Seventy years after World War II, there is no alliance in the world as strategic or as strong as that between the United States and Japan. Despite, and in some cases precisely because of, the changes in the world -- including the rise of China and developments in both America and Japan -- there also has never been a more optimistic moment for the alliance. As a result, it should come as no surprise that Japan today is keenly focused on America's 2016 presidential election given all that is at stake.
Having just returned from the Mt. Fuji Dialogue, the leading U.S.-Japan forum in the world, it was refreshing to observe that there is no country in the world more eager for an American 21st century than Japan. Given Tokyo's own rivalry with Beijing in Asia and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's keen focus on international affairs, Japan is eager to work with the next American president who they are confident will see the world in similar terms regardless of who wins in 2016. Abe's "Abenomics" agenda at home, which has led to unprecedented domestic national security reforms and inclusion in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the region's most far-reaching free trade agreement, bets on the future of American global leadership
