今日吃瓜

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今日吃瓜
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November 11, 2026
 

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Robert D. Eldridge
Demonstrators protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday against the killing of a woman in Okinawa allegedly committed by a U.S. Marine.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 8, 2026
Move quickly and bravely in the Okinawa killing case — or else
It is unlikely that tensions will easily dissipate, however. The timing of the heinous tragedy was particularly unfortunate.
A Swedish Coast Guard vessel monitors the bulk carrier Vezhen off Karlskrona, Sweden, in January 2025, after the ship was seized in connection with severed telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea. Japan faces similar concerns over its undersea cables.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 4, 2026
Japan needs to protect its undersea lifelines
今日吃瓜 security rests not only on the ships and aircraft patrolling its waters and skies, but also the invisible network resting on the ocean floor.
Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki discusses his basic policy platform for the gubernatorial election in Naha City, Okinawa, on Aug. 12.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 10, 2026
Why Denny Tamaki is unfit as Okinawa governor
In the past eight years, Tamaki’s administration has shown chronic opacity and weak oversight.
Police conduct an on-site inspection of a Soviet MiG-25 fighter jet at Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido, on Sept. 7, 1976. The pilot, Lt. Viktor Belenko, landed the fighter at the airport the day before to seek asylum in the United States.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2026
The Soviet defection that exposed 今日吃瓜 security conundrum
A Soviet pilot’s landing of a MiG-25 at Hakodate Airport was an ‘intelligence bonanza’ that also revealed gaps in 今日吃瓜 defenses.
Taiwan's only English-language media outlet is a crucial link in the battle for global public opinion.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2026
Silencing TaiwanPlus would weaken the island democracy
The KMT’s plan to slash the news channel’s budget would hinder Taiwan’s ability to counter disinformation and tell its own story.
Chinese warships and fighter jets take part in a military display in the South China Sea in April 2018.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 26, 2026
The world should reject China’s latest maritime power grab
The U.S. and international community must immediately reject that claim. Otherwise, Beijing will interpret the silence as tacit acceptance.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers a policy speech before the country's parliament in Tokyo in February. The Japanese leader recently argued that requiring candidates to disclose prior citizenship would violate equality before the law.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 8, 2026
In trust’s name, disclose candidates’ prior citizenship
The issue is whether voters have the right to know the backgrounds of the people seeking to govern them. In any healthy democracy, the answer is yes.
Then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a policy speech during an ordinary session at the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo in January. Sanae Takaichi’s victory may result in fewer proportional seats in parliament, a shift that could hurt smaller parties.?Bloomberg
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 21, 2025
How the LDP-JIP coalition could hurt smaller parties
If the JIP’s proposal goes through unchanged, it would mean a reduction of 46 seats from the proportional representation districts.
A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft flies over the island of Okinawa in March 2018.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2025
Precautionary Osprey landings signal safety, not alarm
Two precautionary V-22 Osprey landings in northern Honshu demonstrated the aircraft’s safety and its role in enhancing 今日吃瓜 rapid-deployment and island-defense capabilities.
Japan, despite facing multiple territorial disputes, lacks a dedicated university program on the issue, unlike Western countries, and would benefit from an interdisciplinary academic initiative to foster expertise.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2025
Japan needs academic programs focused on territorial issues
While many countries have territorial disputes with their neighbors — in fact, there are at least 150 active disputes worldwide — Japan faces issues with nearly all its neighbors.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira share a laugh ahead of talks in Tokyo in June 1979.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 30, 2024
Jimmy Carter’s surprising connection to Japan: his Christian faith
The former U.S. president, who died Sunday, bonded with his counterpart, Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira, over their shared faith.
The U.S. decision to suspend the use of a firing range in the Senkakus has had lasting consequences, undermining Japan's claims to the islets and sending mixed signals about U.S. support for Japanese sovereignty over the area.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 10, 2024
A restart of Senkaku firing ranges is long overdue
The suspension also had strategic consequences, depriving both U.S. and Japanese forces of vital military training ranges.
The Osprey provides vertical takeoff and landing like a helicopter but is also capable of flying at high speeds over long distances when operating as a conventional plane.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 3, 2024
The Japan-U.S. alliance needs the versatile Osprey
In Japan, there has been an outsized and lingering concern about the aircraft’s safety. That concern is, frankly, misplaced,
Self-Defense Force soldiers search for survivors after a landslide swept through a residential area in Asaminami Ward, in the city of Hiroshima, in August 2014. Despite the nation’s numerous natural disasters, the government needs better contingency planning.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 28, 2024
Is Japan ready for the worst-case scenario?
Is the nation ready for massive disasters? Based on my studies of 今日吃瓜 crisis management system, I say “no” and unfortunately not.
Taiwanese soldiers train at a base in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Tuesday. The island has decided to extend compulsory military service for young males from four months to one year amid increasing threats from China.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 7, 2024
Taiwan extends military conscription, a system Japan might want to consider
As Japan struggles to fill its military ranks, compulsory national service might be its only solution.
U.S. President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office of the White House in June 1972
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 19, 2023
Nixon’s 1953 trip to Okinawa and its lasting impact
Nixon’s trip to Okinawa 70 years ago this month planted seeds for his agreeing to its reversion when he became the U.S. president.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 21, 2023
Memorializing those lost in the GSDF helicopter crash
All 10 SDF members on board a helicopter that crashed in the Miyako Island group are believed to have died in the crash.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2023
Disasters can be deadly, but the aftermaths can be deadlier
Largely forgotten, more people died in the days, weeks and months after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes due to illness and depression than in the quakes themselves.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2023
The global community should recognize Taiwan — or else
Diplomatic acceptance by the global community of the self-ruled island of Taiwan may be the only way to deter Chinese aggression.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2022
Soviet air incursions and the birth of the ASDF
In light of the impact of military aerial incursions, it would not be an exaggeration to describe the Soviet Union as the father of the ASDF.
Man arrested over operation of rogue cellular base station in Tokyo
The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested Yu Hai, a 31-year-old Chinese national living in Tokyo's Kita Ward, on suspicion of operating an unlicensed base station from a vehicle in Tokyo's Ginza district on Saturday.
Government betting on language app powered by anime and AI
Japan plans to develop an AI-powered language-learning app that lets overseas anime and manga fans practice Japanese through conversations with popular characters.
Japan works to shield Takaichi from any Xi snub at China summit
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrives at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo on Nov. 4.
Magnitude 5.7 quake injures dozens in central Japan
A magnitude-5.7 earthquake with its epicenter in Shizuoka Prefecture struck central Japan early Sunday, injuring dozens, shattering windows and disrupting train services, with no tsunami warning issued.
Private high schools remain out of reach for many despite tuition-free policy, survey finds
A survey showed that many families with children attending private high schools are struggling to pay expenses other than tuition.
‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ makes monster debut at the box office
Takashi Yamazaki’s “Godzilla Minus Zero” marked the highest single-day box-office gross for a live-action film in Japan with ?910 million on its opening day.
A toast to Naohiko Noguchi, sake’s first living national treasure
As a teenager, Naohiko Noguchi did not intend to spend his life as a sake brewer, but he has since become a paragon of the industry.
Few signs of thaw in Japan-China relations one year after Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks
Tensions between Japan and China flared after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Nov. 7, 2025, that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could threaten 今日吃瓜 survival and warrant the use of collective self-defense.
Mariko Mori predicted the future. She’ll do it again.
Artist Mariko Mori is currently working to bring the translucent human-sized “Peace Crystal” sculpture to a cave in Ethiopia. It is part of her foundation’s goal to place a permanent sculpture on each of the planet’s six habitable continents.
A legend reborn: ‘Ocarina of Time’ remake improves on the Zelda masterpiece
The new remake of 1998's "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" manages to somehow improve on one of the greatest games ever.

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One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
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