Why Japan and the G-7 Need Each Other

Joshua W. Walker, Hidetoshi Azuma

Global Governance, Asia

Shinzo Abe understands the need for preserving the international order.

This year’s G-7 summit in Ise-Shima, Japan promises to be historic. Indeed, Barack Obama guaranteed it by announcing his plans to be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima after the G-7 summit on May 27, to pay tribute to one of the most impactful events in modern human history: the use of an atomic bomb. The significance and symbolism of Obama’s scheduled visit is meant to promote global nuclear disarmament rather than offering an official apology or opening a painful chapter in war history. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as host will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Obama in a forward-looking embrace of this purpose, confirming the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance at a time of increased politicization and tensions, which threaten an international order established after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the end of World War II.

Tokyo’s position on Obama’s Hiroshima visit also subtly reflects Abe’s drive for global leadership to consolidate the G-7’s emerging mission: global governance to protect and preserve the fragile liberal international order. While the international summit’s raison d’être has been under attack in recent years, Abe has a game plan for restoring G-7 leadership. He looks to unleash his newfound foreign-policy energy later this month, as the world bears witness.

Criticism of the G-7 has become almost cliché in recent years. Ian Bremmer’s “G-zero world” popularly captures the argument that China’s absence in international organizations, especially the G-7, inherently limits its global impact. Indeed, the G-20, which China will host later this year and which includes all other BRICS countries, has become the leading alternative, leading Obama to hail the international gathering as the “premier forum for global economic coordination.” After Russia’s 2014 expulsion, the present G-7 appeared to bolster its internal cohesion among more like-minded member states, a prospect recently shattered by Europe’s own economic maladies and internal divisions.