This past Tuesday, Hillsdale’s Alexander Hamilton society hosted a presentation about Japan, China, and the United States. Zach Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in U.S. strategy in Asia, was the visiting speaker. 

His speech focused on the relationship between Japan and the United States and the importance of their alliance historically and in the present day.

“1990s literature framed Japan as the United States’s number one enemy,” Cooper said. “The worry was that Japan was jumping in front of the United States, and it was this increasingly adversarial relationship.”

Today, the relationship is different, said Cooper.

“Japan is the most important ally to the United States by quite a bit,” Cooper said, “they are the only country with the same interests and desires as the United States, and are equally as capable of committing to these things as the United States.”

He focused on Japan being the best ally for the U.S. in four categories: Security, Economics, Technology, and Global Government.

“There has been a pretty remarkable shift coming from Japan within the past two years when it comes to matters of security, trade, and values within the government,” Cooper noted, arguing that this makes them a good ally for the U.S.

Conner Bolanos, senior and president of the Alexander Hamilton Society said the Alexander Hamilton Society board was interested in bringing a new perspective to campus through Cooper.

“Japan is this kind of overshadowed, overlooked ally,” Bolanos said, “and Dr. Cooper really focuses on Japan and Asiatic strategy, and with China being, I think, the biggest geo-political challenge to the U.S. in the coming years, he provides Hillsdale with a different perspective and a different outlook than we usually get here on campus.”

For many students, the main take-away from the speech was the importance of Japan as an ally to the United States.

“I had never thought before about how essential Japan is to the U.S., but, like Dr. Cooper said, it is really clear that they are our biggest ally–even bigger than Britain, because they do not have the technological or, really, the military capacity that Japan now has,” freshman and Alexander Hamilton Society board member Marc Ayers said. 

“This is an issue that I think a lot about, and I was interested in learning more,” said freshman Porter Jihaad, “it is interesting to consider how much of an important ally Japan is to the United States and our fight against China.”

Ultimately, Bolanos hopes that students walk away with a better idea of international relations and are better informed on the alliance between the United States and Japan.

“We focus a lot on NATO and on Europe, and we study Western Civilization and the classics, so that’s where our attention is drawn to,” he said, “but if the United States wants to deal with these regional threats–whether it be Russia, or, in this case, China–the United States needs to work with regional allies like Japan.”