LOS ANGELES — The prime minister of Japan has just resigned. Big deal.
That's the reaction most everywhere — and particularly in the United States. Yes, the important neonational dailies — Wall Street Journal, New York Times — plopped the story on Page One, where it belonged, but it was dutiful play at best.
Japan, although still the world's second-largest economy, is no longer what it once was geopolitically: The land of the rising sun is now overshadowed by China, and further diminished by its own political ineptitude.