In the year of a U.S. presidential election, Japan is increasingly being overshadowed by its Asian neighbors in Washington just as the capital is increasingly functioning as a forum on global issues, according to a leading American expert.

This is a far cry from the early 1990s, when Japan was the only Asian country actively engaged in semigovernmental activities in Washington, to address severe bilateral trade friction, Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said at a recent seminar in Tokyo.

But while Japan has scaled back its activities, countries such as China and South Korea have ramped up promotion of their agendas and become far more effective at getting their ideas heard in the capital, said Calder.