2026 was off to a turbulent start. The Trump administration’s invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of its head of state exposed America’s imperialist ambitions. I’ve long believed that the United States, unlike Western countries, is still lagging behind in the development of governance. The world still retains strong traces of its history of Western expansion. Some elites were heavily influenced by Enlightenment thought and were the bearers of global democracy, but this was only possible because the United States was the richest and most powerful country in the world and had the means. However, without experiencing the defeat of the American mainland, America naturally became complacent and arrogant, believing itself to be invincible. Separation of church and state is virtually nonexistent, and self-righteous evangelicals, like Judaism, account for 40% of the population. When the future becomes uncertain, they create enemies and turn them against them.
In addition, although the United States has a separation of powers, the executive power of the president is extremely strong. While presidential orders are subject to provisional injunctions, they can do anything within the scope of executive power. Latin American countries adopted presidential systems modeled on the United States. The checks and balances of the separation of powers in the United States have always worked, albeit perversely, thanks to the efforts of a select group of elites, mostly Anglo-Saxon, raised under the Enlightenment. They have an innate sense of equity, which is precisely why the United States has been called a model of democracy. Latin America, which has a system modeled after the United States, has tended toward dictatorship. I believe the balance was upset because the system was run by people from European Latin American backgrounds who were unfamiliar with equity. However, even Washington, the first president of the United States, likely never anticipated a real estate agent like Trump wielding total power. It has become clear that the American system of governance can vary greatly depending on who is at the top.
In contrast, Western countries, thanks to the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation, have established freedom and the rule of law. Furthermore, due to the existence of many monarchies, checks and balances within the power structure generally exist (with the exception of France, which underwent a revolution), and governance structures generally do not fluctuate greatly. In countries like the UK, governance has worked well without laws, based on the concept of equity. (France was saved by the Enlightenment and a strict separation of church and state.) In essence, Western European countries are quite advanced in their methods of governance. They have also built mature societies through numerous wars and defeats.
The problem is that as a result of their colonial expansion, Western countries were forced to coexist with numerous ethnic groups. This, combined with an excessive sense of self-consciousness and arrogance as the birthplace of the Enlightenment and a sense of guilt toward other ethnic groups, has led to immigration issues amid the recent trend toward globalization. The United Nations was created to embody that idealism, but it has become dysfunctional as a result of the coexistence of countries with completely different historical experiences from Western Europe.
In the 80 years since the end of the war, American elites and the UK and France, countries with advanced concepts of governance, have led to a rise in ethics, and the rule of law, human rights, freedom, and other values outlined in the UN Charter have come to be revered as universal values for humanity.
In the 21st century, rapid globalization, mass participation in decision-making as seen through social media, advances in financial engineering, restrictions on sovereign nations due to open borders, and the rapid widening gap in developed countries (the decline of the middle class) led to the emergence of the monster Trump, who buried Pax Americana.
Going forward, the world will likely enter an era of survival of the fittest, in which long-standing universal values such as equality among sovereign nations, respect for human rights, and non-interference in internal affairs, which were formed under Pax Westphalica in the 17th century and codified in the 20th century UN Charter, will gradually be eroded.
Trump has no philosophy, but he seems to believe that the world should be run by major powers like the US, China, Russia, and India, with other, smaller nations being treated under their influence. This is the “construction contractor” mentality, in that these countries should simply become subcontractors or sub-subcontractors to super-general contractors, so to speak.
I read a book in the 1980s that predicted that the world would divide into three regions: the US, China, and Europe/Middle East. That prediction has come true.
In this context, where should Japan be?
While Japan is part of the China-speaking world, its history, characterized by its feudal past, is closer to Western Europe and different from the history of absolute dynasties in mainland China. Therefore, since the Meiji era, Japan has always been in a state of being “Asian, yet not Asian.” Professor Umezawa is right. Therefore, Japan has few natural allies.
Therefore, it is important to intentionally build a circle of friends. The US holds the power of life and death over Japan, so the US-Japan alliance should continue unless the US reneges on it, and following Trump is inevitable. At the same time, we cannot be completely dependent on the US. We need to build a complementary quasi-alliance with Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which truly share the values of the UN Charter. Within that framework, countries like India will likely fall even further. ASEAN as a whole should also be included. This perspective is already an extension of existing policies.
The United Nations is important and valuable to Japan. However, efforts should be made to build complementary multilateral alliances, ideally extending to security spheres, among the countries mentioned above. The CPTPP is an important part of such economic efforts. After all, Japan is a trading nation.
I would also like to mention two more points.
The first is national defense. If nuclear-armed countries like China, Russia, and North Korea threaten Japan, we need to have the capability to inflict damage and harm on them on the same level as Japan’s value to them. In other words, we need to build a Japanese version of the de Gaulle strategy. Isn’t possessing nuclear weapons necessary for this? There are many major obstacles to possessing nuclear weapons, such as withdrawal from the NPT and imposition of sanctions on Japan, and it would do more harm than good. Instead, it would be more important to turn the Japanese archipelago into a hedgehog with 10,000 missiles to create a deterrent force. Instead of nuclear warheads, we could use Japanese technology to develop warheads with unprecedented power. (Of course, we also have surplus plutonium if necessary.)
The other issue is dialogue with China, Russia, and North Korea. Dialogue should never be closed. The problem, particularly with China and North Korea, is that they use dialogue itself as a weapon against Japan and refuse to discuss it. How to overcome this is the immediate challenge.
The Taiwan issue is a pressing issue with China, but there would be no harm in explicitly reaffirming that “Japan adheres to the ‘One China’ policy and understands and respects China’s position that the Taiwan issue is an internal matter of China” (as agreed in 1998). Japan does not need to be left without a leg to lean on regarding the Taiwan issue, which Trump is sure to concede at the Trump-Xi Jinping summit. Why not use this as an opening for dialogue with China?
Regarding North Korea, if Trump holds another US-North Korea summit, he will likely reach a settlement by limiting intercontinental ballistic missiles. While Japan would be reluctant to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, the same problem exists with India and Pakistan. It would be undesirable for the United States to lose interest in the Korean Peninsula, but if efforts to persuade Trump fail, Japan should fear being isolated due to a North-South reconciliation. For this reason, it is necessary to move in step with South Korea as much as possible.
As for Russia, it is important to first work in tandem with Europe (although it is unclear whether the Taiwan issue will be in return), and it would be best to refrain from actively bringing up the Northern Territories issue again while improving relations with Russia. Prime Minister Abe’s concessions to Russia have created a fait accompli. Therefore, it is sufficient to continue to claim that the four islands are Japanese territory, and the need for negotiations can only be postponed to future generations.
In any case, strengthening Japan’s national power is a priority, and the only option is to push forward with efforts to reduce the birthrate and improve productivity. The era of “catch up and surpass” has arrived once again.