Monday, September 16, 2013

Make Friends And Influence People

Kunihiko Miyake, a retired Arabist member of the Japan diplomatic service, who served at the embassies in Baghdad, Washington and Beijing (yes, fluent in Arabic, English and Chinese), who served during Abe I (2006-7) as the special assistant on diplomacy to Abe Shinzo's wife Akie, is the director of research at the Canon Institute of Global Affairs (Link). Undaunted by the big issues (Link) Miyake-san is a go-to person for Japanese and non-Japanese news organizations alike for commentary on the international scene.

So the post-July 21 interview of him published on the English language site The Asahi Shimbun is really worth reading (Link), especially alongside his short report on his visit to Washington published by the Sankei Shimbun (Link - J) a day earlier.

1 comment:

John Campbell said...

What was so interesting about this interview? Calling on China and South Korea to change their ways is not a very unusual thing to hear from the Japanese establishment.