Global investors are giddy about Japan again. Warren Buffett made his first visit to Tokyo in more than a decade this spring; he has built up big holdings in five trading houses that offer exposure to a cross-section of Japan Inc. Last month Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, joined the pilgrimage to Japan’s capital. “History is repeating itself,” he told Kishida Fumi

Many Japanese are still reluctant to go unmaskedWhy get a face lift when you can get a face covering? ZAWACHIN, a Japanese celebrity, has long been known for her stylish face masks. When she started her career a decade ago, wearing masks helped draw attention to her lavishly made-up eyes. With time, masks became part of her brand, and she carved out a niche as a “mask influencer”. The pandemic bro

Abe Shinzo in his own wordsThe Economist interviews the former Japanese prime minister Editor’s note (July 8th 2022): In May Abe Shinzo, who has been assassinated while making a campaign speech in the western city of Nara, gave an interview to The Economist, republished below. ABE SHINZO served longer as prime minister than anyone in Japan’s history, holding the office from 2012-2020. He stepped d

“They actually made politicians out of us.” Repression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia is making young activists more defiant We followed three women struggling against the might of the Russian state In January tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets as part of the country’s largest demonstrations in a decade. Protesters marched in 130 cities across Russia’s 11 time zones, chanting from the B

Japan’s economy is stronger than many realiseNot bad, but could be better “THE MOST decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants,” wrote Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776. Later David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus traded barbs over whether the food supply would keep up. By 1937 John Maynard Keynes was warning of future population decline,

Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countriesIn many parts of the world, official death tolls undercount the total number of fatalities AS COVID-19 has spread around the world, people have become grimly familiar with the death tolls that their governments publish each day. Unfortunately, the total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic may be even higher, for several reasons. First, the of

THE battle-lines are drawn. When the world’s big trading nations convene this week at a G20 summit in Hamburg, the stage is set for a clash between a protectionist America and a free-trading Germany.

No one is well-served by sexism in JapanExcept perhaps the industry catering to the sexually frustrated AT FIRST glance, Sora Tob Sakana is aimed squarely at the pre-teen market. After all, the pop group’s four members are 14- to 16-year-old girls who sport ponytails and cutesy frilly dresses and pump out bubblegum tunes accompanied by wobbly dancing. Yet at a festival of similar “idol” bands in Y

A shrimp among whalesAs the threat from the North grows, South Korea finds itself in a lonely place FOR hundreds of years Korea was China’s vassal state. Then it came under the heel of imperial Japan at the start of the 20th century. After Japan’s defeat in 1945 the Soviet Union occupied northern Korea. That led to the creation of the implacably hostile North Korea, an existential threat to the So

Overhyped, underappreciatedWhat Japan’s economic experiment can teach the rest of the world IN THE 1980s Japan was a closely studied example of economic dynamism. In the decades since, it has commanded attention largely for its economic stagnation. After years of falling prices and fitful growth, Japan’s nominal GDP was roughly the same in 2015 as it was 20 years earlier. America’s grew by 134% in