Japan

The year 2024 began in the worst possible way for Japan. At least 30 people were killed by a powerful earthquake which struck the Ishikawa prefecture on the west coast of the country in mid-afternoon on New Year’s day. The death toll is expected to rise considerably. The quake registered 7.6 on the Richter scale, making it one of the most powerful in recent history. To give you some idea of the magnitude, it is a level that will knock you off your feet – I was unnerved enough by the swaying I felt in a Tokyo department store 180 miles away to hold on to a rail. Japan’s geospatial

Who is the best paid sportsperson in the world? Cristiano Ronaldo perhaps? Or Kylian Mbappé? Lionel Messi? Novak Djokovic? LeBron James? Well, no. As of last week, it is someone even reasonably well-informed sports fans may not have heard of – a certain Shohei Ohtani, Japanese slugger and pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ohtani’s ten-year, 700-million-dollar contract is the most lucrative in sporting history. Except technically Ohtani will not be the best paid sportsperson in the world, or at least not until the end of his term, as he has chosen to defer nearly all of his salary so that the bulk of the money can be invested by

For the first time more than 10 per cent of the Japanese population are aged 80 or older, according to new official data. This reinforces Japan’s reputation as the world’s oldest society with 29 per cent of the population now aged 65 or more, a full 5 per cent ahead of Italy in second place. The evidence is there for all to see: walk around a typical Tokyo neighbourhood in the mid-afternoon and all you’ll see is old, often ancient people. You’ll think you wandered into a gated retirement community or an open air gathering of the Darby and Joan club.  The pandas in Tokyo zoo have been more prolific

In November 2015 three men entered a jewellery shop in Tokyo’s upmarket Omotesando district, beat and injured a security guard, smashed a showcase and stole 100 million yen’s (£600,000) worth of goods. The suspects identified by the police fled to the UK, where, after the intercession of Interpol, they were arrested. Japan, unsurprisingly, wants them back. But in the absence of an extradition treaty with the UK it needed to make a special request. Last week, the extradition request for one of the men was turned down – with the court noting that the suspect’s human rights could not be guaranteed by the Japanese criminal justice system.   This is on its face

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster epic Oppenheimer is wowing critics and selling out cinemas across the world. It’s already threatening to eclipse the disappointing Indiana Jones remake and even Tom Cruise’s raved about latest instalment of the Mission Impossible series. But it’s a worldwide hit with one notable exception: the film hasn’t been released in Japan yet, and no word has been given of when it will be. Some are speculating that there may be no Japanese release at all. That would be highly unusual. Japan, unlike some of its neighbours, very rarely bans films and has accepted WW2 offerings, such as Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers and Michael Bay’s Pearl

Japan is heading for trouble, the country’s prime minster Fumio Kishida has suggested. ‘Our country is on the brink of being unable to maintain the functions of society,’ he said in a speech earlier this week. Japan’s birth rate, the average number of children a woman will have, is too low, and still falling. It’s 1.3, and needs to be 2.1 to keep the population stable. With every year that passes, there are hundreds of thousands fewer Japanese people.  Economics is mostly to blame. Once, there was a secure and predictable life was for the average Japanese person. The men would toil away at a big company in return for the assurance of

Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida is in London today to meet Rishi Sunak and sign an historic defence agreement which will allow the countries to deploy forces on each other’s soil. The two will also toast the new UK-Japan digital partnership which aims to ‘strengthen cooperation across cyber resilience, online safety and semiconductors’ and discuss trade including the UK’s accession to the CPTPP (Comprehensive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). This all sounds great, but behind the official theatre, what is the substance of the upgraded relationship? The defence agreement is being trumpeted by the government as ‘the most significant between the two countries in more than a century.’ This references the

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s murdered former prime minister, would this week be especially proud of his country. At long last, and after years of protests and strife during Abe’s time in power, Japan has announced a reversal of its uncompromising post-war pacifism. Japan, its current prime minister Fumio Kishida has said, will now begin to rearm.  What was in question was not armaments, per se, but rather the ability of Japan’s armed forces, the self-defence forces as they are called, to fight abroad. Japan’s post-war constitution declared the country formally pacifist, and renounced both the ability to wage war and the means to do so. But all of this is changing as China

The UK will partner with Italy and Japan to develop a new generation of fighter aircraft with the aim of having them flying by 2035. Britain and Italy were already working together through the future combat air system, but the announcement of Japan joining them is striking.  For decades, Japan has had an informal cap on defence spending of one per cent of GDP. But attitudes are changing and the Japanese PM has announced plans to increase defence spending to two per cent of GDP by 2027. If Japan, which is still the world’s third largest economy, substantially increases its defence budget it will be a more effective counter-balance to