After the arrest last year of its chairman, Carlos Ghosn, Nissan has made a very public accounting of its management failures, from a lack of strong internal checks and balances to board meetings that lasted only 20 minutes. That frankness may play well with the Japanese public and with prosecutors, who have charged the company […]
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Sunday kicked off its biannual military exercises aimed at demonstrating control over a set of islets that are the source of a territorial dispute with Japan, a move that was likely to heighten tensions between Washington’s two key Asian allies. Relations between Seoul and Tokyo are already in […]
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched two projectiles on Saturday, two days after South Korea decided to pull out of a military intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan. The two projectiles were launched from Sondeok near the North’s eastern coast, the South Korean military said in a brief statement. The launching on Saturday was the seventh […]
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On Wednesday in Beijing, the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan convened like feuding officemates compelled to make amends. The air around them vibrated with resentment, which had built up over months of verbal slights and legal and economic assaults, and was rooted in old histories of colonization as much as recent jockeying for […]
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A fast-escalating trade war between South Korea and Japan took a dangerous turn this week when the Koreans abandoned a military intelligence-sharing agreement with the Japanese, weakening an important source of information on North Korea and China. South Korea said it was responding to Japan’s restrictions on trade with South Korea, including on the export […]
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South Korea said on Thursday that it would abandon a vital military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan, a move that is likely to alarm the United States, which pushed for the arrangement in part to ensure that North Korea’s missile activity is closely tracked. South Korea’s relations with Japan have been at a low point in […]
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KYOTO, Japan — The caller read out the numbers at a speed evoking an auctioneer on fast-forward, each multi-digit figure blurring into the next. Within seconds, Daiki Kamino’s right arm shot up in the air, triumphant. Not only had he heard every number, he had tabulated them and arrived at the correct, 16-digit sum: 8,186,699,633,530,061. […]
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A fairy godmother, an overnight transformation, polyester turned into once-in-a-lifetime ball gowns. It may sound cliché, but for Tomo Koizumi, it became reality. For the last seven years, the 31-year-old Japanese designer, who is based in Tokyo, has been quietly making radically vibrant dresses created from acres of organza in topiary-like shapes and colors that […]
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Apple’s rollout of the HomePod has been a bit slow, where unlike its iPhones and iPads and Mac computers, the availability of the HomePod is still very much limited to a handful of countries. However, the company has been slowly expanding its availability and come 23rd of August, it seems that the HomePod will finally […]
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SEOUL, South Korea — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on Thursday struck a conciliatory note toward Japan after weeks of bitter feuding between Washington’s two key Asian allies, expressing hope that the two economies could cooperate to mend a worsening trade dispute. “Only when we work together will we be able to achieve joint […]
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WASHINGTON — For two and a half years, President Trump has said he is finally doing in Asia what he asserts his predecessor, Barack Obama, failed to achieve with a strategic pivot: strengthen American influence and rally partners to push back against China. But as violence escalates and old animosities are rekindled across Asia, Washington […]
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ASHIYA, Japan — When Yoko Ogawa discovered “The Diary of Anne Frank” as a lonely teenager in Japan, she was so taken by it that she began to keep a diary of her own, writing to Anne as if she were a cherished friend. To conjure the kind of physical captivity that Anne experienced, Ogawa […]
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In a rational world, South Korea and Japan ought to be the best of friends. Their cultures and languages are closely linked. Their economies are deeply entangled. And as the only liberal democracies in East Asia (along with Taiwan), they have to contend with the threat of North Korean belligerence and Chinese domination. But the […]
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea retaliated against Japan on Monday in a diplomatic and trade dispute between the two key American allies, deciding to remove its neighbor from its list of countries entitled to preferential treatment in trade. South Korea’s tit-for-tat action had been expected since Japan took a similar action against South Korea […]
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HONG KONG — The United States on Wednesday issued an advisory warning people about traveling to Hong Kong, urging visitors to “exercise increased caution” because of “confrontational” protests in the semiautonomous Chinese territory. The alert by the State Department comes two days after a general strike and widespread demonstrations shook the city, and as Chinese […]
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TOKYO — There is a long list of things that Carlos Ghosn, the embattled former chief of the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi auto alliance, is not allowed to do as he awaits trial in Japan. He cannot leave Tokyo. He cannot use the internet outside his lawyer’s office. He cannot meet friends without informing the court. And he […]
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Japan’s plan to launch commercial 5G services in 2020 devolved from ambitious to laggard when U.S., South Korean, Chinese, and European carriers moved up their 5G launch dates, but until now, there wasn’t much question that the country would be able to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, company officials are now warning that a trade conflict […]
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TOKYO — It was an exhibit meant to celebrate freedom of expression. Instead, freedom of expression was shut down. A long, bitter battle between Japan and South Korea over historical memory and atonement spilled over into the art world over the weekend when organizers of an international fair in Japan closed an exhibition that featured […]
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TOKYO — North Korea had launched its third barrage of short-range missiles in just over a week, parading its growing ability to strike its neighbors with devastating firepower. But instead of banding together against a common adversary, the two American allies in the path of the missiles — Japan and South Korea — were locked […]
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TOKYO — The bride wore a birthday cake of a dress, with a scalloped-edge bodice and a large hoop skirt. A veil sprouted from her black bob. Moments before the wedding began, she stood quietly on a staircase, waiting to descend to the ceremony. “Wow,” she thought. “I’m really doing this.” This was no conventional […]
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