Fighting fire with fire just doesn’t make sense for a country like Japan, which bears the scars of nuclear weapons and aims to abolish them entirely one day.
Regardless of whether President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden wins the election, it will be crucial that Suga move quickly to reaffirm Japan’s role, as well as the significance of the [U.S.-Japan] alliance.
The responses among many traditional U.S. allies and partners to these twin trends — a more assertive China and a more uncertain U.S. — have been varied.