This blog existed for approximately 20 years until December of 2024. After being offline for a year. Now it is restarted with the help of the Urban Connections Inc. team. The reason for its disappearance, as noted at the end, was due to technical factors.
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Past data, as of November 29, 2023, has been preserved by the National Diet Library. You can access it by opening http://web.archive.org, selecting http://www.japan-world-trends.com, and then choosing November 29, 2023 from the displayed calendar.
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It so happens that this revival coincides with a great upheaval in the world order. With the return of President Trump, the principles that once defined the “modern” era — freedom, democracy, and the market economy — are losing their privileged position, both in the United States and across Europe. As Trump disregards long-standing alliances and seeks to shape the world through power deals among great nations, even the future of the Japan-U.S. alliance now hangs in the balance.
Perhaps, then, it is not such a misfortune to begin again from zero — to restart www.japan-world-trends.com as a multilingual platform for a new age. I will be sharing fresh reflections on this changing world, while also reposting some of the older essays that may still have value as historical records.
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This blog is written and edited by Akio Kawato, a former Japanese diplomat. Though once a government official, I have lived as one who refuses to be bound by authority — striving instead for freedom in both thought and life.
My outlook, presented in my 2025 book In Search of the Lost Modernity, rests on several guiding convictions:
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- To defend the freedom and rights of every human being.
At the same time, whether it be white supremacy, eurocentrism, or conversely, the self-aggrandizing assertions of people of color, to prevent discussions detached from reality and facts so that needless conflicts do not arise. - To never again repeat the follies that led Japan into its disastrous prewar course — when militaristic arrogance and public frenzy made the war with the United States all but inevitable.
- To preserve Japan’s economic vitality and creativity.
- To keep the role of the state as limited as possible.
- To prevent democracy from decaying into mob rule.
Now, human civilization itself stands at the threshold of a new dimension. The spread of robots and artificial intelligence is reshaping our daily lives, while advances in brain-wave technology, genetic modification, and the emergence of cyborgs are beginning to transform what it means to be human.
I do not know how many more years remain to me. But through this blog, I hope to keep observing — and recording — the transformations of our time, as civilization turns a new page.