Committee deliberations on the Abe cabinet’s new security legislation erupted into a spectacle of contention today as the ruling coalition used their majority to move their bill to the floor of the D…

On November 7, Japan and China revealed they had reached an understanding on their differences that would allow for a resumption of diplomacy. After several years of a virtual shutdown in bilateral t…

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is about to reshuffle his Cabinet, and my friends here in DC are looking at me in amazement, asking “not again?!” Prime Minister Noda’s reshuffle brings some new faces i…

Just as I thought I could put the finishing touches on my book manuscript, Japanese Domestic Politics and the Rise of China (Columbia University Press), which has a chapter on Yasukuni, the issue eru…

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, returned to Tokyo this weekend after his first summit meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama. Post-summit, Abe faces two important economic decisions. T…