The summer of 2018 saw an unprecedented series of LGBT-led political demonstrations in Japan involving thousands of people. They emerged in reaction to an article written by conservative Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Sugita Mio which stated that LGBT couples “did not have productivity” because they could not have children. The article engendered an unprecedented backlash, as LGBT activists argued that Sugita's notion of productivity attacked not only LGBT people but other so-called “unproductive” groups. This paper analyzes the political context and significance of the 2018 protests and shows how LGBT activist strategies have evolved and responded to changing social and political conditions in Japan.

Mori Ogai (1862-1922), novelist, essayist, translator and one of the towering figures of the literary world in the Meiji and Taisho eras, was a master stylist. His prose style could not be farther away from the flowing, often seemingly random and excessively emotional, style of Miyazawa Kenji. It is controlled, concise, rational, formal, and chockablock with erudite Japanese and foreign historical references, the latter being chiefly classical Chinese and modern German. His style exerted an astounding influence on modern Japanese literature, inspiring an author born less than three years after his death, Mishima Yukio. Mishima, a master of clear and rich style in Japanese, took the pen directly from Ogai's hand.

50 years after President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China, the Taiwan issue remains the most difficult and potentially most explosive dispute between the United States and China. At the core is the concept of “one China.” While Beijing insists that the “one China principle” with the People's Republic of China (PRC) representing all of China is the foundation of US-China relations, Washington emphasizes its “one China policy” that treats Taiwan as a separate entity from the PRC. Meanwhile, Taipei, under the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party, has asserted that Taiwan is already independent and the two sides across the Taiwan Strait are not subordinate to each other. Tensions have reached a record high in the Taiwan Strait and all three parties involved demonstrate intentions to change the status quo. To restore stability and avoid war in the Taiwan Strait, all three parties should provide reassurance to reestablish confidence and refrain from taking unilateral actions to further damage the delicate status quo.

In recent years, academic research and investigative reports have brought to light several cases of computational propaganda (i.e. orchestrated attempts to manipulate public opinion or the outcome of elections via social media), as well as proof that filter algorithms amplify right-wing conservative content on Japanese social media. Piecing together the scattered pieces of a puzzle, this article summarizes recent findings from various disciplines and provides an overview of the mechanisms and potential scope of computational propaganda in politics. Although there is no conclusive evidence of who is behind this anonymous activity, an analysis of these findings demonstrates increasing circumstantial evidence that certain factions of the LDP are actively using computational propaganda, either by commissioning external contractors or through its online support group, J-NSC, thereby condoning and appealing to anonymous Internet right-wingers (netto uyo). The concluding discussion assesses the effects and consequences of computational propaganda on the political sphere in contemporary Japan.

On January 3, 2022 the White House circulated the following joint statement of the five nuclear-weapons states on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races. It is reprinted here with a comment by John Gittings.