As Japan passed security legislation in fall 2015, many headlines proclaimed that Japan was “abandoning pacifism.” This conventional wisdom gets two things wrong: it exaggerates the extent to which Japan was actually pacifist in the[…]
Another nuclear test
We all watched as the TV announcer in the pink hanbok praised North Korea’s successful test of a hydrogen bomb. The North Korean media once also told us that Kim Jong-il hit five holes-in-one at[…]
Landmark agreement on the “comfort women”
My interview with Foreign Policy magazine about key groups who were included –and excluded–from the recent agreement between Seoul and Tokyo on the “comfort women.” The Wisdom of Japan’s Cunning Contrition