DARUSHIMO

Political analysts expect Japan to remain a close American ally, but one that is more assertive and less willing to follow Washington’s lead automatically.

‘This is what happens when you have a government in Japan that must be responsive to public opinion,’ said Daniel C. Sneider, a researcher on East Asia at Stanford University. ‘It will end the habits from decades of a relationship in which Japan didn’t challenge the United States.’

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‘We have been trying to outgrow this old one-party system ever since the collapse of the Berlin Wall,’ said Takeshi Sasaki, a political expert and former president of the University of Tokyo. ‘It took two decades, but we finally made it.’