For Abe, a visit to the Trump White House is a key stop en route to a stronger Japan
Andrew Hammond says the Japanese leader’s visit to the US this week underlines his desire to draw closer to the new Trump administration, in an effort to strengthen Japan’s heft in the face of China’s rise
Japan PM Shinzo Abe aims to strengthen alliance with United States under Donald Trump
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For Abe, his meetings with Trump are intended to showcase to the world the enduring strength of US-Japan relations. To this end, one of the key announcements that Abe will reportedly make in Washington concerns a multibillion-dollar package of Japanese investment measures that – playing to Trump’s “America first” narrative – will potentially create thousands of new jobs in the US.
As key countries manoeuvre for advantage in a fluid geopolitical landscape, Abe is seeking to align his foreign policy plans with those on Trump’s agenda. He is known to favour a more internationally assertive Japan, and has been seeking to overturn much of the remaining legal and political underpinnings of the country’s post-war pacifist security identity.
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Specifically, Abe wants to push for abolition of Article 9 of the post-war constitution, which constrains the country’s military to a strictly defensive role. Yet, even with his generally high approval rating domestically, it could prove a major challenge, given the large body of public opinion which still values its post-war pacifism.
Taken overall, the Washington and Florida meetings represent Abe’s latest move to fortify Japan’s long-standing US alliance, in the face of China’s rise. Four years into his second term as prime minister, Abe now senses a chance to secure landmark domestic constitutional change around the country’s post-war pacifism, which will enable it to become more internationally engaged, but at the risk of inflaming regional tensions with Beijing.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS (the Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy) at the London School of Economics