Japan’s snap elections a play for strength

This appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has called early elections for Oct. 22 to seek to improve his Liberal Democratic Party’s position in the parliament. North Americans have a tendency not to pay too close attention to what happens in Japan.

This is partly because its society and, thus, its politics are complex and hard to understand.

Second, Japan usually, at least superficially, seems to follows U.S. policy lines in foreign affairs without America having to exert too much pressure on its leaders.

It would, however, be a mistake to take Japan for granted. It is the world’s third-largest economy. It has a substantial population of 127 million. It has been in the past and could be again in the blink of an eye a formidable military power.

Its present situation, which undoubtedly prompted Abe to call elections, is strong. Its economy in the form of its gross domestic product expanded in the second quarter of the year, for the sixth quarter in a row, by an annualized four per cent

Japan’s security situation is determined by its potentially terrifying proximity to North Korea with its rocket-rattling leader, Kim Jong Un.

It is also important to remember that, given its advanced technical capacities, Japan could have nuclear weapons in a very short period if it wanted to. It has preferred, since what turned out to be its military debacle in the Second World War, to continue until now to depend on the United States for assurances of its security. There are more than 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan. They are not entirely popular there, particularly on the island of Okinawa.

With the declining role of America in the world as it withdraws from international agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Japan had strongly supported, and America’s seeming inability to master wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, it is probably not a bad thing for Japan to evolve into a stronger player in international and military affairs, particularly in Asia, confronted by China as the world’s growing power as well as by the pesky North Koreans.