Elsewhere, the country has been working hard to improve its geopolitical significance. Relations with South Korea have improved through the trilateral treaty with the US. Then there is the defence pact with the UK signed by Kishida and Rishi Sunak in January 2023. Japan’s membership of the “Quad” alongside the US, India and Australia, aimed at cooperation in Indo-Pacific issues, is also a source of pride.

Some believe Japan could potentially play a role in the Middle East conflict too, if only as a mediator. Japan, despite being officially supportive of Israel, has deftly managed to keep its relations with the Arab world intact. Most significant is its hotline to Tehran: Kishida has spoken to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in recent months in an attempt to seek help in defusing the situation in Gaza.

On the other hand, there was something about the pomp and circumstance of the Kishida visit — a marching band, a black-tie dinner — that suggested the image of power and partnership was being overplayed. One of the announcements — that a Japanese astronaut would become the first non-American to walk on the moon, as part of Nasa’s upcoming Artemis missions — looked like a crowd-pleasing novelty.

Kishida has as much reason as Biden to grandstand on the international stage to divert attention from domestic woes. He is still mired in the kickback scandal that beset his party late last year, and he’s never quite regained the public trust he lost when he authorised, at huge public expense, a state funeral for Shinzo Abe.

He, and Japan, have other problems. Despite the recent interest rate hike being broadly welcomed as a step in the right direction for the Japanese economy, the yen remains weak and the country remains hugely indebted. Not everyone has faith that those ambitious plans for increased military expenditure will be possible.

The PM’s image here in Japan is of someone who is well-meaning but clumsy and slow. Considering the readiness with which Japanese prime ministers are pressured into resigning, he seems to be banking a lot on his image as an international statesman — of a reinvigorated nation — securing his power.

It’s a gamble, especially as even if Japan is slowly awakening from decades-long hibernation, it still has a long way to go. And looming over all of Kishida’s efforts — and Biden’s — is the spectre of  the return of Donald Trump. This is so often discussed here that new words have been coined to express its likelihood (“moshi-tora” means “if Trump”). Whatever plans were hatched between Japan and the US could easily be upset by a return of the great disrupter, which is viewed in Tokyo as more likely than the long-term survival of Kishida.

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Philip Patrick is a lecturer at a Tokyo university and a freelance journalist.

@Pbp19Philip

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