How a Resurgent Japan Puts Washington on the Spot
“Japan is back.” That was the message Shinzo Abe, the new Japanese prime minister, delivered to President Barack Obama at the White House a few days ago. Obama, in turn, made nice, praising the US–Japan alliance as “the central foundation…
How a Fake Currency War Panicked Global Economies
When Shinzo Abe was elected Japan’s prime minister in December, he immediate announced a $118 billion economic stimulus plan — despite a national debt equal to 200 percent of GDP, the world’s highest ratio. Then he went to the Bank…
China’s Provocative Blunder in the Pacific
China is now making East Asia as unsafe as it possibly can. Tokyo and Beijing are not that far from blows over a few forsaken rocks in the East China Sea. Is Beijing behaving badly because it wants to flex…
Will the US Be Aced Out of A New Asian Alliance?
America’s closest allies in Asia are wasting no time establishing new economic and political alliances that can diminish the role of the U.S. in that region. Both Japan and South Korea are setting their own courses to an extent long…
U.S. China Policy: Incoherent and Dangerous
The cement is hardly dry on America’s new policy to forge new Asia-Pacific alliances, and already the post–Iraq endeavor is coming across as a collection of incoherent contradictions. Consider: *We say we want to build closer ties with China, but…
Why America Isn’t Headed for a ‘Lost Decade’
You have a country with a banking crisis that spreads to the financial markets. Then a puffy bubble in the real estate market pops. After that, there’s a persistent overhang of private-sector debt, and everyone starts deleveraging. This last renders…
Japan Snaps Back, Moody’s Drops Credit Rating. Huh?
This week Japan became the latest nation to get a downgrade from one of the rating agencies that seem to whizz around the world pronouncing this economy or that unworthy of its previous status. On Wednesday, Moody’s dropped Japan from…
Now Even Japan Says ‘No Nukes’
Germany did it a little more than a month ago, and Italy followed suit a week later. Now Japan’s prime minister has taken a stand against nukes. “In the future,” Naoto Kan told a nationwide television audience last week, “we…
China May Not Place Its Big Bets on America
Right now we should begin to worry about one of the following: 1. A flood of Chinese money is coming and Americans will react rather badly, as they did when big Japanese investments arrived in the U.S. 20 years ago. 2. A…
Japan’s Crippled Economy: Signs of a Snap-Back
Not quite two months after the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster entered the record books as Japan’s worst tragedy since World War II, the economic picture is becoming clearer. It’s a bigger-than-expected blow for corporations, suppliers, consumers, taxpayers, and many others. In fact,…
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