Given his declining popularity over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other red flags over the years, Abe’s resignation on health grounds may be an opportunity for him.

Containing the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong has increasingly been a cause for Beijing's concern, so much so that it has bypassed the special administrative region's legislature.

As China has shown, the lockdown is an instrument for authoritarian governments.

The idea that Japanese years are defined by the life of an emperor sits uneasily with the democratic traditions of modern Japan.

Eric Vuillard's 'The Order of the Day' is a self-conscious and questioning meditation on power.

The death of Liu Xiaobo is both an occasion to mourn a man who fought for democracy and one to think about the nature of protest and dissent.