More than 60 years of stubborn diplomatic stalemate stemming from the Second World War doesn’t appear likely to end. Tourists in October on the Yankito Plateau on Iturup Island, the largest one of the Kuril Islands, known in Japan as … Read More
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement was signed yesterday, promising to set trading standards for 10 Southeast Asian countries plus China, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan. The deal is a strategic, but mostly symbolic win for China. … Read More
Joern Pollex/Getty Images Global trade is marching on with or without the US. Next year, the world’s biggest free trade deal could be signed. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) would be made up of 15 countries. The US and … Read More
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Traders unloaded Japanese yen and bought riskier currencies and the U.S. dollar on Monday as market confidence in the economy and world trade increased with progress on a COVID-19 vaccine and the prospect of Joe Biden … Read More
Japan will not join a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons, the government’s top spokesman said Monday, reiterating a stance that puts it in lockstep with the United States but could be seen as contradicting its anti-nuclear position. “We believe, given … Read More
TOKYO: Japan and Britain signed a bilateral free trade deal on Friday (Oct 23) in the first such major post-Brexit deal, reducing tariffs on Yorkshire lamb sold in Japan, as well as auto parts for Japan’s Nissan plant. “How fitting it … Read More
What could be the most powerful typhoon in decades is threatening the country’s southwest. Weather officials expect the typhoon to develop to emergency-warning level as it approaches or makes landfall in the Kyushu region from Sunday to Monday. Japan Meteorological … Read More
The constitutional referendum in Russia has closed the door to a potential territorial compromise with Japan. Russia’s revised constitution is bad news for Japan. It includes a new clause that bans territorial concessions, thereby further trampling Japanese hopes of ever … Read More
Tokyo/London | Japan has given the UK just six weeks to strike a post-Brexit deal, putting Boris Johnson’s government under pressure to agree one of the fastest trade negotiations in history — and Britain’s first in more than 40 years. Time is so … Read More
The master Japanese diplomat helped keep a complicated alliance on the rails. Yukio Okamoto, a diplomacy analyst and former advisor to past Japanese prime ministers, in 2015. KYODO VIA AP IMAGES It was a shock for many of us in Japan’s … Read More