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Masahiro Matsumura

Masahiro Matsumura is Professor of International Politics at St. Andrew’s University (Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku) in Osaka.

Commentaries by Masahiro Matsumura

  • Newsart for Praetorian China?

    Praetorian China?

    OSAKA – Do China’s rulers have full civilian control of their country’s military? Asian governments are now regularly asking themselves that…

  • Newsart for Oki-Now-What?

    Oki-Now-What?

    OSAKA – Japan’s alliance with the United States is widely viewed as a crucial counterweight to China’s hegemonic ambitions, which pose signi…

  • Newsart for Japan’s Coming Political Earthquake

    Japan’s Coming Political Earthquake

    OSAKA – Japan is now confronting challenges at home and abroad that are as serious as any it has had to face since World War II’s end. Yet t…

  • Newsart for Japan’s Revenge of the Mandarins

    Japan’s Revenge of the Mandarins

    OSAKA – Ever since the huge earthquake that hit Japan’s Pacific coast at Tohoku on March 11, 2011, the country’s mass media has obsessively …

  • Newsart for Japan's Leadership Muddle

    Japan's Leadership Muddle

    OSAKA – Having seen a new prime minister every year for five consecutive years, Japan has just narrowly avoided having its third in 2010. Pr…

  • Newsart for The Sumo and the Yakuza

    The Sumo and the Yakuza

    OSAKA – Perhaps no other sport is pursued as religiously as sumo wrestling. Before a match, referees (who double as Shinto priests) purify t…

  • Newsart for Japan’s Secret Shogun

    Japan’s Secret Shogun

    OSAKA – With the post-general election honeymoon over, the Japanese public has become increasingly aware that Ichiro Ozawa, Secretary-Gener…

  • Newsart for What Does Japan Want from America?

    What Does Japan Want from America?

    OSAKA – Three months after the Democratic Party of Japan’s landslide general-election victory, the new administration’s foreign and security…

  • Newsart for A Japanese Metamorphosis?

    A Japanese Metamorphosis?

    OSAKA – Yesterday’s landslide general-election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) terminated the one-party-dominated system that…

  • Japan Spins Its Wheels

    OSAKA – To lose one prime minister may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two in one year looks like carelessness. That paraphrase of Osca…

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Recent comment received by Masahiro Matsumura

  • Oki-Now-What?

    Paul Jefferson: Better yet, just move the airport to a remote area, so that residents would no longer have to endure intolerable, unhealthy noise levels, and the risk of accidents.

  • Oki-Now-What?

    Rafael Urena: Professor Matsumura, you are missing a crucial element in the analysis of the Okinawa quagmire. The people of Okinawa have been historically treated as second-class citizens by their mainland counter…