By Tom Plate
Do you still have some last-minute gift-buying to do as New Year's presents for friends? Here are suggestions ― perhaps for that special someone who seems to have almost everything.
Chances are, though, that he or she doesn't have anything on the list below! It represents a selection of periodicals to which I subscribe. I would be lost without them. They inform my column, keep my teaching fresh and prevent my mind from getting too soggy. They are recommended to you as excellent gifts for fellow nerds.
Out of Tokyo, this business magazine may be short on entertainment value but it's properly long on authoritative and timely economic and business analysis. Japan is still the world's second-largest economy, and this is one of its very best English-language publications. Worth the effort.
Out of New York, this English-language monthly newsletter offers superb, well-reported and to-the-point analyses of the political and economic scene in Japan. The writing is generally crisp and occasionally delightfully catty. Essential for an understanding of Japanese politics.
From London, published six times a year, it is at once a romantic flashback to the days of yore when Marxist analysis of almost everything was all the rage ― and a very contemporary journal of smart commentary. Recent issues have tackled deeply thoughtful treatments of difficult international topics, including the latest troubles in Tibet, the ever-tense Korean Peninsula and the ongoing financial turbulence in world markets (capitalist fundamentalism is attacked with special relish!). Off the beaten track but well worth the trip.
Surely I am the only person on my block with a subscription to this Beijing-based newspaper, which is available in some markets through the mail. Okay, it does come a week late, but because it reflects the values and political priorities of China's ruling elite, it is terrifically helpful in trying to understand where China's official head is. Worth the money for China watchers.
If you like journalism of ideas and trends ― often written by prime ministers and presidents (or their talented staffs) ― NPQ will more than satisfy. The Fall issue features contributions from Wang Hui, Jurgen Habermas, Tony Blair, Robert Reich and David Baltimore. That's star power!
The competitor to this New York based bimonthly bible of the U.S. foreign establishment is the Washington-based bimonthly ``Foreign Policy" (https://www.foreignpolicy.com). The latter is a worthy challenger indeed - as ``Newsweek" to ``Time." But it's not a product of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is to U.S. establishment foreign-policy thinking as the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is to Catholic doctrine. A smart buy to figure out what insiders will be thinking next.
This brilliant London weekly of intellectual essays thinly disguised as book and arts reviews has nothing to do with ``The New York Times" and little to do with ``The Times" of London; it has everything to do with enjoying a continuing liberal-arts education without having to go back to college. Highly intelligent, cutting edge.
Also a gift from Mother England ― this biweekly features sharp and sometimes radical commentary by a noisy nest of some of the most prominent intellectuals that are writing in English today. Could be your cup of tea if you like your brew strong, unsweetened and occasionally bitter.
A monthly, in English, of Paris-based opinion analysts and political scholars. Known by its fans as ``Le Diplo," it revels in political radicalism and well-argued anti-Americanism. The longer articles are generally extensively documented, almost scholarly ― but, even so, can be much tastier than French fries.
I've avoided mentioning the obvious publications, because you don't need me to mention them, you're already reading them! So let's close this list by pitching a handful of exceptional news Web pages to be regularly consulted on. Some require a subscription, others are free, but they are all essential, especially for a columnist who writes about Asia.
Those include the web-pages of the ``Khaleej Times" in Dubai, the largest English-language circulation newspaper of the Gulf States, and an increasingly influential publication at that; the ``Straits Times" of Singapore, especially for a quality and quantity of coverage of Asia that dwarfs anything in a U.S. paper; the ``South China Morning Post," clued into the mainland while it's glued onto Hong Kong; the ``Japan Times" of Tokyo, The ``Korea Times" of South Korea and ``The Jakarta Post" of Indonesia, a trio of papers in English that ably open windows on complex and important societies.
There are others that are also very valuable, but I am running out of space; and the handful here are extremely bookmark-able indeed. For a season of giving offer a friend the gift of continuing knowledge. What's richer than that?
Veteran U.S. journalist Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, has been writing his Asia column since 1996.