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July 02, 2026
 

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COMMENTARY

Japan

World
Japan
Soccer’s Asian century is still just a distant dream
COMMENTARY / Japan
Soccer’s Asian century is still just a distant dream
Asian teams’ underwhelming World Cup showings have raised questions about the region’s potential, driven by a nascent soccer culture compared to Europe’s more competitive systems.
COMMENTARY / Japan
China’s export controls target Japan to split the Group of Seven
Why Japan and why now? Tokyo raised the first question itself: Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara protested that controls singling out Japan depart from international practice.
COMMENTARY / Japan
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.
A ship lays undersea fiber-optic cable off a beach near Bilbao, Spain, linking Europe and the U.S.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Jun 24, 2026
Japan lays the groundwork for submarine cable resilience
By Anna Oriishi
Fiber-optic cables carry nearly all the world’s data between continents.
A GMO AI and Robotics humanoid robot performs a dance at an international exhibition at Tokyo Big Sight in December.  REUTERS
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Jun 24, 2026
Japan’s manufacturing sector and the race for physical AI
By Makoto Shiono
Turning industrial strength into leadership in the next AI frontier.
Visitors at a park in Budapest watch a traditional Japanese fencing demonstration by a classical samurai sword school during Japanese Cultural Program Day in July 2021.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 22, 2026
Is Cool Japan really the secret to soft-power success?
By Waka Ikeda
The part of Europe where Japanese culture is growing fastest is also where Japan has invested least.
A concept model of the Global Combat Air Program fighter jet is displayed during a security trade exhibition in Chiba in May 2025.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 19, 2026
Japan’s GCAP push signals a new security role beyond the U.S. alliance
By Maria Mezzetti
The renewed GCAP backing comes less than a week after the apparent failure of the Future Combat Air System — a program led by France, Germany and later Spain.
A monument to Japanese immigrants stands in the port city of Santos in southeastern Brazil.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 17, 2026
Brazil’s Nikkei fishers offer lessons for ocean governance
By Danilla C. Azevedo
Japanese immigrants and their descendants did not simply copy Japanese coastal practices but adapted them to local environments and social conditions.
Japan’s global soft power through anime and video games has grown in recent years in part because it largely remains more attuned to fans than investors.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 17, 2026
Don’t let Wall Street crush Japan’s soft power
By Gearoid Reidy
Gamers fear that big money, foreign or otherwise, is going to ruin what might be one of the least-touched bastions of nerd entertainment.
Ground Self-Defense Force troops lower the Japanese flag at the end of the day at their camp on Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture, in April 2022. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 15, 2026
Who’s afraid of ‘Japanese neo-militarism’? Nobody
By Gearoid Reidy and Ruth Pollard
More countries see a stronger Japan not as a danger, but a counterweight to China’s actions and growing U.S. untrustworthiness.

Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men’s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men's restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
A French ship with close ties to Japan combines arts and sciences on the high seas
Romain Troublé, the executive director of Tara Ocean Foundation, speaks to visitors aboard the Tara during a rare port call in Tokyo in April.
In Kyushu’s far south, Senti.U sparks a culinary destination
Chef Yasuhiko Uchida was born in Saga Prefecture but has made his home in Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture, since 2012.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

New Logistics Consortium baton to accelerate trucking efficiency
New Logistics Consortium baton to accelerate trucking efficiency

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