ABSTRACT
There is another set of questions about the politics of Japan which I frequently find myself being asked, which relates to the role which an economically vigorous and effective Japan might play in the complex and mysterious world of the late 1980s and 1990s. Concern with this question seems to me to relate to two sorts of perception which people commonly have. The first is a feeling-if I can put it as vaguely as that-that a nation which possesses virtually the second largest economy in the world would be unusual if it did not match its economic strength with corresponding levels of military capacity. Is
* Lecture given to the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, London 23 February 1983.
