Content area
Full text
Japan After Abe
In an era of renewed great-power competition that Washington has framed as an all-out, zero-sum battle between "the free world" and a menacing China, East Asia's other great power, Japan, has gotten short shrift. Japan does not aspire to superpower status, and its limitations are well known: demographic decline, a deflationary economy, and self-imposed restrictions on the use of force abroad. But it would be a mistake to write off Japan as a has-been. It boasts a resilient democracy and a successful track record of adjusting to economic globalization. For decades, Japan has been a leader in infrastructure finance in developing countries. And it has acquired sterling credentials as a leader on free trade. When it comes to the use of economic engagement as a diplomatic tool, Japan-not the United States-is China's peer competitor.
Today, Japan's leaders are facing a number of tests. Can they safeguard public health, recover from the worst recession of the postwar era, and remain steadfast in defending a rules-based order? Among Japanese citizens, concern is growing that their country depends too much on China for its prosperity and too much on the United States for its security. The sudden resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in September has introduced new worries that stable domestic leadership and a proactive foreign policy may come to an end. In the whirlwind of today's geopolitical rivalries and the disruption caused by the covid-19 pandemic, it might be tempting to yet again dismiss Japan's potential. But the country's strategic choices are by no means foreordained, and they will affect not only its own future but also the course of the raging great-power competition now playing out between China and the United States.
ISLAND OF STABILITY
Recent calls for a coalition of democracies that can rise to the challenge posed by China run into an immediate obstacle: all is not well in the democracies of the West, which are witnessing a loss of faith in globalization and the growing appeal of populist leaders. The United States stands out as the most poignant case of hobbled international leadership. And its populist experiment has gone awry; the Trump era has shown that illiberalism and protectionism aggravate rather than solve domestic problems and make it...