month I criticized Mr. Ozawa for his over-the-top visit to Beijing, when he traveled with an entourage of hundreds and spoke in effusive terms about the …
Unease in Japan, yawns in America?
The Yomiuri Shimbun has published the results of a poll (conducted with Gallup in the US) that surveyed American and Japanese attitudes towards their respective national institutions and the US-Japanese relationship.As the article summarizing the poll reports, Yomiuri recorded a 14% (to 39%) and 15% (to 46%) drops respectively in the number of Japanese and …
Tobias S. Harris 