At the end of this month Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Washington, D.C. He can expect the red carpet treatment because he has ticked more boxes on the Pentagon's wish list than all his postwar predecessors combined.
The generals and wonks see him as their man in Japan, a reliable ally who delivers. However, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius recently met Abe and came away rather unimpressed, pointing out that Abe has not delivered.
"Abenomics," once touted as the tonic for what ails the Japanese economy, appears to be tanking and seems to be little more than welfare for the wealthy — a recent NHK poll found that 90 percent of Japanese believe they are not benefitting. The value of the yen has plummeted by a third, but exports have not increased as expected, the economy remains in the doldrums and household income is stagnant. In the recent round of wage increases, the majority of workers got stiffed and even the big firms were parsimonious.