https://www.scmp.com/rss/324129/feed Takehiro Masutomo is a Tokyo-based journalist covering Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. He writes in Japanese, Chinese, English and Bahasa Indonesia. He was previously based in Beijing, Jakarta and Singapore. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Japanese energy specialist Takeo Kikkawa has found himself thinking about the 1970s in recent weeks, and the time when a surge in oil prices left Japan’s economy reeling, resulting in it recording negative growth for the first time since the end of World War Two. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and the resulting sanctions by G7 nations and other Western allies, including on energy supplies – has left Japan facing a dilemma over its energy strategy. It finds itself in the unenviable position of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3173629/japan-grapples-higher-electricity-bills-ukraine-war-forces?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3173629/japan-grapples-higher-electricity-bills-ukraine-war-forces?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Apr 2022 23:00:21 +0000 When Yuji Takei (name changed to protect his identity) confessed his feelings to a fellow classmate in the spring of 2015, the promising law student from one of Japan’s top universities didn’t know what to expect. But the last thing he anticipated was for the recipient of his affections to spread the news he was gay to other students without his consent. Until then, Takei had hidden his sexuality from almost everyone except a few close friends, with even his family kept in the dark. Traumatised... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3167626/7-years-after-japanese-students-death-has-anything-changed-lgbt?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3167626/7-years-after-japanese-students-death-has-anything-changed-lgbt?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Feb 2022 05:30:18 +0000 There is a suburb with streets that reverberate with the Chinese language, and are saturated with restaurants serving authentic Chinese cuisine. But it might not be where you expect – this is the city of Kawaguchi, in the northern Greater Tokyo area. At its heart is the Shibazono Danchi semi-public apartment complex, which is home to roughly 4,500 residents, more than half of whom are Chinese. It is regarded as the highest concentration of Chinese residents in all of Japan. Walking through the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2160203/dumplings-tai-chi-and-hint-racism-chinatown-takes-root-suburban?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2160203/dumplings-tai-chi-and-hint-racism-chinatown-takes-root-suburban?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Aug 2018 04:30:44 +0000 In a clear departure from its former stance, Tokyo is vowing to greet low-skilled foreign workers with open arms in an effort to offset labour shortages caused by its ageing population. On June 15, the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, which is chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, decided to introduce a new visa for non-professional foreign labourers. Abe had justified the visa by saying: “As the labour shortage becomes serious, we need to rush to build a system where foreign talents can... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2152880/japans-open-foreign-workers-just-dont-call-them-immigrants?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2152880/japans-open-foreign-workers-just-dont-call-them-immigrants?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Jun 2018 02:15:45 +0000 The views from the sleepy coastal town of Kaminoseki could not be more contrasting. From the tip of the Murotsu peninsula on Japan’s Honshu island, one can glimpse the country’s pre-industrial past on an islet just a few kilometres offshore. There, on Iwaishima, an elderly and dwindling population now down to just a few hundred fishermen, cling to a traditional way of life with little to disturb them bar the mating calls of migratory murrelets. The view from Iwaishima is different. When the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2139715/small-fishing-town-providing-japans-nuclear-litmus-test?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2139715/small-fishing-town-providing-japans-nuclear-litmus-test?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Apr 2018 03:33:14 +0000 A short stroll from a high street in Fukuoka, Japan’s aspiring start-up hub, stands a nearly century-old junior school building. The pupils are long gone, part of an exodus of families from the city centre who left in search of more peaceful surroundings in the suburbs. But the building is far from lifeless. It still buzzes with the creative energy that is often associated with youth – thanks to its rebirth last year as Fukuoka Growth Next, a public-private facility that serves as an incubator... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2138684/school-breeding-ground-unicorns-japan-thinks-so?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2138684/school-breeding-ground-unicorns-japan-thinks-so?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Mar 2018 04:02:58 +0000 The ink is barely dry on the reworked Asia-Pacific trade agreement signed last week by 11 countries from Japan to Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, but there is a question mark over whether the pact will take effect any time soon. All eyes are on Japan, the pact’s biggest economy, with concern over whether the widening favouritism scandal linked to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could roil his ruling party’s grip on power – and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2137558/just-when-tpp-thought-it-was-safe-scandal-japan-and-election?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2137558/just-when-tpp-thought-it-was-safe-scandal-japan-and-election?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Mar 2018 01:00:30 +0000 ON THE 7THFLOOR of the North Wing of Japan’s Foreign Ministry office in Tokyo, two China and Mongolia divisions focus primarily on cooperative efforts with Taiwan – not China – ever since Beijing-Tokyo relations soured in 2012 over a dispute about an island chain in the East China Sea. However, as Japan-China relations start to thaw, this extraordinary situation may soon come to an end. This year, Japan and China are going to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Japan-China peace treaty, and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2127069/can-tokyo-traverse-2018s-geopolitical-tightrope-between-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2127069/can-tokyo-traverse-2018s-geopolitical-tightrope-between-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jan 2018 03:32:16 +0000 Ten years since the Great Recession and 20 since the Asian Contagion, now is an appropriate time to reflect on past financial crises – and ask whether East Asia is ready to deal with the next one. The election of a US president critical of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has thrown up at least one reason to doubt it is. After all, the IMF’s response to the crisis of 2007-08 – not least the US$700 billion in financing it committed to member countries – played no small part in steadying the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2111414/america-first-and-china-vs-japan-asia-ready-next-financial-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2111414/america-first-and-china-vs-japan-asia-ready-next-financial-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Sep 2017 02:00:15 +0000 Most fans of Japanese food will be well acquainted with the Ingenmame beans traditionally served as an appetiser, but far fewer will be familiar with the 17th-century Chinese monk to whom they owe their name. And even fewer would expect that the very same monk, after a few hundred years in obscurity, would re-emerge as a latter-day diplomat, helping Chinese and Japanese rethink their impressions of each other. Yet such appears to be the fate of Ingen Ryuki, the Buddhist holy man who risked his... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2087078/how-17th-century-monk-boosting-china-japan-ties?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2087078/how-17th-century-monk-boosting-china-japan-ties?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Apr 2017 07:30:30 +0000 A thick fog has descended on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, threatening to obscure his route to becoming the country’s longest-serving leader, as questions mount over his links to an ultra-nationalist school seemingly stuck in the country’s imperialist past. The crisis rocking Abe’s previously unshakeable administration relates to claims his wife, Akie, donated 1 million yen (HK$70,000) to the school in 2015 – claims Abe’s critics have seized on to raise doubts over the government’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2081918/what-japans-shinzo-abe-has-fear-school-scandal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2081918/what-japans-shinzo-abe-has-fear-school-scandal?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Mar 2017 08:30:45 +0000 ARrogant, shabby and heavily indebted. That’s how many people had thought of Japanese National Railways (JNR) before it was broken up and put on track for privatisation in 1987. Three decades later, JR Kyushu, a spin-off company in the southwest of the country, appears to have overcome the difficulties of its ill-fated predecessor. Having spruced up its image and diversified its business, it is set to report the first ever profit in its rail operations. It’s a success that comes after a long... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2077919/farms-ice-cream-us8000-trips-secrets-japanese-rail-revival?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2077919/farms-ice-cream-us8000-trips-secrets-japanese-rail-revival?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Mar 2017 03:01:04 +0000