Japan looks for greater global economic role

Yet, domestic economic anxieties are exerting pressure - forcing a realignment of Tokyo's global priorities towards fast-growing emerging market nodes of prosperity.

Out of Japan's reinvigorated relations within the emerging world, China has presented the most immediate and substantial nourishment. Between 2001 and 2008,  Japanese exports to China rose by over 300%. In 2009, Japanese exports to China outpaced those to the US for the first time in Japan's modern economic history.