'In its own business-oriented publications, old attitudes are beginning to resurface in Japan....Japan is ambitious.

'It is surely one of the ironies of history: Fifty years after the surrender of the Imperial Army, Japan finds itself being pressed by some of the same Asian countries it once overran to assert itself politically...Japan has overthrown the U.S. as Asia's dominant trader and investor. Japan's economic ascendance in the region, in fact, has made greater political influence seem inevitable.

'Tokyo...after years of fence sitting, it has stated its desire to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council' (Nikkei Weekly, Tokyo, Jan. 9, 1995, author: Hidenaka Kato).

-- Twentieth Century Watch, April/May 1995.