Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s abrupt resignation comes at a period of extreme geopolitical uncertainty in the region and globally.
In Northeast Asia, we have an expansionist China pressing its interests in the East China Sea and South China Sea. China is also proactively attempting to reshape the Indo-Pacific integration through its Belt and Road initiative and associated digital infrastructure, which is increasingly seen as enabling the government to spy on its citizens. On the Korean Peninsula, North Korea has been rapidly developing both conventional and non-conventional missile systems, and Japan-South Korea relations are ice-cold.
More importantly, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has openly questioned the value of alliances, eschewed multilateralism and escalated U.S.-China tensions to the point of destabilizing the rules-based international order and geopolitical balance that has brought stability, peace and prosperity to Japan and the region.