ABSTRACT
The 1991 Persian Gulf War was heavily bankrolled by the distant Japanese as well as by the front-line Kuwaitis and Saudis. A century later, in 1892, the Japanese worldview was still of modest account on a global scale, even if Japan’s rush to become one of the imperialist states was about to impinge on the territorial integrity of Korea and China. Expectations for an independent and responsible Japanese global role were, at last, rising to the fore. Hesitant to embrace Western theories, educated Japanese were groping for a worldview incorporating various elements of their past thinking and beginning to anticipate an end to their age of dependency. The emerging Japanese worldview also builds on the lessons of post-war economic success. Observers are awakening to the fact that Japan is a great power, whose perceptions of and policies toward the other great powers are going to play a large role in shaping the new world order.
