Japan’s Quiet Leadership

Why has Japan emerged from the “lost decades” unscathed from the populist wave and become a far more consequential actor in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific? In answering this question, Japan’s Quiet Leadership provides a comprehensive look at Japan’s domestic economic and political evolution, its economic strategies, and the array of geopolitical challenges that have instigated a gradual but substantial shift in the country’s security profile.

This deep dive into Japan’s trajectory over the last three decades highlights Japan’s hidden strengths, such as its democratic resilience, social stability, and proactive diplomacy. It also considers the profound challenges the nation faces, including depopulation, rising inequality, voter disengagement, and threats to Asia’s long peace.

The book explores the significant changes within the Japanese polity and its external environment, illustrating how Japan’s experience has become increasingly relevant to countries confronting slow growth, adverse demographics, adaptation to economic globalisation, and the rise of a powerful and assertive China.

This is a story of Japan’s reinvention as a network power, overcoming the harsh realities of diminishing relative capabilities. In reshaping the Indo-Pacific, Tokyo has implemented a robust economic strategy involving trade integration and infrastructure finance, along with proactive security diplomacy that cultivates new partnerships with regional and extra-regional actors and deepens the alliance with the United States.

However, challenges remain, with acute geopolitical rifts, Japan’s pandemic insularity, and the securitisation of international economic relations testing Japan’s statecraft of connectivity. Domestically, there are pressing tasks: ensuring successful transitions to the green, digital, and human capital economies, avoiding a return to the politics of indecision, and fostering democratic dynamism.

This book illuminates the direction in which the Japanese polity, economy, and people are heading as we move beyond the Abe era and into the 2020s and beyond.