Prime Minister Abe’s legacy will rest on his attempts to redefine Japan’s relative position of power in the international system and marks a departure from the narrative of Japan being a reactive state.1 In 2013, he envisioned ‘Japan is back’2 while responding to the larger debate concerning Japan’s strategic future, as captured by Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye who raised a pertinent question: ‘does Japan desire to continue to be a tier-one nation, or is she content to drift into tier-two status?’3 Given the fluidity in East Asian geopolitics and China’s arrival as a key variable in the international system, Japan has been forced to respond to the asymmetrical power politics. As China is carving out a sphere of influence for itself which is increasingly eclipsing Japan’s international stature, Abe has the task of presenting the case of where and how does Japan fit in.
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