How Tokyo rose

Shortly after becoming prime minister in 2012, Abe came to Washington and declared, “Japan is back.” He laid out his international priorities: to promote a rules-based international order, to serve as “a guardian of the global commons,” and to work more closely with “other like-minded democracies.” He argued that Japan must be “strong first in its economy, and strong also in its national defense.” These goals remained remarkably consistent during his nearly eight years in office, propelling Japan into a global leadership role in the democratic world.

Abe moved quickly to reinvigorate the Japanese economy, which had experienced two decades of stagnation. His program, dubbed “Abenomics,” featured three “arrows”: monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reform. Tokyo fired the first two arrows in quick succession, jump-starting growth. But the structural reforms faltered, and inflation remains too low. Although Japan did avoid the stagnation of previous decades on Abe’s watch, demographic limitations — its population is shrinking while the overall share of the public over 65 years old is growing — will be harder to escape over the long term.

Even so, the modest economic growth in recent years allowed Abe to devote new resources to better secure Japan. Those budget increases have been part and parcel of a key Abe goal: to transform Japan into a more “normal” international actor. To do so, Abe enacted a series of meaningful internal security reforms, sometimes in the face of considerable domestic opposition.

In late 2013, the National Diet, Japan’s legislature, passed a law establishing a National Security Council to centralize and better coordinate policymaking. This has been described as “the centerpiece of the most ambitious reorganization of Japan’s foreign and security policy apparatus” since World War II. Abe also issued Japan’s first national security strategy, which detailed how Japan would be a “proactive contributor to peace” by actively shaping its security environment. These two moves, respectively, centralized national security policymaking in the hands of the prime minister and described how Abe would use his newfound authority.

And use it he did.

In 2014, the Abe Cabinet issued a reinterpretation of the Japanese Constitution, asserting that Japan was not, in fact, precluded from exercising its right to collective self-defense. The Diet passed implementing legislation in 2015, creating the legal justification for Japan to use force in the defense of U.S. military assets.

Abe also pushed through other reforms that made Japan a more attractive security partner. He updated laws on state secrecy, which jump-started conversations about additional intelligence-sharing with key like-minded countries. Japan also revamped its “three principles” for arms exports. Although Tokyo hasn’t thrown open the doors to overseas arms sales, it has removed onerous barriers, thus allowing Japan to act as a valuable security partner for a wider variety of foreign friends.

Japan’s new posture required, first and foremost, a more proactive approach in its own neighborhood. But Abe also understood that broadening that neighborhood was crucial. “Peace, stability, and freedom of navigation in the Pacific Ocean,” Abe wrote shortly after assuming the premiership, “are inseparable from peace, stability, and freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean.” He argued that “Japan’s top foreign-policy priority must be to expand the country’s strategic horizons.” Abe succeeded in doing precisely that.

Not only did Abe expand Japan’s engagement across the Indo-Pacific, but he deftly convinced U.S. leaders to do the same. The Trump administration’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” strategy unambiguously built on Japan’s concept of the same name and adopted many similar principles. Thus, rather than sitting quietly as leaders in Washington drove the alliance forward, Abe increasingly put Tokyo in the driver’s seat. The U.S. alliance remains the sine qua non of Japan’s regional strategy, but now the same can be said of America’s own approach to the Indo-Pacific as well.

In 2015, Tokyo and Washington agreed to new guidelines for defense cooperation for the first time in nearly 15 years. The guidelines emphasized “seamless, robust, flexible, and effective bilateral responses,” including through a new alliance coordination mechanism. Japan also procured new U.S. weapons systems and sought to increase interoperability, including through the planned acquisition of 105 F-35 fighter jets, which will make Japan its largest foreign buyer.

Abe’s investment in the alliance complemented his efforts to take a more active leadership role in the Indo-Pacific. Together with the U.S., Australia and Japan launched the Trilateral Partnership for Infrastructure Investment in the Indo-Pacific as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative — an infrastructure investment scheme designed to put Beijing at the center of global commerce. Meanwhile, Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “reiterated their unwavering commitment to working together towards a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Japan also became a permanent member of annual U.S.-India naval exercises, and this summer, the Australian, Japanese, and American navies came together for combined exercises in the Philippine Sea, while the Indian navy sailed nearby.

Abe went further from there, deepening ties across Southeast Asia. His government continued to prioritize engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and bilateral security cooperation with Vietnam and the Philippines. Japanese infrastructure investment in the region offers alternatives, not only to Chinese financing, but also to China’s preferred projects. Whereas Beijing has been primarily interested in projects that enhance connectivity to China, Japan has focused on those that benefit host countries first and foremost.

Underlying Abe’s various diplomatic initiatives was his effort, alongside the U.S. and 10 other countries, to remake international trade. He championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a high-standards deal based on free market principles, as the model for multilateral trade in the 21st century. Although President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the negotiations upon coming into office, Abe prevented the deal’s demise and helped to conclude an 11-country agreement.

Taken together, Abe’s foreign policy accomplishments helped prepare Japan for competition with China. Under Abe, Japan has employed greater diplomatic, military, and economic engagement to support the liberal international order and deny China a dominant position in Asia. This effort started long before Washington adopted its own similar framework for dealing with Beijing. In fact, the United States only belatedly recognized that it, too, was engaged in a contest with China. In many respects, Japan has shown the way and steadied both the U.S. and the Indo-Pacific region at a difficult time.

So, where do Japan and the U.S. go from here? As Japan enters the post-Abe era, there will be elements of both continuity and change. Abe’s most likely successor is his long-serving chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga. He might, however, only be a caretaker until elections next year. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is almost certain to win those elections, with the opposition remaining weak and divided, but the race will be contentious. There are many reasons to think, therefore, that Abe’s likely successor will try to follow a similar path on the international stage but face more constraints domestically.

Shinzo Abe was the right man at the right time. Stewards of the U.S.-Japan alliance will miss his steady hand, particularly in dealing with Donald Trump. Abe was the democratic world’s best Trump handler, with former national security adviser John Bolton noting that he kept the U.S. president tethered “somewhere proximate to reality.” Abe befriended the president-elect within weeks of his victory and engaged him over golf and numerous phone calls and meetings. Abe’s successor will struggle to build this level of trust with Trump, given differences in timing and personality.

To the extent that this personal relationship positioned Abe to have some moderating effect on the president’s worst impulses, his resignation is a blow to the alliance. Even with Abe in place, Japan was often at the receiving end of the president’s broadsides. The most noteworthy of these disagreements is Trump’s demand for exorbitant financial contributions to offset the cost of stationing American troops in Japan. (It is probably cheaper, and certainly more effective as a deterrent, to keep U.S. forces in Japan than to bring them home to the United States.) If Trump wins reelection, many in Tokyo will be looking for reassurance that the president will not insist on withdrawing U.S. forces from Japan.

Abe also left some work unfinished in Asia. Japan’s relationship with South Korea is badly frayed. Fixing these ties is vital not only to Japan and Korea, but to regional order and America’s long-term position in Asia. Tokyo also needs to rethink its approach to Moscow. Abe repeatedly reached out to Vladimir Putin, but these efforts failed to resolve decades-old disputes and, at times, put Tokyo and Washington at odds. Japan’s next prime minister will have to reconsider both of these approaches, aiming higher with South Korea and lower with Russia. Finally, although Abe succeeded in keeping the Trans-Pacific Partnership alive without the U.S., the new agreement failed on at least one count: more deeply enmeshing the United States in the Indo-Pacific’s economic life. Doing so is now a task left to future leaders.

The most critical change to the alliance, however, might come in Washington rather than Tokyo. If Joe Biden wins in November, he has promised to prioritize relationships with allies. This would appear to play into Japanese hands — but the Abe team did have some friction on China policy with the last democratic administration, so a Biden administration’s expected reliability would not by itself guarantee smooth sailing ahead for the alliance.

The United States was fortunate to have Shinzo Abe in Tokyo the last eight years. Abe will be gone soon, but Japan is back. And so, too, is the U.S.-Japan alliance. The challenge for Japan’s next leader will be to maintain this momentum. The challenges are substantial, but the alliance has never been stronger or more important.

Zack Cooper is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-editor of Strategic Japan and Postwar Japan. Michael Mazza is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a nonresident fellow at both the Global Taiwan Institute and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.