The election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president offers opportunities for broader cooperation between Japan and the United States, which focused on the military aspects of the alliance during the eight years of the Bush administration, experts told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, warned against what he perceives as "structural problems" in the Japan-U.S. relationship amid the changing dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region.
Rust Deming, an adjunct professor of Japan studies at the SAIS, also said Japanese media reactions to Obama's victory suggest that Japan may be greeting the next administration with caution and may not be fully aware of the opportunities presented by a "globalist" leader the United States has not had for a long time.