Nov 06, 2017
President Donald Trump started his five-nation Asian tour in Japan with hamburgers and wagyu steak, nine holes of golf, and an indirect yet blunt warning to Nor
Chen Jimin, Guest Researcher, Center for Peace and Development Studies, China Association for International Friendly Contact
Jul 13, 2017
Japan still sees the US relationship as its diplomatic basis and top priority, especially in maintaining the stability of US-Japan alliance. But in the face of current uncertainties, it also is beginning to seek diversity in foreign affairs as a way to maximize Japan’s interests.
Colin Moreshead, Freelance Writer
Mar 02, 2017
The first month of Trump’s presidency has been a useful primer for Chinese officials, albeit an unpleasant one. China was certainly watching the Trump-Abe meeting for cues on how the new president conducts himself with foreign leaders.
Chen Jimin, Guest Researcher, Center for Peace and Development Studies, China Association for International Friendly Contact
Feb 27, 2017
The new president showed that the United States would attach importance to the Asia-Pacific region, to its alliances and to deepening the relationship with the region’s major countries. His recent overtures to China, however, and his disinterest in Abe’s “values diplomacy” suggest that US policy will not always give Japan what it wants.
Xu Duo, Fox Fellow, Yale University
Feb 09, 2017
Japan’s APA boss Toshio Motoya provoked criticisms from China by placing his revisionist history book in APA guest rooms. In this book, he claimed the Nanking Massacre was faked. This represents part of a perceptible shift in Japan toward conservatism, and it implies some deeper and larger change in the country’s overall mindset on war history. While self-deprecation has long overstayed its time in Japan, and self-respect is something better and urgently needed, at the same time it would be in Japan’s very interests not to be embarking on the road of self-aggrandizement.
AP, The Associated Press
May 27, 2016
Convinced that the time for this moment is right at last, President Barack Obama on Friday will become the first American president to confront the historic and haunted ground of Hiroshima.
Xu Duo, Fox Fellow, Yale University
May 25, 2016
One week before his Hiroshima visit, U.S. President Barack Obama said in his interview with NHK that his purpose is not to revisit the past, but to affirm the need of peace and a world without nuclear weapons. Whereas the declared message of his Hiroshima visit is denuclearization, the unspoken connotations could be more meaningful.
Zhang Zhixin, Chief of American Political Studies, CICIR
May 24, 2016
As the U.S. Indulgence towards Japan grows, an emboldened Japan will act more aggressively. A successful U.S. Asia strategy hinges upon a balanced policy toward both China and Japan. However, the scale is well tilted towards Japan now. If Obama wants to make a stable U.S.-China relations one of his foreign policy legacies, he should think over before leap.
Xu Duo, Fox Fellow, Yale University
May 11, 2016
Obama will visit Hiroshima on May 27th when he attends the G7 summit held later this month in Japan. However, the visit may backfire and hurt Japan by touching off an inconvenient chain reaction. By fixating on the nuclear trauma while blotting out recollections of Japan’s victimization of others, Japan’s sense of its role as a victimizer has been weakened.
Stephen Harner, Former US State Department Official
Nov 30, 2015
In Tokyo, the Abe government is creating a new base in which the use of any U.S. air, sea, or ground forces will be unrestricted. Part of the Obama administration’s aim to maintain unchallengeable American military supremacy in East Asia, the construction of this base is already increasing tension throughout the region.