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July 11, 2026
 

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CHINA

A Volkswagen T-Roc is loaded into a delivery tower at the German carmaker's plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, in November. Carmakers such as Volkswagen have pushed for an easing of carbon dioxide targets and fines for missing them.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 16, 2025
EU set to scrap 2035 combustion-engine ban in boon for car industry
Critics say an anticipated proposal to target reducing emissions by 90% instead risks undermining the EU’s green agenda and deterring investments in electrification.
Taiwan Defense Minister Wellington Koo inspects reservists during a training session at Loung Te Industrial Parks Service Center in Yilan, Taiwan, on Dec. 2.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 16, 2025
Taiwan says its military can respond rapidly to any sudden Chinese attack
The military has a standard operating practice on how to raise its combat alert level in case Chinese exercises move “from drill to war,” the ministry added.
A ship is under construction at a Hyundai Heavy Industries' dry dock in Ulsan, South Korea, in July 2015. Partnering with South Korean companies would be cost effective for the U.S. Navy because their high-capacity shipyards can build ships at about half the U.S. cost.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 16, 2025
South Korea is the answer to America’s naval problem
The stakes are clear: The U.S. has a battle force of around 290, while China has a 400-strong fleet, according to U.S. estimates.
Twin giant pandas Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo in June 2023. They are expected to be sent back to China by the end of January.
JAPAN
Dec 15, 2025
Amid China tensions, Japan will lose its two remaining pandas
Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, two twin giant pandas at the Ueno Zoological Gardens, are expected to be returned to China by the end of January.
Shigeru Iwasaki, then chief of staff of the Self-Defense Forces, in Tokyo in April 2013. Countermeasures against Iwasaki include visa restrictions, freezing his properties, and prohibiting any transactions or cooperation with him, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
JAPAN
Dec 15, 2025
China launches countermeasures against former Japan defense official
The largely symbolic sanctions appear to be a response to the official Shigeru Iwasaki’s appointment earlier this year as an adviser to Taiwan’s Cabinet.
Unmanned Chinese electric mining trucks at an open-pit coal mine in Yimin, China, in May
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2025
China confronts the cost of dismantling the world’s biggest coal sector
Coal has been closely tied to the Communist Party’s history and to its efforts to transform China’s economy over the past decades.
Media tycoon Jimmy Lai is escorted into a Hong Kong Correctional Services van outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong in February 2021.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 15, 2025
Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai found guilty in landmark security case
The city’s High Court convicted Lai on two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces — a crime punishable by life in prison.
Bilateral relations between China and Japan may be tense, but life goes on for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese people in Japan. “Politics and daily life are very separate,” says Zhang, a mother of three.
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Dec 15, 2025
Japan-raised Chinese children navigate complex cultural terrain
Despite bilateral tensions, daily life goes on for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese people who call Japan home — including the children and teenagers who have grown up here.
People wait outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building in Hong Kong on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 15, 2025
Jimmy Lai’s supporters queue in Hong Kong overnight for verdict
Two counts — of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security — carry prison terms of up to life in prison for Lai, a British citizen.
Lo Kin-hei (center), chairman of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, speaks at a news conference in Hong Kong on Sunday where it was announced that the city's oldest pro-democracy party has formally disbanded.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 14, 2025
Hong Kong’s oldest pro-democracy party announces dissolution
The Democratic Party was founded in 1994, near the end of British colonial rule, when Hong Kong’s leading liberal groups merged.
Ely Ratner, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 14, 2025
Ex-U.S. official calls for collective defense pact in Indo-Pacific
Ratner, a former assistant defense secretary in the Biden’s administration, urged Japan to overcome constitutional issues in order to exercise the right to collective self-defense.
Military radar towers on Yonaguni, the westernmost inhabited island of Japan.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2025
Japan builds up ‘missile archipelago’ near Taiwan to counter China
As tensions between China and Japan rise, the sparsely populated island of Yonaguni finds itself right on the front lines.
Soldiers stand on the stage during the memorial ceremony to mark the 88th anniversary of the 1937 Nanking Massacre at the Nanking Massacre Museum in the city now known as Nanjing, in China's Jiangsu province, on Saturday.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2025
China holds low-key Nanking Massacre memorial despite Japan tensions
Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not the ceremony, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan.
China's Liaoning aircraft carrier sails through the Miyako Strait near Okinawa on its way to the Pacific in April 2021.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2025
China aircraft carrier flotilla headed home, one week after Japan radar incident
Aircraft from the Liaoning carrier were involved in what Tokyo said was a “dangerous” incident that saw Chinese military jets lock their radar on Japanese fighters.
Jimmy Lai speaks during an interview in Hong Kong in June 2020.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 12, 2025
Verdict in trial of Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai set for Monday
Lai, 78, is charged with foreign collusion under Hong Kong’s national security law, which Beijing imposed following pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Volunteers sit in front of flowers left by mourners for the victims of last month’s deadly fire at an apartment complex, on Monday in Hong Kong's Tai Po district.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 12, 2025
Hong Kong leader says fire probe expected to conclude within nine months
The high-rise blaze killed at least 160 people and displaced thousands of residents.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks at a Lower House Budget Committee meeting on Nov. 7. Although Takaichi has refused to recant her comments on Taiwan, she said in parliament later last month that she learned her lesson and will avoid speaking about specific scenarios.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 12, 2025
Takaichi’s Taiwan comment that sparked China spat apparently unscripted
The discrepancy between the prepared response and the prime minister’s actual comment suggests she veered off-script from official policy.
The Trump administration's 2025 National Security Strategy shifts focus to the Western Hemisphere and Asia while largely maintaining the underlying limits of America's security policy established under the Biden administration.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2025
How to read Trump’s National Security Strategy
What I see as the essence of NSS 2025 is that this document appears to be a product of compromise intended to bridge the differences that surfaced within the Trump administration.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks at a news conference on Thursday in Washington.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 12, 2025
Trump can balance Japan alliance and China despite row, White House says
The U.S. and Japanese defense chiefs also spoke over the phone, expressing “grave concern” over Beijing’s recent military actions.
China’s recent radar lock-on of Japanese F-15s from fighters launched from the carrier Liaoning underscores a rising pattern of coercive pressure that Tokyo and its partners must answer with firm vigilance and clear messaging.
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2025
Lock-on incident shows China will continue to test Japan
Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi disputed China’s claim that it had given warning about the exercises, arguing that there was “insufficient information to avoid danger.”
China’s demand for Soviet-style apartments shows limits to revival
Apartments built during a Soviet Union-inspired construction drive in the 1970s and 1980s tend to suffer from poor insulation and outdated plumbing, but they are seeing a revival in interest due to their attractive locations.
Japanese payment processor’s collapse hits banks and restaurants
Zentoshin served around 200,000 shops, many of which rely on early payments to maintain cash flow, raising concerns over their financial stability following the disruption.
Lenders seek $700 million after Japanese payments firm’s collapse
The financial failure of Osaka-based Zentoshin has left 63 creditors with claims totaling ¥115.16 billion, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.
Trump says ‘Japan’ instead of Iran at meeting in Ankara
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference during a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara on Wednesday.
World’s first fully sealed vertical-farming facility opens in Tokyo
Fully sealed units are stacked on top of each other at Plantx's vertical-farming facility in Tokyo's Koto Ward on Wednesday.
‘Princess Mononoke’ comes alive in Super Kabuki staging
The “Princess Mononoke” adaptation was created under Shochiku’s Super Kabuki initiative, a modern form of kabuki with more technology in staging and open to pop culture collaborations.
The beating heart inside ‘Human Vapor’
Different forms of love and connection form the emotional backbone of Netflix’s “Human Vapor,” says actor Shun Oguri, who plays troubled detective Kenji Okamoto.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.

Podcast

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

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The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
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