Japan: firm friend or potential foe? |
Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, who is visiting Australia from 3 to 5 May 2026, shares the anti-China feelings of most Japanese hard-liners. This colours her foreign policy.
How and when does an ally become an adversary, or an adversary an ally? Japan changed to adversary back in the 1930s due mainly to its bad behaviour towards China. Its change back to the ally we embrace today was due to defeat in war.
But people who have fought a war for a cause they once saw as just, and have been defeated, can usually be expected to feel some resentment against the........