The two countries promised then to review their agreement on defence co-operation and give Japan a greater role.
This will make Japan a test case of how big countries across the world should handle ageing and population decline.
The interim report goes further, much further, than simply giving Japan a bigger part to play in its own defence.
America sells almost a fifth of its exports to developing Asian countries, Japan a massive 44%, but Europe only 7%.
This would give Japan a trade boost and aid its economic recovery, he said following an EU summit in Brussels.
Take a look at the myriad similarities between the U.S. at the close of the 1990s and Japan a decade earlier.
What others might describe as an art or a skill or even a hobby, is in Japan a way to follow.
In Japan a just-promoted politician was forced (by public opinion) to step down from the cabinet because of his conviction for bribery in the 1970s.
There were the hedge funds that were doing the carry trades where you borrow in the U.S. or Japan a low rate and then you go to Brazil.
But a tough call--such as the one that cost Japan a game against the U.S. in the baseball Classic just as we went to press--will tend to inflame passions anew.
The European Union (EU) should offer Japan a free trade deal to help it recover from the earthquake and tsunami two weeks ago, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
PwC, who seem to be getting a lot of investigation whitewash jobs lately, was almost kicked out of Japan a few years ago for their own involvement in a major fraud.
For example, a U.S. company that receives significant dividends each year from a wholly-owned Japanese subsidiary would no longer pay Japan a 10% withholding tax on dividends. (Some dividends probably will still be taxed at 5%).
After the tsunami and nuclear accident on 11 March in Fukushima, Japan a UNESCO-supported programme raised over 1 million euros to help rebuild schools, while the Kizuna project generated 30, 000 messages of solidarity from children worldwide.
IMF's analysis, is not due to shifts in domestic spending, but to changes in the manufacturing trade of these countries: America has had a widening trade deficit over much of that period, Japan a widening surplus.
Were Tokyo to do otherwise it would be, at best, garnering the fleeting favor of its G-7 allies who are anxious to fob off onto Japan a substantial portion of the billions in new money flows promised to the former Soviet Union.
Other industrialised economies such as the US and eurozone have expressed unease that the weaker yen, which gives Japan a competitive advantage, could be used as an excuse by other exporter nations to intervene directly in the currency markets in order to weaken their own currencies.
Japan is a leading economic partner overall and Abe seeks to reassure its partners, and voters at home, that Japan will remain a major global player.
At her birth in Japan her mother was a Japanese citizen, and after living 18 years in Japan as a dual citizen, Renho opted for Japanese citizenship.
Through years of hard work and saving, Japan built up national assets that were much larger than its debt, a cushion also available to the U.S. Japan has a strong-currency policy, causing much of Japan's savings to stay home.
This sort of presence in a place like Japan symbolizes a specially close business relationship.
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It has announced one deal after another and is discussing a pipeline to Japan and a joint venture in Iran.
With rebuilding from the earthquake a priority, Japan favors a weaker yen.
The IMF is also saying that there is a 15 percent chance of a double dip in the U.S. in 2013, a 25 percent chance of a recession in Japan and a guaranteed recession in southern Europe, with an 80 percent chance at least throughout the entire euro zone, the dominant economy on Earth.
Last year they scored a small victory when Japan agreed a deal with Mexico.
To assist eligible countries in translating the Aichi Targets into NBSAPs before COP11, Japan has established a Japan Biodiversity Fund, while additional funds have been made available through the Global Environment Facility.
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They criticize the U.S. for taking a hard line with Japan, a country that recently celebrated a 50-year security alliance with the U.S., and which hosts the largest American military base in Asia.
The sinking of the Ryou-Un Maru brought about the end of a journey for the rust-stained ship that drifted across the Pacific Ocean as part of a giant debris field generated by a tsunami that struck Japan following a 9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011.
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For a long time, only Japan imposed a more onerous tax rate than the United States.
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