Although Japan’s approach to economic diplomacy under the Fukuda Doctrine initially was subject to criticism because of its stance on non-interference in domestic affairs, now some are in retrospect lauding the approach, according to Kiyoteru Tsutsui, deputy director at Shorenstein APARC and director of the Japan Program, and co-editor of the recent book The Courteous Power: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Indo-Pacific Era. This reevaluation comes after consideration of relatively unsuccessful attempts by the United States to “push” democracy onto Southeast Asian countries. 

The better approach is to focus on advancing the rule of law, which the Japanese have done by investing resources in establishing legal infrastructure in the region, Tsutsui tells Shorenstein APARC Visiting Scholar Gita Wirjawan, host of the popular Endgame video podcast. “Liberal democracy in the sense of the rule of law is a good sort of marketing ploy to sell to Southeast Asian countries because that leads to economic benefits, which is critical to making liberal democracy attractive,” he says.

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Tsutsui joined Wirjawan for an Endgame conversation about Japan’s approaches to foreign direct investment (FDI) in Southeast Asia and other topics. One issue that both scholars agreed upon is the difficulty in getting Americans to focus on Southeast Asia, which has been long recognized as a critical region by the Japanese. Part of the problem is proximity, of course, but the region also tends to be overshadowed in American eyes by East Asian countries. 

The conversation also turned to the demographic issue Japan and other Asian countries are facing as populations age and economic growth stagnates. Tsutsui pointed out that, before 1945, the Japanese Empire saw itself as multi-ethnic; it was only after WWII that the nation was perceived as homogenous, a viewpoint bolstered by Japan’s great economic success in the 1960s and 70s. Now, however, Tsutsui says there is no choice: “Japan has to become more heterogenous,” and even conservative voices acknowledge that women need a larger role in the labor force and that immigrant labor will be essential to combat the demographic crisis.

This discussion with Tsutsui is part of an "Endgame" interview series Wirjawan is recording with Stanford experts during his residency at APARC.

This essay originally appeared in Korean on October 27 in Sindonga (New East Asia), Korea’s oldest monthly magazine (established 1931), as part of a monthly column, "Shin’s Reflections on Korea." Translated by Raymond Ha. A PDF version of this essay is also available to download.

How should Korea navigate this turbulent landscape? For some time, experts and policymakers called for relying on the United States for security while partnering with China for the economy (an-mi-gyeong-joong). This paradigm is now obsolete.[4] The Yoon administration has proclaimed a values-based foreign policy to strengthen solidarity between liberal democracies. In his opening statement at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh on November 11, President Yoon reiterated Korea’s support for “strengthening a rule-based international order built on universal values” to foster “freedom, peace, and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific.[5]

Will this approach be sufficient, however? Conflicting trends in Korea’s domestic public opinion complicate the picture. On the one hand, anti-China sentiment is worsening by the day, even surpassing anti-Japan sentiment. At the same time, there are also growing complaints about the United States, especially after the exclusion of consumer tax credits for Korea’s electric vehicles in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Taking these developments into account, this essay seeks to explore the path ahead for Korea by analyzing the nature of U.S.-China tensions and assessing the durability of Pax Americana.

Heading into Thucydides Trap?

U.S.-China relations are widely characterized as “Thucydides Trap.” The Peloponnesian War is regarded as one of the main reasons behind the decline of ancient Greek civilization. Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian, famously wrote that the fundamental cause of this war was due to Spartan fears over the growth of Athenian power. Drawing from Thucydides, international relations theorists have used the concept of a Thucydides Trap to explain tensions between a rising power and a status quo hegemon. Graham Allison, a professor of political science at Harvard, popularized this concept by applying it to Sino-U.S. relations in Destined for War. Beginning from the clash between Portugal and Spain in the late 15th century, Allison notes that there have been 16 instances where an emerging power challenged the hegemonic power. There was a war in all but four cases. When an emerging power is strong enough to challenge the hegemon, this creates structural stresses that frequently lead to a violent conflict.

Based on his analysis of the historical record, Allison warns that the rift between the United States (America First) and China (the Chinese dream) is much wider and deeper than most people perceive it to be. There is now a heightened risk of an armed confrontation between the two countries over Taiwan. Nevertheless, the likelihood of a catastrophic hegemonic war still remains low. Instead, there is likely to be a prolonged conflict and competition between Washington and Beijing centered on advanced technologies.

Made in China 2025 and the Chinese Dream

The U.S.-China trade war began under the Trump administration. Made in China 2025 (MIC 2025), a policy roadmap published by the Chinese government in 2015, drew the attention of the United States and other Western countries. In its opening paragraph, it states that “building an internationally competitive manufacturing industry is the only way China can enhance its comprehensive national strength, ensure national security, and build itself into a world power.”[6]

From the emphasis on “the only way,” it is clear that MIC 2025 is not just an industrial policy. It is an integral element of China’s national security strategy. Under this plan, China seeks to achieve progress in advanced manufacturing technologies such as big data, information technology, aerospace, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. The goal is to become the world’s leading manufacturing power by surpassing the United States.

After MIC 2025 sparked controversy in the West, the Chinese government has refrained from referring to it in public. Nonetheless, it has continued to implement this policy in practice. At the 2021 Lianghui, the concurrent annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference, the Chinese government strengthened its resolve to reduce its dependence on U.S.-led global value chains as it sought to develop advanced technologies. Specifically, it emphasized the economic policy of dual circulation, which aims to raise domestic consumption while expanding exports of high value-added goods to foreign markets.

The advanced technologies that China is focusing on have potential military applications. For example, drones, artificial intelligence, and facial recognition technology can be used for reconnaissance satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles. China is pursuing military-civil fusion through the Military-Civil Fusion Development Committee, chaired by President Xi. This indicates that Xi intends to personally oversee China’s ambitious efforts to challenge the United States. At this year’s Lianghui, Xi stressed that China is in a strategically advantageous position in its deepening competition with the United States. Furthermore, he unveiled a plan to achieve his “dream of a strong military” by modernizing China’s armed forces through mechanization and the use of advanced information technology. Despite a slowdown in China’s economy, Xi increased defense spending by 7.1 percent.[7]

Those who analyze Xi Jinping’s character classify him as an ideological purist, a true believer of socialism. He sees a historic opportunity for China to become a global superpower, and believes that it is his calling to realize socialism in the 21st century. Unlike his predecessors, he does not shy away from conflict with the United States. In a September 30, 2022, essay in Qiushi, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leading theoretical journal, Xi stated that “today, we have never been so close to achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and we have never been more confident in our faith and ability to achieve this goal.”[8] Only two weeks before the CCP’s 20th party congress, where he would secure a third term as general secretary, Xi stressed the need for strong leadership to prepare for the intensifying competition with the United States.

Under Xi’s leadership, the CCP is driven by the zeitgeist of the Chinese dream, of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The goal is to make the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the most powerful economic and military power in the world. The emphasis on achieving this goal by 2049 is no coincidence, as it will mark the centennial of the CCP’s victory in the Chinese Civil War, where it defeated the Kuomintang and established the PRC. This timeline also aligns with Xi’s vision of building an advanced socialist country by 2050, which he proclaimed at the 19th National Congress of the CCP. China has a truly ambitious vision, one that leaves the United States no choice but to respond.

From America First to Made in America

When Donald Trump proclaimed “America First” as his slogan in his bid for the White House, his primary target was China. He blamed China for the loss of American jobs, claiming that the United States was suffering greatly from China’s unfair trade practices and interference in markets. This message bolstered his support among white blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt, as they had witnessed a dramatic decline in manufacturing jobs. This enabled him to win key swing states in the Midwest, leading to his victory in the 2016 election.

Upon entering office, Trump consistently maintained a hardline policy against China. For example, the “Secure 5G and Beyond Act of 2020” passed the House 413–3 and cleared the Senate on March 6, 2020. The intent of this law was to create a “whole-of-government approach” to protect America’s telecommunications networks from national security threats posed by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE, which played a major role in the rollout of 5G networks across the world.[9] His administration increased government oversight of Chinese investment in or acquisition of U.S. tech companies and scrutinized partnerships between American universities and Chinese entities. It tightened visa review procedures for students and visiting scholars from the PRC. It also designated Confucius Institutes in the United States as a “foreign mission” that “[advances] Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms.”[10] All of these measures stemmed from a recognition that China was rapidly closing in on the United States. The National Intelligence Council estimates that if current trends continue, China will surpass the United States to become the world’s largest economy between 2030 and 2035.

The American public’s view of China has continued to deteriorate after Trump left office. According to Pew Research, 47% of respondents held a negative view of China in 2018. This surged to 60% in 2019 and 82% in 2022.[11] Despite a transfer of power to the Democrats in 2020, the overall orientation of U.S. policy toward China has remained unchanged. Under the banner of “Made in America,” the Biden administration has carefully crafted a dense web of policies aimed at China.

In the past three months alone, there have been a raft of legislative and executive measures that encompass semiconductors, electric cars and batteries, and biotechnology. This includes the CHIPS and Science Act (August 9), the IRA (August 16), and an Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation (September 12). These steps are intended to check China’s rise and promote the growth of America’s advanced technology and clean energy sectors. The CHIPS and Science Act sets aside $52.7 billion dollars for America’s semiconductor industry.[12] Companies that receive subsidies under this law are barred from expanding operations or otherwise investing in China for the purpose of manufacturing advanced semiconductors.[13] As noted below, certain provisions of the IRA will also have significant ramifications for Korea’s exports of electric cars to the U.S. market.

As it undertakes a series of legislative steps at home, the Biden administration has pursued multilateralism abroad. This is a key difference from Trump, who preferred bilateral arrangements. The Biden administration is seeking to institutionalize economic and technological alliances through initiatives such as IPEF and the Chip 4 alliance, and it is encouraging Korea and other allies to participate. By stressing intellectual property rights and China’s unfair economic practices, strengthening its own technological capabilities, and reinforcing relevant international norms, Washington is compelling Beijing to operate within a U.S.-led international order. Even in Silicon Valley, where anti-China sentiment is not as deeply rooted as it is in Washington, there are serious concerns about the risk of Chinese industrial espionage and intellectual property theft. There is a palpable hesitation among start-ups to accept funding from Chinese investors. Chinese investment in America increased throughout the 2000s until reaching a peak of $46 billion in 2016. This plummeted by almost 90% to $5 billion in 2018, due in part to political tensions.[14]

Will Pax Americana Endure?

Since the beginning of Pax Americana in 1945, there have been three challenges to America’s status as a global hegemon: by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Japan in the 1980s, and China in the present day. The Soviet Union engaged in a tense military confrontation with the United States for decades, but collapsed in the late 1980s due to the limitations and internal contradictions of its communist system. Japan once threatened to displace America from the apex of the global capitalist order, but lapsed into the “Lost Two Decades” after its economic bubble burst in the early 1990s. What can we say about the future of China, which is engaging in fierce competition against the United States? In short, I believe that China will not surpass the United States in our time.

Those who predict that China will eclipse the United States point to economic trends. China surpassed Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-largest economy. It also became the world’s largest exporter in 2014, when its gross domestic product exceeded 60% of U.S. GDP. In purchasing power parity terms, China has already leapfrogged the United States. Both present-day statistics and long-term economic trends point in one direction. If the Chinese government makes a concerted effort to invest in key strategic industries, as outlined in MIC 2025, it is certainly feasible for China to surpass the United States to become the world’s leading manufacturing power by 2049.

However, China still lags far behind the United States in many areas, including military power. In absolute terms, for example, its defense spending is only one-third of what the United States spends on its military. There are also a host of political, social, demographic, and economic challenges that hamper China in its campaign to attain global supremacy.[15] Xi’s aggressive anti-corruption campaign is an indication of widespread corruption in Chinese society. There are also serious human rights issues in Tibet and Xinjiang, and the three Ts of Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen cannot be openly discussed. China’s problems extend beyond its borders. With a land border of nearly 14,000 miles with 14 countries, managing territorial disputes is a tall order. There are also tensions with its maritime neighbors in the South China Sea. China’s efforts at public diplomacy have been unsuccessful, as can be seen from the widespread rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea and other countries.

Amidst these challenges, Xi Jinping secured a third term as president at the 20th party congress on October 16. Since Deng Xiaoping, China has managed leadership transitions in a relatively stable fashion. Under a system of collective leadership, the leader served two five-year terms and appointed his successor in advance. These practices created a certain degree of predictability, stability, and transparency, thereby facilitating  China’s dramatic economic growth and making it powerful enough to compete with the United States. Xi Jinping has sharply broken from this tradition as he seeks to become a 21st-century emperor.

Some argue that China is destined to become an imperial power. However, it will be difficult for a fast follower such as China to build an empire. In general, a country must be a first mover or trendsetter to become a hegemonic power. For example, in the corporate sector, Xiaomi may catch up to Samsung, but can it replace Apple? Tech companies such as Alibaba and Baidu have achieved rapid growth thanks to a sizable domestic market, but they have emulated the business models of Amazon and Google. They have not created a new, transformative platform. China’s growth was enabled in no small part by talented individuals who studied abroad and then returned home to apply their experiences and insights. As China closes its doors to the outside world, it is also limiting its potential to become a leader in innovation.

Furthermore, China is failing to serve as a role model for other countries. Except for a few countries in Africa and Asia, the Belt and Road Initiative has yet to yield meaningful results. If anything, anti-China sentiment is deepening across Europe, North America, and Asia. While the Soviet Union had the communist bloc, China lacks a reliable group of allies. China has indeed achieved remarkable growth in the past 30 years, presenting lucrative economic opportunities for individuals and companies in China and abroad. However, talented individuals across the world would arguably prefer to study, work, and live in the United States than in China. Japan’s postwar growth inspired a “Japan boom,” a desire to study and emulate Japan. There is no comparable “China boom” to speak of.

Rich Mandarins

The Palo Alto area, where I have lived and worked for over two decades, has some of the highest housing prices in the United States. A small condo, which is equivalent to an apartment unit in Korea, costs over $1 million. Since I moved to Stanford in 2001, the Bay Area has seen three significant surges in housing prices. The first two waves resulted from a sudden increase in wealth among young tech workers when Google and Facebook went public. On the other hand, the third surge is said to be related to Chinese residents. Locals call these individuals, who purchase high-end housing in cash, “rich mandarins.”

This group includes company founders and investment professionals, as well as entrepreneurs who have listed their companies on New York’s Stock Exchange. They are mostly in their 50s, and they played a critical role in China’s economic growth through their contributions to the IT sector. Although they have amassed an enormous amount of wealth, they are anxious about China’s prospects and the country’s uncertain political future. They are also worried that the government could seize their companies or their individual property. Their families have already moved to America, and they conduct business by shuttling between China and the United States. Some have left China in search of a new life and career.

As long as those who have attained success in China eventually end up in the United States, China cannot become the world’s leading superpower. These individuals are voting with their feet. Professor Wang Jisi of Peking University has said that “the day the U.S. truly declines is when visa lines in front of its consulates are no longer crowded.”[16] There is pessimism even among China’s economic elite about the country’s future, especially as Xi Jinping further tightens political control under a one-man dictatorship.

For China to surpass the United States and lead the international order, we should see the opposite. Instead of China’s elites rushing toward the United States, there should be an outflow of American elites to China. Only then can we truly speak of a Pax Sinica. In addition, countries across the world should seek to emulate the Chinese model, not the American model. Based on my own knowledge and experience, I am convinced that the likelihood of such trends emerging in the next 20 or 30 years is vanishingly small. It is thus realistic and reasonable to expect Pax Americana to continue into the next generation, with clear implications for Korea’s foreign policy going forward.

An Empire of Liberty

The United States is a hegemonic power that wields unparalleled influence across the world. It exercises its economic and military power to uphold its political, military, and cultural dominance. Institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are critical elements of Pax Americana, as are programs such as the Peace Corps and Fulbright Scholarships. During the War on Terror, the United States sacrificed many lives and trillions of dollars in prolonged conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over the past 100 years, the United States took part in 35 wars, large and small.It will likely be recorded as the country that has participated in the most armed conflicts. Pax Americana appears to be much more robust than Pax Romana or Pax Britannica.

For these reasons, Korea’s progressives criticize American imperialism and advocate for cultivating closer ties with China. We should ask, however, whether a Pax Sinica would be preferable to Pax Americana.

Compared to that of the Soviet Union or present-day China, America’s empire is far more sophisticated. History also tells us so. Although the United States is criticized at times for failing to live up to its proclaimed values, it has shown the strongest commitment to democracy and human rights of any superpower. In an ideal world, the international order would be built solely on sovereign equality. However, any superpower will seek to construct its preferred international order and defend it using various levers of power, including the use of force. To maintain its global hegemony, the United States has effectively deployed a mixture of hard power, soft power, and smart power.

Based on historical experience and a critical analysis of the current state of the world, it would be dangerous to presuppose that Pax Sinica will displace Pax Americana anytime soon. From Korea’s standpoint, it would be unwise to call for strategic ambiguity or for maintaining an equidistant posture between the United States and China. As previously noted, the paradigm of an-mi-gyeong-joong is no longer viable.[17] The Yoon administration’s clear articulation of its intent to build a values-based alliance with the United States and other liberal democracies is commendable. In fact, there are only a handful of countries other than Korea—Israel, Canada, and Australia—that have both a defense treaty and a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. Korea must foster relationships with these countries, which are a valuable diplomatic asset.

At the same time, it would be imprudent to focus only on abstract values and neglect vital economic or security interests. Let us consider a recent example. Korea’s leading conglomerates—including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group, and SK—have pledged to invest $26 billion in the United States this year alone. However, the recently passed IRA only provides consumer tax credits to electric vehicles manufactured in North America. There is deep disappointment and anger in Korea, as this creates a significant disadvantage for Korea’s auto companies. To put it bluntly, Korea’s companies are paying the cost of the Korean government’s failure to address stark economic realities.

If the Yoon administration indeed seeks to reduce Korea’s economic dependence on China, it should have a roadmap to strengthen economic ties with the United States while protecting Korea’s own interests. As the United States brings economic security to the forefront, Korea should devise a strategy to avoid repeating the same mistake. Furthermore, even if Korea partners with the United States in advanced technologies that affect national security, it can still maintain economic relations with China in other sectors, including retail, consumer goods, and manufacturing. For values-based diplomacy to be successful, it must be upheld by interest-based diplomacy.

In Search of a Non-Partisan Foreign Policy

In this context, it is worth closely examining two recently published columns regarding the IRA controversy. The first is an op-ed entitled “Yoon Has Been Played by the United States” (September 20) by Park Hyeon, a senior columnist at the progressive Hankyoreh. The second is an op-ed entitled “The IRA Undermines Trust in the Alliance” (September 26) by Lee Mi-Sook, a well-known conservative commentator, in the Munhwa Ilbo.[18] As former Washington correspondents, Park and Lee both have firsthand knowledge of America’s inner workings. Park’s column focuses on criticizing the Yoon administration, while Lee’s piece expresses concern about a weakened U.S.-Korea alliance. Nevertheless, they both show that U.S. policies aimed at China could spark anti-American sentiment in Korea.

Park writes that “the United States, under the banner of economic security, is tying its allies and friendly countries into a U.S.-led economic bloc, weakening China—the hegemonic challenger—while seeking a revival of its domestic manufacturing industry.” He begins from the premise that “this kind of protectionism is harmful for open, export-driven economies such as Korea.” With full knowledge of this state of affairs, Hyundai Motor Group pledged to invest more than $10 billion in the United States, expecting its cars to be granted subsidies in return. Instead, it was given the cold shoulder. Park adds that “the Presidential Office fell into disarray” and missed a golden opportunity to raise these concerns with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who visited Korea shortly after the final text of the IRA was released on July 27. This failure is characteristic of Yoon’s foreign policy, Park concludes.

In her column, Lee writes that “the IRA could once again imperil the U.S.-Korea alliance, which faced a serious crisis under the Trump administration.” She goes on to say that “the exclusion of Korean electric vehicles from subsidies, despite the ‘national treatment’ clause in the Korea-U.S. FTA, is raising suspicions about an underlying lack of concern for Korea in the United States.” Moreover, she adds that “there are signs this dispute over subsidies could turn into something far worse—a question of hurt national pride.” She warns that “if America fails to show flexibility and sticks to the original provision of the IRA, this will not only erode Koreans’ trust in the alliance, but also provide political fodder for progressives (former pro-democracy activists) to stoke anti-Americanism.” In closing, Lee calls upon the United States “to consider Korea’s view of the situation and act in a way that honors the spirit of the U.S.-Korea alliance.”

As these op-eds indicate, both progressives and conservatives are openly expressing their concern about the United States’ failure to show adequate concern for Korea. It is commendable for the Yoon administration to focus on strengthening the U.S.-Korea alliance and building solidarity around shared values, but it must also call on Washington to reciprocate Seoul’s efforts. For instance, as Lee Mi-Sook notes in her column, Korea could suggest an amendment to the IRA to apply subsidies to electric vehicles produced in countries that have an FTA with the United States. Policy missteps could lead to a resurgence of anti-American sentiment in Korea, putting the Yoon administration in a political quagmire. The controversy over the IRA may be the first of many such issues, especially if the Biden administration intensifies its “Made in America” policy.

To overcome the unforgiving realities of Korea’s foreign policy environment, the Yoon administration must be able to rely on a robust domestic consensus and strong popular support. Foreign policy requires a high level of expertise. Some issues have to be resolved behind the scenes, with experts and government officials playing a leading role. That said, foreign policy should not be left entirely in the hands of policy elites, and it should not be a partisan political football. On several occasions, minor incidents during President Yoon’s recent overseas visits received undue attention in the press and became the subject of ridicule back home. This is entirely unnecessary. For example, take the controversy surrounding a hot mic moment during a visit to New York in September.[19] Looking from the outside in, it is difficult to understand why the whole country became engulfed in a bitter partisan debate about a trivial gaffe. Little attention was paid to the substance of the visit.

It is vital to establish a norm whereby important foreign policy issues are addressed in a non-ideological, non-partisan manner that garners broad public support. To do so, the Korean government must increase transparency in its decision-making process when it comes to major issues. It must also endeavor to gather and incorporate public opinion in foreign policy, so that the public does not feel unduly detached from the policymaking process. Governments across the world now recognize domestic public opinion as a critical element of their foreign policy strategy. Diplomacy cannot be effective without public support. Korea’s diplomats, who are in the trenches of international diplomacy, need all the support they can get.

There is no telling when Korea might be battered by a perfect storm in its foreign policy, given the current state of U.S.-China relations. As Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warn in Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, the race between the United States and China may end up being a sprint, not a marathon. This decade may be the most dangerous period in U.S.-China relations. In the early 20th century, Korea lost its sovereignty after failing to establish a coherent foreign policy, with different factions supporting China, Russia, and Japan. Upon liberation in 1945, extreme ideological confrontation split the peninsula in two. Korea cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

On September 17, 2021, APARC hosted a delegation from the Mongolian Parliament including speaker Gombojav Zandanshatar, who addressed a joint panel of parliament members and Stanford scholars. Zandanshatar, an alumnus at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, instituted a program of deliberative democracy in Mongolia, and reflected on the outcomes and challenges that still affect the nation.

Zandanshatar’s work with Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy has impacted political reform processes in Mongolia, and he underscored the potential for academic exchange and policy research to improve overall governance and civic participation.

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A partnership years in the making

Following Zandanshatar’s initial time as a visiting scholar at CDDRL in 2015, he returned to Mongolia, where he promoted concepts of deliberative democracy. In 2017, the Mongolian government adopted the deliberative polling method developed by Stanford communications professor James Fishkin.

The deliberative method that analyzes public opinion was put in place to garner public input before the Mongolian constitution could be amended. Fishkin, who devised the deliberative polling process more than 30 years ago, sat on the panel and mentioned that "other places around the world have looked seriously at what you are doing in Mongolia." 

Member of Parliament Bulgantuya Khurelbaatar also addressed the panel, discussing the country’s path towards benefiting from democracy and a market economy. Bulgantuya shared statistics of recent economic and industrial outputs, and enumerated the many challenges facing the maturing democracy. Despite Mongolia's improvements in governance, the economy, the health sector, and access to education, the poverty rate in the country remains high (28.4%), there is a serious budget deficit, and the quality of education needs improvement, said Bulgantuya.

While many are optimistic about Mongolia’s ability to remain democratic in its current geostrategic context, Zandanshatar cited professor Larry Diamond's concept of democratic recession. Zandanshatar and Bulgantuya responded to questions from Diamond and CDDRL Director Kathryn Stoner on how Mongolia is dealing with the challenges to its democracy, especially against the rise of Russia and China, two authoritarian competitors on which its economy is heavily dependent. According to the delegatiuon, "Democracy is the only way Mongolia can stay alive as a nation."  These results of the panel suggest that autocratic pressure poses an important challenge to democratic integrity.

This essay was first published in the political quarterly Democracy Journal. It is part of a four-essay collection, titled The Stakes in Asia, on the future of U.S.-Asian relations. This essay focuses on the nations of Southeast Asia, the three other essays on China, Japan, and South and North Korea. 

Geography and geology are not the same. Of the five mainland countries, four have seacoasts; only Laos is land-locked. All of the six maritime states are entirely or partly archipelagic. But Malaysia and Singapore are subcontinental in that they occupy the southernmost end of peninsular Southeast Asia. A projected three-stranded set of overland railroads connecting Malaysia and Singapore to mainland China, if completed, could socioeconomically enhance their subcontinental character. The strands would run southward from Kunming, the capital city of China’s Yunnan province, through Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam to Bangkok in Thailand and onward through Malaysia to Singapore. Completing these north-south connections has been a priority of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Fears of “mainlandization”—Sinification—have arisen in that context. China’s presence is already amply manifest in the northern parts of Myanmar and Laos, where economic and cultural enclaves have formed around the influxes of tourists and immigrants from the PRC. Expatriate and local Chinese dominate the economy of Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay, where young Ma Kyal Sin died. Mandarin is widely spoken there. If the BRI succeeds, if the north-south tracks are laid and maintained, and if traffic then flourishes back and forth to the mutual “win-win” benefit of China and all of the five Southeast Asian economies along the way, Beijing could further enlarge its footprint in the region.

Could does not mean will. The world economy shrank by more than 4 percent in 2020. Infrastructure is costly, and its returns are long-term. To varying extents in different countries, envisioned connectivity has become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, as governments have closed borders to reduce transmission of the virus and its variants. In 2019-2020, the pace of overseas lending by China’s policy banks slowed, and Chinese spending on megaprojects in the BRI fell to its lowest level ever. China’s latest five-year plan calls for “dual circulation,” abroad as well as at home, but the domestic economy is given priority.

That said, China’s economic growth in 2021 could reach 8 percent and thereby fuel Beijing’s campaign for influence in mainland Southeast Asia. In Laos, for example, aggressive Chinese lenders and corrupt local elites have indebted that country to the point that its lucrative electricity exports may soon be controlled by China. As one of the poorest members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Laos needs those revenues. Majority control over the country’s network of high-voltage power lines could give Beijing leverage that it could wield to ensure that Laos remains a compliant “friend” of China.

As illustrated by the case of China-facing Laos, the distribution of despotism in Southeast Asia tends to reinforce the mainland-maritime divide. “Many have said over the years that ASEAN is a club of dictators,” a Human Rights Watch official observed in 2016.

That harsh judgment is less of an exaggeration than one would wish. According to Freedom House, six of the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are “Not Free”: Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. More than half of ASEAN is despotic by this measure, and of those six authoritarian members, five are on the mainland. The only maritime autocracy is tiny Brunei, an absolute monarchy perched on the coast of Borneo facing the South China Sea. The remaining four ASEAN states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore—are all maritime and rated “Partly Free.” The lone “Free” country in the region is Timor-Leste, which occupies three neighboring bits of territory in the Indonesian archipelago and is not a member of ASEAN, although it would like to join.

Three crude descriptions follow: First, mainland Southeast Asia is autocratic. Second, maritime Southeast Asia is semi-democratic—a middle or mixed position reflected in the balance between the two smallest sea-linked states by population, autocratic Brunei and democratic Timor-Leste. Third, ASEAN’s membership tilts authoritarian, being six-tenths autocratic, four-tenths semi-democratic, and zero tenths democratic by Freedom House standards.

China’s Role: ‘Stability’ Over Democracy

How should China and its strategy be factored into these comparisons? Is geography destiny? Xi Jinping and his advisors would like their Southeast Asian counterparts to think so. Consider Beijing’s proposal for an ASEAN-China Community of Common Destiny. Does “community of common destiny” express China’s empathy, its presumption, or its intention to possess and preempt? Beijing wants its Southeast Asian neighbors to treat the idea of sharing a community as reassuring proof of how much and how sincerely China cares about them and their region. But a common destiny precludes divergent scenarios and destinations. If China’s destiny is to remain a party-state dictatorship under one leader for life, does Beijing want that same fate to encompass the rest of Southeast Asia? Does it strive to “mainlandize” the entire region by reinforcing top-down rule in “Not Free” Southeast Asia and making the “Partly Free” maritime states “Not Free” as well?

China is not evangelically despotic toward its neighbors in an ideological sense. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is an unexportable mishmash—oxymoronic in theory, contingent in practice, and parochial by its very name. As a candidate for travel beyond the PRC, it lacks legs. Nor is China counting on converting Southeast Asians into loyal fans of a Chinese model. Beijing is vigorously trying to bolster its soft power and incentivize its neighbors to acknowledge and join a Chinese sphere of regional influence voluntarily. The ASEAN states collectively are already China’s largest trading partner and vice versa. But if public diplomacy and economic embraces fail, it is fatalism, not communism, that Beijing is betting on.

Shorn of all pretense, Xi Jinping’s hope is that China’s southern neighbors will look at a map and give up. Why? Because, as the PRC’s current top diplomat Yang Jiechi famously told his ASEAN counterparts in 2010, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.” As if big China were saying to its small neighbors: Our common destiny is to experience and accept the disparity between us, for we and you are destined to remain unequal, whether you like it or not. Take the South China Sea. We—the PRC—were always destined to absorb nearly all of that body of water based on Chinese sovereignty “formed over the course of over two thousand years,” to quote Jiechi in 2016.

The South China Sea is not lebensraum. It is not viewed in Beijing the way Berlin saw Poland in August 1939. Nevertheless, Xi’s China continues to manufacture destiny with Chinese characteristics in the heartwater of Southeast Asia by creating maritime facts on the water that Southeast Asians cannot reverse. These include China’s forcible possession of land features claimed by ASEAN’s littoral states; its conversion of those features into military bases from which it can threaten the region; and its orchestration of at-sea collisions, near-collisions, encirclements, and swarmings to stop Southeast Asians from fishing or from lifting undersea oil and gas even within their own Exclusive Economic Zones, all in clear violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Beijing hopes that someday its control over the South China Sea and the land features it has weaponized there will be “just a fact” that ASEAN’s members will have had to accept, their lack of China’s size and strength having convinced them that they have no choice but to kowtow. Rather than trying to seed the region with despotisms in China’s image, Beijing prefers to encourage Southeast Asian fatalism, and with it the passivity and resignation to subservience that sheer necessity would imply.

Although China’s political template is authoritarian, Xi is not an evangelist for autocracy in Southeast Asia. If, as has been claimed, Xi’s China is “ideologically bankrupt,” it has no surplus in ideas to spend convincing the world to mimic its doctrine. As exportable advice, the formula that Beijing does represent—regime legitimation by economic performance—is more pragmatic than ideological. There are, nevertheless, three ways in which Chinese foreign policy in Southeast Asia affects, and is affected by, the more despotic character of ASEAN’s mainland compared with its maritime member states.

As it seeks to influence its neighbors and the world beyond, Xi’s China may be ideologically promiscuous. But Beijing does love stability. When Adam Prezorskwi described democracy as “institutionalized uncertainty,” he noted its potentially beneficial effect. The unpredictability of electoral outcomes in a democratic system is stabilizing insofar as it motivates a losing candidate not to turn against the system but rather to run again within it. The chance of victory—positive uncertainty—may warrant another try.

But institutionalized uncertainty is anathema to the Communist Party of China. The power and authority of the CPC under a could-be leader for life supplies the institutionalized certainty that a stable dictatorship needs—or thinks it needs—to survive. Rapid economic growth and the systematic forestalling of civil society in China continue at least to postpone recourse to another Tiananmen massacre. In roughly comparable ways, institutionalized repression in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam has helped keep those dictatorships stable—so far. Beijing’s faith in the stabilizing power of institutionalized certainty makes dealing with foreign despots a subjectively rational choice. And doing so can at least simplify Chinese diplomacy. Democracies have more actors who need to be taken into account, including critics of China whose barbs are protected speech.

Consider Myanmar. Given Beijing’s economic and strategic stake in using Myanmar as a way station for greater Chinese access to the Indian Ocean, Xi is probably furious that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has rendered Myanmar unstable and unpredictable. The general’s regime is not innately pro-China. But Beijing likely calculates that a democratic alternative to military rule could jeopardize China’s position even more. In the days immediately following the Tatmadaw’s seizure of power, Beijing did not even acknowledge that a coup had taken place, calling it a mere “cabinet reshuffle” and blocking the UN Security Council from criticizing what had occurred. Inside Myanmar, anti-China protests ensued, with accusations stemming from rumors that China might even have encouraged the coup due to its own despotic character and inclination. The rumors sound unfounded, but the fact that they circulated among democracy-minded opponents of the junta could only reinforce Beijing’s preference for military rule.

Xi’s China craves praise. Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomats in Southeast Asia have not been shy about urging and thus implicitly requiring recipients of Chinese “gifts,” including vaccines for local use against the COVID-19 virus, to publicly thank China for its generosity—preferably in profuse terms. In a democracy that values personal worth more than hierarchical deference and obligatory gratitude, kowtowing may be unpopular. In contrast, under a despot, obligatory upward fawning may be normal and thus more easily performed to please a foreign donor. An authoritarian patron may welcome such expressions of fealty as signs of submission. In addition, China’s often visceral dismissal of foreign criticism, compared with the normality of critique in democratic states, would suggest that Beijing prefers to deal with leaders of governments that enforce gratitude for reasons of material dependence on China, as opposed to those who refuse to self-censor. Looking back and forward toward the future, China’s history as a presumptuous empire and its Xi-led quest for “rejuvenation” to recover former glory, before its “century of humiliation” by the West, are not conducive to comportment as a Westphalian state dealing on a basis of equality with other states.

Third and finally, if authoritarian China is about product with little regard for process, whereas democratic society reverses those priorities, it stands to reason that China’s policymakers may, other things being equal, prefer to partner with autocratic heads of state who can get things done, never mind how.

Pushing Back and Looking Forward

Deterministically structural explanations of China’s influence in Southeast Asia—size, proximity, a magnetic economy—overlook the human factor: the capacity of the region’s people and leaders to question and reject dependence on tectonic conditions that stack the deck in China’s favor. To Beijing’s likely chagrin, that capacity is amply evident in the opinions of elite-level Southeast Asians who follow their countries’ foreign affairs. The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s consecutive annual surveys of the views of these individuals have revealed their rising mistrust of China and, conversely, their rising trust of the United States.

Sampled in 2018, these elites mistrusted China and the United States in equal measure. In that year, 52 percent had little to no confidence that China would “do the right thing” in world affairs, while 51 percent said the same thing about the United States. But in 2019 and 2020, that pox on both houses has consistently and markedly evolved in China’s disfavor. By 2020, 63 percent of the Southeast Asian respondents mistrusted China, compared with 31 percent who mistrusted America. If that shift seems odd in light of the destabilizing idiosyncrasies of Donald Trump, it should be noted that the 2020 survey was conducted late in the final year of his presidency and the questions were about what China and the United States could be expected to do in the future. China’s hope for loyal neighbors received a further blow in the answers to a question about whether ASEAN, were it forced to align itself with one of the two big rivals, should side with China or with the United States. Although 39 percent of the respondents opted for China, 62 percent chose the United States.

Opinions are malleable. The popularities of China and the United States will fluctuate in tandem with future events. Although the survey research cited above has portrayed China as untrustworthy, expansionists in Beijing could take comfort in the data on Southeast Asian perceptions of relative power as a matter of fact, trustworthiness aside. Asked in 2020 which country or regional organization (such as ASEAN or the European Union) was the most influential economic power in Southeast Asia, 76 percent said China. Merely 7 percent named America. China won as well, though by a less overwhelming margin, when the same question was asked regarding political and strategic influence. That China is most consequential in those regards garnered 49 percent agreement, compared with 30 percent who thought the United States fitted that description. In effect, the survey inadvertently endorsed China’s cultivation of acquiescent fatalism in Southeast Asia—destiny over opportunity, realpolitik over moralpolitik—to the marginal advantage of Beijing.

China is not significantly or consistently more or less popular in mainland Southeast Asia than it is in the maritime part of the region. Mistrust of China, for example, is highest in mainland Vietnam and in the maritime Philippines, albeit for different reasons. The Vietnamese remember their history of resistance to domination by China and resent its current bullying in the South China Sea. The latter behavior also angers Filipinos, whose own post-colonial history has tended, with exceptions, to involve accommodation with the United States. But the existence of a structural straitjacket that a Sinocentric understanding of “common destiny” would imply is more evident in the countries located closer to China that are accordingly less able to ignore their huge, overbearing, and censorial neighbor.

China is not willfully spreading autocracy in Southeast Asia. China’s relations with its neighbors are motivated by interest not ideology. With the stark exception of Vietnam, however, one can envision an authoritarian symbiosis of sorts developing between despotic China and potential satellite despotisms along its southern land border. Myanmar could become a test case in this context. If the junta crushes the opposition, if ASEAN does little more than slap the wrist of its murderous member, and if Western outrage drives the Tatmadaw into China’s arms, the growth of a Chinese sphere of influence based on authoritarian connivance could someday even split ASEAN roughly into its northwestern-subcontinental and southeastern-archipelagic parts.

Nevertheless, at least for now, the bravery of the martyred Ma Kyal Sin and her co-protestors in Myanmar, and of their counterparts in Thailand protesting against their own military regime, evokes, at least for now, a less despotic and subordinated future for Southeast Asia. Authoritarian instability is not an oxymoron. China’s own domestic stability and prosperity are not guaranteed. Its soft power deficit is real, and its overreaching under Xi Jinping could continue to vindicate Southeast Asian distrust. In the months and years to come, major outside actors—the United States, Japan, and India among others—could work with autonomy-seeking Southeast Asian states to slow the Chinese juggernaut in Southeast Asia.

A fresh wave of democratization in Southeast Asia is not on the horizon. But the destiny of even the already undemocratic mainland portion of Southeast Asia is not—not yet at least—made in Beijing.

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The Role of the Special Envoy

As the Biden administration begins to review policy towards North Korea in earnest, King’s book and perspectives are particularly timely. Drawing on over a decade of experience, King explains how the role of the special envoy provides a unique opportunity to influence the policy agenda on human rights. As a senior member within the U.S. State Department, the envoy is in a position to both elevate the importance of rights violations to policymakers in Washington and provide feedback on how policy decisions impact the situation on the ground.     

King outlines several avenues where U.S. policymakers can increase pressure on North Korea to address the ongoing human rights crisis in the country. Predominantly among them is the recommendation to support the work on human rights already done by the UN and UN agencies, such as the reporting of Special Rapporteur Tomás Quintana.

“North Korea is very sensitive about its international legitimacy,” King notes. “Working through the UN and with UN agencies gives greater validity and acceptability to the human rights issues and puts greater pressure on North Korea to follow international norms.”

King’s other recommendations center more directly on the people of North Korea. He urges ongoing support for initiatives and agreements that foster access to information and proper distribution of resources and aid for North Koreans within the country along with freedom of movement for those who are attempting to leave and face crossing hostile borders into China. 

Responsibilities in Seoul

Speaking as King’s counterpart and colleague in South Korea, Jung-Hoon Lee echoed the need for visibility and accountability — both globally and in South Korea — for the DPRK's human rights crisis. “In the public eye and the global context, the human rights condition in North Korea is not very familiar. Why? There’s no access. The North Korean society is completely cocooned. There are terrible human rights conditions in other parts of the world, but there is access in those cases to see what is going on. In North Korea, there are only testimonials. There are no pictures or documentaries of the gulags and atrocities. That’s why it is so important that we keep raising this issue.”

For Lee, this means working with and through many of the same channels that King points to, such as the UN, and recognizing as a global community the scale of the crimes against humanity being committed.

But it also means accepting responsibilities closer to home. Lee firmly rejects the opinion raised by the South Korean Foreign Minister that refocusing on North Korean human rights and reappointing an ambassador to fill Lee’s now-vacant position is “useless.” Such indifference towards human rights issues in North Korea is damaging, warns Lee, citing the scrutiny South Korea suffered during the recent Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearings before the U.S. Congress.

The Road Towards Accountability

Human rights are only one facet of U.S. policy toward North Korea, but we undermine the overall relationship with the North if the United States abandons human rights in pursuit of security or economic goals, writes King in his book. "Policy toward North Korea involves interrelated issues that we frequently separate for analytical purposes or because they are dealt with in different ways or by different means. But these issues are interconnected, and they are not really separable."

Ultimately, any meaningful action to address North Korea's human rights violations will require coordinated efforts from international organizations, national governments, and civic organizations. In the third and final part of the Korea Program’s spring 2021 series on human rights in North Korea, forthcoming on May 20, leaders from the private sector will discuss the challenges of bringing together independent actors and organizations to raise awareness and call for accountability in North Korea. Registration for the event is open to the public.  

This op-ed by Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Charles Crabtree was originally published in The Hill.

Any power transition produces policy casualties. In the United States, this might be particularly true as an incoming administration often differentiates itself from the incumbent by quickly announcing new policies and the abandonment of old ones. This is easier to do regarding domestic policy than foreign policy, where some continuity must be secured, even if serious disagreements exist between the incoming and outgoing administrations. Despite the tendency for administrations to make smaller changes in the realm of foreign policy, it seems that one casualty of the Biden administration will be the concept of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” The administration should learn more about the genealogy of this policy and reassert its commitment to the “free and open” part of the idea.

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The phrase “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) originates from the administration of Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe. In response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure development strategy that reflects China’s expansionist ambitions, Abe and his government weaved together some ideas from prior Liberal Democratic Party governments and labeled them the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in 2016.

With an emphasis on coalition-building to check and balance China’s influence, this strategy had strong security undertones, which made Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries nervous. Fully aware of the need to get ASEAN countries on board, the Abe government softened the edges of the strategy by renaming it a “vision,” shifting away from the emphasis on security components and offering a more friendly tone to the Belt and Road Initiative. Backed up by Japan’s supportive engagement with Belt and Road activities, this softer version became a hit in Southeast Asia, with various countries claiming authorship for it — and even China did not register a strong objection to it.

The 2018 FOIP vision has three pillars: promotion of rule of law, freedom of navigation, and free trade; economic prosperity, and peace and stability. The first pillar is particularly important, as it distinguishes FOIP from China’s competing strategy.

Abe promoted FOIP not only in Asia but also in the U.S. Leveraging the warm personal relationship with his American counterpart, Abe tried to sell the strategy to the Trump administration as an effective way to moderate if not fully counter Belt and Road. Trump’s foreign policy team adopted this concept, using it to slow China’s expansion in the Pacific, Asia  and even East Africa. Eventually, the U.S. government began using the FOIP language frequently and placed it at the center of its anti-China foreign policy.

As the Biden administration takes over, it is understandable that its experienced foreign policy team, with a focus on returning to multilateral engagements and moderating anti-China rhetoric, would hesitate to quickly adopt FOIP, which may have acquired strong anti-China connotations in American foreign policy circles. In line with this, President-elect Biden so far has preferred the phrase “a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region” instead. This has deepened existing concerns in Asia, particularly in Japan, that Biden will be soft on China.

Correspondingly, Japan’s Suga administration, which came to power in mid-September, has faced criticism that it is softer on China than the Abe administration. This concern came to the fore in November, as the Suga administration routinely started using the language “secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.” Another precipitating event was a recent press conference in which Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi did not immediately counter Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s prickly comments about the Senkaku islands.

Foreign policy experts, led by Yuichi Hosoya at Keio University, have argued vigorously that this language change signals a weaker commitment to the core principles of FOIP. If “free and open” is replaced by “secure and prosperous,” they contend, the whole vision becomes meaningless — and this shift will be remembered as a moment when Japan abandoned its commitment to the international order, undergirded by democracy and freedom, in favor of China’s vision of a “secure and prosperous” region that prioritizes development and stability.

Realizing the potential impact of this shift, the Suga administration quickly backtracked and resumed using “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” FOIP is back in Japan, which signals Japan’s continuing resolve to promote the international liberal order.

The Biden administration also should consider readopting “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” It’s understandable that Biden would want to move away from a strategic frame used by the Trump administration. There are certainly many of President Trump’s phrases that the Biden administration should drop, such as “America First” and “China virus.” But FOIP was not a vision created by anyone in the Trump administration. It was launched by Japan’s Abe administration and, after some modification, accepted by many Asian countries, arguably even by China.

Biden’s foreign policy likely will place greater emphasis on human rights and democracy than did Trump’s. Vis-à-vis China, this would mean that the U.S. will more vocally criticize human rights violations in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and elsewhere, and that trade negotiations will proceed with more civility. Given this, it would be inconsistent for the Biden administration to replace “free and open” with “secure and prosperous” in talking about the Indo-Pacific region. 

While there is some ambiguity about the concrete policies that accompany the admittedly underspecified FOIP vision, the Biden foreign policy team would be wise to readopt FOIP, bearing in mind an important fact: It was not Trump’s idea. If the next U.S. administration drops “free and open,” it will send the wrong message to the world, placing undue weight on Japan’s shoulders as the only major torch-bearer for liberal values in the region, and potentially straining the U.S.-Japan security relationship that must be in lockstep to moderate China’s ambitions.

This article by Kiyoteru Tsutsui was originally published by Nikkei Asia.

This was supposed to be the year that Japan would show the world that it is back.

The last few decades have seen Japan lose its prominence on the world stage, losing the lion's share of international attention to China. With the 2020 Summer Olympics as the focal point, however, Japan had planned on showcasing its technological advances, cultural assets, economic affluence, and social stability and efficiency, to dispel the notion that it has faded as an international power.

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COVID-19 changed everything. The outbreak in the Diamond Princess cruise ship in early February alerted the Japanese public to the power of the virus, and then the death of the famous comedian Ken Shimura in late March brought home its lethal impact. The early COVID domino saw K-12 schools closing on Feb. 27 and the Olympics postponed on Mar. 24. Quickly, tourism declined and the economy slumped as supply chains and production lines were disrupted and consumers mostly stayed home following emergency declarations.

Somewhat surprisingly, the number of cases did not grow exponentially in Japan as it did in the U.S. and Europe. Initially, a conspiracy theory was floated that the government was manipulating the numbers to leave open the possibility for the Olympics to take place, and soon the dominant narrative was that long-standing hygiene practices in Japan of wearing face masks and washing hands were the main reasons for the low number of cases. Despite the recent surge, the number of new cases in Japan has remained two digits below that in the U.S., and the country has avoided the worst of the virus's impact.

Yet, the public gave the government little credit for Japan's relative success. While the legislative measures and guidelines likely helped contain the spread of the virus, some missteps in the distribution of face masks and the economic stimulus package -- confounded by public relations miscalculations -- shaped the public perception that the government does not get what needs to be done.

This, combined with political scandals involving infractions of rules around political funds and elections, put then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on shaky ground by the summer. But it was the recurrence of the same health concern that ended the first Abe administration that forced him to step down again.

After Abe announced his resignation on Aug. 28, jockeying for his successor ensued, and quickly Yoshihide Suga, Abe's right-hand man as Chief Cabinet Secretary, emerged as a near consensus candidate, earning the support of most of the Liberal Democratic Party's major factions. On Sept. 16, Suga succeeded Abe.

Seen as a scrappy, self-made man belonging to no faction and who cares about regular folk, Suga started off with one of the highest approval ratings for any new prime minister. The air was filled with talk of a snap election, with the LDP poised to win big. In the face of continuing corona concerns, Suga decided against it, giving up his best chance of securing his position beyond next fall when he will face an LDP presidential ballot and a parliamentary Lower House election.

In the few months since, Suga has faced some criticisms: his rejection of the appointment of six scholars to the Science Council of Japan -- seen as retaliation for their earlier criticisms of the Abe administration -- drew the ire of the intellectual community, mostly on the left ideologically, and his foreign policy team appeared soft on China, raising concerns among the right-leaning public. Suga's popularity took a major hit in December when, in response to a surge in COVID cases, he was too slow to cancel his signature Go To Travel campaign that was intended to stimulate the economy by encouraging tourism. His approval ratings collapsed, and all of a sudden Suga finds himself fighting for survival.

While these have been the major events that the Japanese public will remember about 2020, what are the three most consequential events that will have a lasting impact on Japan in 2021 and beyond?

First, the end of the Abe era. Becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history is a major accomplishment in itself, but Abe was a transformative leader beyond his longevity. In foreign affairs, Abe strengthened the U.S.-Japan alliance, passing significant laws that enabled Japan to play a greater role and managing his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump better than any major political leaders.

Furthermore, Abe formulated the concept of the free and open Indo-Pacific and developed the Quad, a quadrilateral grouping involving Japan, the U.S., Australia, and India, in the security realm, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade agreements, all as a way to counter China's expansionist ambitions.

Seen at first as an anti-China hawk, Abe soon mended fences politically and established good economic relationships with Beijing, working to develop multilateral frameworks to manage China's peaceful rise. These efforts constituted the first time in its post-World War II history that Japan led the world with a vision to build a world order governed by the rule of law, freedom, and democracy, an important legacy that should live on in the post-Abe era.

In domestic politics, Abe completed the process started by the government formed by the Democratic Party of Japan from 2009 to 2012 to strengthen cabinet's power to execute policies. The era of bureaucrats shaping much of Japan's future has ended, and politicians now pursue their own policies with electoral successes as their mandate. The personnel decision-making capacity was the critical component, and Suga, who was the main architect of the new system, will likely entrench politician-led policymaking.

The recent investigations into Abe-era political scandals, for which Abe himself had to respond to prosecutors, demonstrate the downside of concentration of power in the Prime Minister's office. Yet, his legacies will live on in the institutional frameworks his administration developed.

The second consequential event was COVID, not just for the obvious health and economic impact, but also for the unexpected ways in which it expedited a much needed social transformation in Japan. With the stay-at-home order, many Japanese workers experienced for the first time an extended period of telework and realized that it can be even more effective to work remotely from home.

Most employers also realized that telework is a viable option, especially in utilizing the hidden talents, particularly among women and the elderly, who cannot work regular hours but have much to contribute to the economy. Given the widespread concerns about Japan's work-life balance prompted by major instances of death by overwork, this offers an opportunity for the nation to achieve what the government's work-style reform policies had sought to accomplish.

The changes that COVID-19 has forced on Japan will likely expedite Japan's digital transformation too. Suga's administration has promoted digital transformation to cut meaningless red tape -- symbolized by the requirement for hanko, a personal seal, for official documents -- and to bring a more productive and efficient social system that can handle Japan's inevitable population decline.

This new system will offer customized support for citizens, depending on their personal situations, not just on their standardized demographic backgrounds. For example, elderly citizens can now receive different kinds of care and work opportunities depending on their health and career backgrounds, while children's school records can be used to identify areas of concern such as bullying or domestic abuse. With fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks becoming accessible to many, Japan is poised to achieve these social transformations and offer a model to the world.

Third-most consequential, but still underrated, was the decision to postpone the Olympics by a year. Until it was announced on Mar. 20, various possibilities surfaced from simple cancellation to postponement for two years. Considering that there was no precedent for postponement, this was uncharted territory.

In the end, the 12-month postponement may have been the best-case scenario. It was a gamble, however, since there were serious concerns about the possibility of the world not being ready by the summer of 2021. Now that COVID vaccines have begun to be distributed, things are looking quite promising for the Olympics to take place next year in Tokyo.

Beyond the actual staging of the games and all that will bring to Japan, the Olympics are important for their long term economic and social impact. Recent studies about the impact of the Olympics on a host country document positive economic impacts that can last as long as 20 years after the actual event, especially in tourism.

Japan had already started betting on international tourism as a major national economic focus and succeeded in increasing tourists dramatically until COVID struck. The infrastructure development required for increased tourism has largely been accomplished and had the Olympics been canceled, much of that investment would have been for naught. The economic impact would have been devastating. With the Olympics likely to be held next summer, Japan can still hope to show the world that it is back after all, just as it hoped to do in 2020.