Does a ‘new golden age’ beckon for the US and Japan?

Perhaps the first thing on everyone’s minds was just how low Ishiba Shigeru, Japan’s Prime Minister (who prefers warships to golf clubs) could go on a round at the Trump International Golf Club. After all, following Trump’s victory last November, Ishiba’s South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk Yeol, was seen sharpening up his golf swing in preparation for 18 holes. But what Ishiba’s speedy one-day sojourn to Washington on Friday makes clear is that no matter how transactional leaders may be, in international relations, alliances matter – particularly during a time of ‘polycrisis’.

Relations between Tokyo and Washington have not always been hurdle-free. But this bilateral alliance, enshrined in a security treaty signed by the two countries in 1951, is one which, as both Japanese and American leaders made clear during their meeting, has formed ‘the cornerstone of peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and beyond’. Its history dates to the sudden end of the second world war, after which Japan swiftly went from being one of the West’s staunchest adversaries to its most ironclad of allies.

Japan’s constitution, drafted by the US General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, quickly gained infamy for Article 9, which underscores how the ‘Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation’ and cannot possess offensive weapons.