Rising Japanese Nationalism

Japan's Readiness to Chart Own Foreign Course

After two decades of passivity and withdrawal from great power struggles in Asia, Japan is preparing to resume a more active —and independent —role in international affairs. The numbness of defeat and occupation after World War II gradually has been replaced by self-confidence and a new spirit of nationalism born of the knowledge that Japan, a nation of 100 million, is the Orient's economic showcase. But readiness to help fill the Asian power vacuum left by the 1945 collapse of the Japanese Empire is certain to put heavy strains on U.S.-Japanese relations. Japanese perspectives with respect to Communist China, for example, differ markedly from those of the United States. More immediately serious is the ...