In his remarks, Zelenskyy drew inspiration from Steve Jobs’ famous "How to Live Before You Die" commencement address given at Stanford in 2005.

"This is one of the most famous speeches ever given at Stanford,” he said. “It's about believing in dreams and overcoming the impossible. This is the same as my story. I am just a common guy from a common family from a common industrial town in Eastern Ukraine. Yet here I am today at Stanford, because everything is possible."

He continued, “It is the same for Ukraine. Many people look at us and think that it will be impossible to achieve the goals we hope for. But we know that our critics are wrong. The people of our country love democracy and freedom and will not let threats take those things away. We know that anything is possible."

Looking to the future, Zelenskyy outlined the steps his administration is undertaking to bring increased digitization to Ukraine. These efforts include launching fully electronic passports, moving business and legal services online and expanding the scope of e-goverance. The hope is that this meld of new technology will help curb corruption while simultaneously creating more equitable opportunities and better access to public services for more Ukranians.

Speaking on the ambitious scope of these plans, the president acknowledged, “There will be resistance to the changes and innovations that we are going to make.” Nonetheless, he remains committed to the work ahead of strengthening democratic institutions in Ukraine and building on the progress that has already been made.  “We do not have a ‘Ukrainian Dream,’ yet,” he said. “But we have a ‘Ukrainian Goal’ and a ‘Ukrainian Mission’ to make the future we want for our country.” An edited recording of his remarks is below.

Keeping with Stanford tradition, Zelenskyy took questions from the audience after his prepared remarks. A variety of students and Stanford community members from Russia, Burma, Belarus and beyond had the opportunity to engage the president on a range of issues including U.S.-Ukraine relations, armament sales abroad and concerns over Russian aggression in Crimea and influence Eastern Ukraine. Of particular meaning was Zelensky’s affirmation and support for the democratic movement in Belarus led by Svaitlana Tsikhanouskaya, whom FSI hosted earlier this summer at a faculty roundtable.

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Students and faculty alike were appreciative of the president’s candor and good nature in addressing difficult topics.

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Following the formal remarks, President Zelenskyy and First Lady Zelenska had an opportunity to meet with Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in the Memorial Church Courtyard. Prior to leaving, the First Lady also sat down with leaders and students from Stanford's Office of Accessible Education (OAE), an area of interest she would like to support and better develop in Ukraine.

For FSI, the president’s visit was another affirmation of the special connection between Ukraine and the Stanford community. Since 2016, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law has hosted the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program, which provides a 10-month academic training fellowship in support of mid-career practitioners working actively as policy-makers, legal professionals, entrepreneurs and leaders of civil society organizations in Ukraine.

Speaking to this shared history in his opening introductions, FSI Director Michael McFaul emphasized the crucial need for ongoing support and intellectual investment into Ukraine. “The fight for democracy and independence in Ukraine is one of the most important causes in the world today,” he affirmed. “Not just for Ukrainians, but for all who cherish the ideals of democracy, liberty and sovereignty.”

To President Zelenskyy, McFaul extended a future invitation: “You are always welcome back, either as president or in retirement as a professor.”

“With the classes you offer, I will think about it,” Zelenskyy replied with a smile.

This essay was first published in the political quarterly Democracy Journal. It is part of a four-essay collection, titled The Stakes in Asia, on the future of U.S.-Asian relations. This essay focuses on the nations of Southeast Asia, the three other essays on China, Japan, and South and North Korea. 

Geography and geology are not the same. Of the five mainland countries, four have seacoasts; only Laos is land-locked. All of the six maritime states are entirely or partly archipelagic. But Malaysia and Singapore are subcontinental in that they occupy the southernmost end of peninsular Southeast Asia. A projected three-stranded set of overland railroads connecting Malaysia and Singapore to mainland China, if completed, could socioeconomically enhance their subcontinental character. The strands would run southward from Kunming, the capital city of China’s Yunnan province, through Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam to Bangkok in Thailand and onward through Malaysia to Singapore. Completing these north-south connections has been a priority of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Fears of “mainlandization”—Sinification—have arisen in that context. China’s presence is already amply manifest in the northern parts of Myanmar and Laos, where economic and cultural enclaves have formed around the influxes of tourists and immigrants from the PRC. Expatriate and local Chinese dominate the economy of Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay, where young Ma Kyal Sin died. Mandarin is widely spoken there. If the BRI succeeds, if the north-south tracks are laid and maintained, and if traffic then flourishes back and forth to the mutual “win-win” benefit of China and all of the five Southeast Asian economies along the way, Beijing could further enlarge its footprint in the region.

Could does not mean will. The world economy shrank by more than 4 percent in 2020. Infrastructure is costly, and its returns are long-term. To varying extents in different countries, envisioned connectivity has become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, as governments have closed borders to reduce transmission of the virus and its variants. In 2019-2020, the pace of overseas lending by China’s policy banks slowed, and Chinese spending on megaprojects in the BRI fell to its lowest level ever. China’s latest five-year plan calls for “dual circulation,” abroad as well as at home, but the domestic economy is given priority.

That said, China’s economic growth in 2021 could reach 8 percent and thereby fuel Beijing’s campaign for influence in mainland Southeast Asia. In Laos, for example, aggressive Chinese lenders and corrupt local elites have indebted that country to the point that its lucrative electricity exports may soon be controlled by China. As one of the poorest members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Laos needs those revenues. Majority control over the country’s network of high-voltage power lines could give Beijing leverage that it could wield to ensure that Laos remains a compliant “friend” of China.

As illustrated by the case of China-facing Laos, the distribution of despotism in Southeast Asia tends to reinforce the mainland-maritime divide. “Many have said over the years that ASEAN is a club of dictators,” a Human Rights Watch official observed in 2016.

That harsh judgment is less of an exaggeration than one would wish. According to Freedom House, six of the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are “Not Free”: Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. More than half of ASEAN is despotic by this measure, and of those six authoritarian members, five are on the mainland. The only maritime autocracy is tiny Brunei, an absolute monarchy perched on the coast of Borneo facing the South China Sea. The remaining four ASEAN states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore—are all maritime and rated “Partly Free.” The lone “Free” country in the region is Timor-Leste, which occupies three neighboring bits of territory in the Indonesian archipelago and is not a member of ASEAN, although it would like to join.

Three crude descriptions follow: First, mainland Southeast Asia is autocratic. Second, maritime Southeast Asia is semi-democratic—a middle or mixed position reflected in the balance between the two smallest sea-linked states by population, autocratic Brunei and democratic Timor-Leste. Third, ASEAN’s membership tilts authoritarian, being six-tenths autocratic, four-tenths semi-democratic, and zero tenths democratic by Freedom House standards.

China’s Role: ‘Stability’ Over Democracy

How should China and its strategy be factored into these comparisons? Is geography destiny? Xi Jinping and his advisors would like their Southeast Asian counterparts to think so. Consider Beijing’s proposal for an ASEAN-China Community of Common Destiny. Does “community of common destiny” express China’s empathy, its presumption, or its intention to possess and preempt? Beijing wants its Southeast Asian neighbors to treat the idea of sharing a community as reassuring proof of how much and how sincerely China cares about them and their region. But a common destiny precludes divergent scenarios and destinations. If China’s destiny is to remain a party-state dictatorship under one leader for life, does Beijing want that same fate to encompass the rest of Southeast Asia? Does it strive to “mainlandize” the entire region by reinforcing top-down rule in “Not Free” Southeast Asia and making the “Partly Free” maritime states “Not Free” as well?

China is not evangelically despotic toward its neighbors in an ideological sense. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is an unexportable mishmash—oxymoronic in theory, contingent in practice, and parochial by its very name. As a candidate for travel beyond the PRC, it lacks legs. Nor is China counting on converting Southeast Asians into loyal fans of a Chinese model. Beijing is vigorously trying to bolster its soft power and incentivize its neighbors to acknowledge and join a Chinese sphere of regional influence voluntarily. The ASEAN states collectively are already China’s largest trading partner and vice versa. But if public diplomacy and economic embraces fail, it is fatalism, not communism, that Beijing is betting on.

Shorn of all pretense, Xi Jinping’s hope is that China’s southern neighbors will look at a map and give up. Why? Because, as the PRC’s current top diplomat Yang Jiechi famously told his ASEAN counterparts in 2010, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.” As if big China were saying to its small neighbors: Our common destiny is to experience and accept the disparity between us, for we and you are destined to remain unequal, whether you like it or not. Take the South China Sea. We—the PRC—were always destined to absorb nearly all of that body of water based on Chinese sovereignty “formed over the course of over two thousand years,” to quote Jiechi in 2016.

The South China Sea is not lebensraum. It is not viewed in Beijing the way Berlin saw Poland in August 1939. Nevertheless, Xi’s China continues to manufacture destiny with Chinese characteristics in the heartwater of Southeast Asia by creating maritime facts on the water that Southeast Asians cannot reverse. These include China’s forcible possession of land features claimed by ASEAN’s littoral states; its conversion of those features into military bases from which it can threaten the region; and its orchestration of at-sea collisions, near-collisions, encirclements, and swarmings to stop Southeast Asians from fishing or from lifting undersea oil and gas even within their own Exclusive Economic Zones, all in clear violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Beijing hopes that someday its control over the South China Sea and the land features it has weaponized there will be “just a fact” that ASEAN’s members will have had to accept, their lack of China’s size and strength having convinced them that they have no choice but to kowtow. Rather than trying to seed the region with despotisms in China’s image, Beijing prefers to encourage Southeast Asian fatalism, and with it the passivity and resignation to subservience that sheer necessity would imply.

Although China’s political template is authoritarian, Xi is not an evangelist for autocracy in Southeast Asia. If, as has been claimed, Xi’s China is “ideologically bankrupt,” it has no surplus in ideas to spend convincing the world to mimic its doctrine. As exportable advice, the formula that Beijing does represent—regime legitimation by economic performance—is more pragmatic than ideological. There are, nevertheless, three ways in which Chinese foreign policy in Southeast Asia affects, and is affected by, the more despotic character of ASEAN’s mainland compared with its maritime member states.

As it seeks to influence its neighbors and the world beyond, Xi’s China may be ideologically promiscuous. But Beijing does love stability. When Adam Prezorskwi described democracy as “institutionalized uncertainty,” he noted its potentially beneficial effect. The unpredictability of electoral outcomes in a democratic system is stabilizing insofar as it motivates a losing candidate not to turn against the system but rather to run again within it. The chance of victory—positive uncertainty—may warrant another try.

But institutionalized uncertainty is anathema to the Communist Party of China. The power and authority of the CPC under a could-be leader for life supplies the institutionalized certainty that a stable dictatorship needs—or thinks it needs—to survive. Rapid economic growth and the systematic forestalling of civil society in China continue at least to postpone recourse to another Tiananmen massacre. In roughly comparable ways, institutionalized repression in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam has helped keep those dictatorships stable—so far. Beijing’s faith in the stabilizing power of institutionalized certainty makes dealing with foreign despots a subjectively rational choice. And doing so can at least simplify Chinese diplomacy. Democracies have more actors who need to be taken into account, including critics of China whose barbs are protected speech.

Consider Myanmar. Given Beijing’s economic and strategic stake in using Myanmar as a way station for greater Chinese access to the Indian Ocean, Xi is probably furious that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has rendered Myanmar unstable and unpredictable. The general’s regime is not innately pro-China. But Beijing likely calculates that a democratic alternative to military rule could jeopardize China’s position even more. In the days immediately following the Tatmadaw’s seizure of power, Beijing did not even acknowledge that a coup had taken place, calling it a mere “cabinet reshuffle” and blocking the UN Security Council from criticizing what had occurred. Inside Myanmar, anti-China protests ensued, with accusations stemming from rumors that China might even have encouraged the coup due to its own despotic character and inclination. The rumors sound unfounded, but the fact that they circulated among democracy-minded opponents of the junta could only reinforce Beijing’s preference for military rule.

Xi’s China craves praise. Chinese “wolf warrior” diplomats in Southeast Asia have not been shy about urging and thus implicitly requiring recipients of Chinese “gifts,” including vaccines for local use against the COVID-19 virus, to publicly thank China for its generosity—preferably in profuse terms. In a democracy that values personal worth more than hierarchical deference and obligatory gratitude, kowtowing may be unpopular. In contrast, under a despot, obligatory upward fawning may be normal and thus more easily performed to please a foreign donor. An authoritarian patron may welcome such expressions of fealty as signs of submission. In addition, China’s often visceral dismissal of foreign criticism, compared with the normality of critique in democratic states, would suggest that Beijing prefers to deal with leaders of governments that enforce gratitude for reasons of material dependence on China, as opposed to those who refuse to self-censor. Looking back and forward toward the future, China’s history as a presumptuous empire and its Xi-led quest for “rejuvenation” to recover former glory, before its “century of humiliation” by the West, are not conducive to comportment as a Westphalian state dealing on a basis of equality with other states.

Third and finally, if authoritarian China is about product with little regard for process, whereas democratic society reverses those priorities, it stands to reason that China’s policymakers may, other things being equal, prefer to partner with autocratic heads of state who can get things done, never mind how.

Pushing Back and Looking Forward

Deterministically structural explanations of China’s influence in Southeast Asia—size, proximity, a magnetic economy—overlook the human factor: the capacity of the region’s people and leaders to question and reject dependence on tectonic conditions that stack the deck in China’s favor. To Beijing’s likely chagrin, that capacity is amply evident in the opinions of elite-level Southeast Asians who follow their countries’ foreign affairs. The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s consecutive annual surveys of the views of these individuals have revealed their rising mistrust of China and, conversely, their rising trust of the United States.

Sampled in 2018, these elites mistrusted China and the United States in equal measure. In that year, 52 percent had little to no confidence that China would “do the right thing” in world affairs, while 51 percent said the same thing about the United States. But in 2019 and 2020, that pox on both houses has consistently and markedly evolved in China’s disfavor. By 2020, 63 percent of the Southeast Asian respondents mistrusted China, compared with 31 percent who mistrusted America. If that shift seems odd in light of the destabilizing idiosyncrasies of Donald Trump, it should be noted that the 2020 survey was conducted late in the final year of his presidency and the questions were about what China and the United States could be expected to do in the future. China’s hope for loyal neighbors received a further blow in the answers to a question about whether ASEAN, were it forced to align itself with one of the two big rivals, should side with China or with the United States. Although 39 percent of the respondents opted for China, 62 percent chose the United States.

Opinions are malleable. The popularities of China and the United States will fluctuate in tandem with future events. Although the survey research cited above has portrayed China as untrustworthy, expansionists in Beijing could take comfort in the data on Southeast Asian perceptions of relative power as a matter of fact, trustworthiness aside. Asked in 2020 which country or regional organization (such as ASEAN or the European Union) was the most influential economic power in Southeast Asia, 76 percent said China. Merely 7 percent named America. China won as well, though by a less overwhelming margin, when the same question was asked regarding political and strategic influence. That China is most consequential in those regards garnered 49 percent agreement, compared with 30 percent who thought the United States fitted that description. In effect, the survey inadvertently endorsed China’s cultivation of acquiescent fatalism in Southeast Asia—destiny over opportunity, realpolitik over moralpolitik—to the marginal advantage of Beijing.

China is not significantly or consistently more or less popular in mainland Southeast Asia than it is in the maritime part of the region. Mistrust of China, for example, is highest in mainland Vietnam and in the maritime Philippines, albeit for different reasons. The Vietnamese remember their history of resistance to domination by China and resent its current bullying in the South China Sea. The latter behavior also angers Filipinos, whose own post-colonial history has tended, with exceptions, to involve accommodation with the United States. But the existence of a structural straitjacket that a Sinocentric understanding of “common destiny” would imply is more evident in the countries located closer to China that are accordingly less able to ignore their huge, overbearing, and censorial neighbor.

China is not willfully spreading autocracy in Southeast Asia. China’s relations with its neighbors are motivated by interest not ideology. With the stark exception of Vietnam, however, one can envision an authoritarian symbiosis of sorts developing between despotic China and potential satellite despotisms along its southern land border. Myanmar could become a test case in this context. If the junta crushes the opposition, if ASEAN does little more than slap the wrist of its murderous member, and if Western outrage drives the Tatmadaw into China’s arms, the growth of a Chinese sphere of influence based on authoritarian connivance could someday even split ASEAN roughly into its northwestern-subcontinental and southeastern-archipelagic parts.

Nevertheless, at least for now, the bravery of the martyred Ma Kyal Sin and her co-protestors in Myanmar, and of their counterparts in Thailand protesting against their own military regime, evokes, at least for now, a less despotic and subordinated future for Southeast Asia. Authoritarian instability is not an oxymoron. China’s own domestic stability and prosperity are not guaranteed. Its soft power deficit is real, and its overreaching under Xi Jinping could continue to vindicate Southeast Asian distrust. In the months and years to come, major outside actors—the United States, Japan, and India among others—could work with autonomy-seeking Southeast Asian states to slow the Chinese juggernaut in Southeast Asia.

A fresh wave of democratization in Southeast Asia is not on the horizon. But the destiny of even the already undemocratic mainland portion of Southeast Asia is not—not yet at least—made in Beijing.

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The Role of the Special Envoy

As the Biden administration begins to review policy towards North Korea in earnest, King’s book and perspectives are particularly timely. Drawing on over a decade of experience, King explains how the role of the special envoy provides a unique opportunity to influence the policy agenda on human rights. As a senior member within the U.S. State Department, the envoy is in a position to both elevate the importance of rights violations to policymakers in Washington and provide feedback on how policy decisions impact the situation on the ground.     

King outlines several avenues where U.S. policymakers can increase pressure on North Korea to address the ongoing human rights crisis in the country. Predominantly among them is the recommendation to support the work on human rights already done by the UN and UN agencies, such as the reporting of Special Rapporteur Tomás Quintana.

“North Korea is very sensitive about its international legitimacy,” King notes. “Working through the UN and with UN agencies gives greater validity and acceptability to the human rights issues and puts greater pressure on North Korea to follow international norms.”

King’s other recommendations center more directly on the people of North Korea. He urges ongoing support for initiatives and agreements that foster access to information and proper distribution of resources and aid for North Koreans within the country along with freedom of movement for those who are attempting to leave and face crossing hostile borders into China. 

Responsibilities in Seoul

Speaking as King’s counterpart and colleague in South Korea, Jung-Hoon Lee echoed the need for visibility and accountability — both globally and in South Korea — for the DPRK's human rights crisis. “In the public eye and the global context, the human rights condition in North Korea is not very familiar. Why? There’s no access. The North Korean society is completely cocooned. There are terrible human rights conditions in other parts of the world, but there is access in those cases to see what is going on. In North Korea, there are only testimonials. There are no pictures or documentaries of the gulags and atrocities. That’s why it is so important that we keep raising this issue.”

For Lee, this means working with and through many of the same channels that King points to, such as the UN, and recognizing as a global community the scale of the crimes against humanity being committed.

But it also means accepting responsibilities closer to home. Lee firmly rejects the opinion raised by the South Korean Foreign Minister that refocusing on North Korean human rights and reappointing an ambassador to fill Lee’s now-vacant position is “useless.” Such indifference towards human rights issues in North Korea is damaging, warns Lee, citing the scrutiny South Korea suffered during the recent Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearings before the U.S. Congress.

The Road Towards Accountability

Human rights are only one facet of U.S. policy toward North Korea, but we undermine the overall relationship with the North if the United States abandons human rights in pursuit of security or economic goals, writes King in his book. "Policy toward North Korea involves interrelated issues that we frequently separate for analytical purposes or because they are dealt with in different ways or by different means. But these issues are interconnected, and they are not really separable."

Ultimately, any meaningful action to address North Korea's human rights violations will require coordinated efforts from international organizations, national governments, and civic organizations. In the third and final part of the Korea Program’s spring 2021 series on human rights in North Korea, forthcoming on May 20, leaders from the private sector will discuss the challenges of bringing together independent actors and organizations to raise awareness and call for accountability in North Korea. Registration for the event is open to the public.  

This op-ed by Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Charles Crabtree was originally published in The Hill.

Any power transition produces policy casualties. In the United States, this might be particularly true as an incoming administration often differentiates itself from the incumbent by quickly announcing new policies and the abandonment of old ones. This is easier to do regarding domestic policy than foreign policy, where some continuity must be secured, even if serious disagreements exist between the incoming and outgoing administrations. Despite the tendency for administrations to make smaller changes in the realm of foreign policy, it seems that one casualty of the Biden administration will be the concept of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” The administration should learn more about the genealogy of this policy and reassert its commitment to the “free and open” part of the idea.

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The phrase “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) originates from the administration of Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe. In response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure development strategy that reflects China’s expansionist ambitions, Abe and his government weaved together some ideas from prior Liberal Democratic Party governments and labeled them the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in 2016.

With an emphasis on coalition-building to check and balance China’s influence, this strategy had strong security undertones, which made Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries nervous. Fully aware of the need to get ASEAN countries on board, the Abe government softened the edges of the strategy by renaming it a “vision,” shifting away from the emphasis on security components and offering a more friendly tone to the Belt and Road Initiative. Backed up by Japan’s supportive engagement with Belt and Road activities, this softer version became a hit in Southeast Asia, with various countries claiming authorship for it — and even China did not register a strong objection to it.

The 2018 FOIP vision has three pillars: promotion of rule of law, freedom of navigation, and free trade; economic prosperity, and peace and stability. The first pillar is particularly important, as it distinguishes FOIP from China’s competing strategy.

Abe promoted FOIP not only in Asia but also in the U.S. Leveraging the warm personal relationship with his American counterpart, Abe tried to sell the strategy to the Trump administration as an effective way to moderate if not fully counter Belt and Road. Trump’s foreign policy team adopted this concept, using it to slow China’s expansion in the Pacific, Asia  and even East Africa. Eventually, the U.S. government began using the FOIP language frequently and placed it at the center of its anti-China foreign policy.

As the Biden administration takes over, it is understandable that its experienced foreign policy team, with a focus on returning to multilateral engagements and moderating anti-China rhetoric, would hesitate to quickly adopt FOIP, which may have acquired strong anti-China connotations in American foreign policy circles. In line with this, President-elect Biden so far has preferred the phrase “a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region” instead. This has deepened existing concerns in Asia, particularly in Japan, that Biden will be soft on China.

Correspondingly, Japan’s Suga administration, which came to power in mid-September, has faced criticism that it is softer on China than the Abe administration. This concern came to the fore in November, as the Suga administration routinely started using the language “secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.” Another precipitating event was a recent press conference in which Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi did not immediately counter Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s prickly comments about the Senkaku islands.

Foreign policy experts, led by Yuichi Hosoya at Keio University, have argued vigorously that this language change signals a weaker commitment to the core principles of FOIP. If “free and open” is replaced by “secure and prosperous,” they contend, the whole vision becomes meaningless — and this shift will be remembered as a moment when Japan abandoned its commitment to the international order, undergirded by democracy and freedom, in favor of China’s vision of a “secure and prosperous” region that prioritizes development and stability.

Realizing the potential impact of this shift, the Suga administration quickly backtracked and resumed using “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” FOIP is back in Japan, which signals Japan’s continuing resolve to promote the international liberal order.

The Biden administration also should consider readopting “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” It’s understandable that Biden would want to move away from a strategic frame used by the Trump administration. There are certainly many of President Trump’s phrases that the Biden administration should drop, such as “America First” and “China virus.” But FOIP was not a vision created by anyone in the Trump administration. It was launched by Japan’s Abe administration and, after some modification, accepted by many Asian countries, arguably even by China.

Biden’s foreign policy likely will place greater emphasis on human rights and democracy than did Trump’s. Vis-à-vis China, this would mean that the U.S. will more vocally criticize human rights violations in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and elsewhere, and that trade negotiations will proceed with more civility. Given this, it would be inconsistent for the Biden administration to replace “free and open” with “secure and prosperous” in talking about the Indo-Pacific region. 

While there is some ambiguity about the concrete policies that accompany the admittedly underspecified FOIP vision, the Biden foreign policy team would be wise to readopt FOIP, bearing in mind an important fact: It was not Trump’s idea. If the next U.S. administration drops “free and open,” it will send the wrong message to the world, placing undue weight on Japan’s shoulders as the only major torch-bearer for liberal values in the region, and potentially straining the U.S.-Japan security relationship that must be in lockstep to moderate China’s ambitions.

This article by Kiyoteru Tsutsui was originally published by Nikkei Asia.

This was supposed to be the year that Japan would show the world that it is back.

The last few decades have seen Japan lose its prominence on the world stage, losing the lion's share of international attention to China. With the 2020 Summer Olympics as the focal point, however, Japan had planned on showcasing its technological advances, cultural assets, economic affluence, and social stability and efficiency, to dispel the notion that it has faded as an international power.

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COVID-19 changed everything. The outbreak in the Diamond Princess cruise ship in early February alerted the Japanese public to the power of the virus, and then the death of the famous comedian Ken Shimura in late March brought home its lethal impact. The early COVID domino saw K-12 schools closing on Feb. 27 and the Olympics postponed on Mar. 24. Quickly, tourism declined and the economy slumped as supply chains and production lines were disrupted and consumers mostly stayed home following emergency declarations.

Somewhat surprisingly, the number of cases did not grow exponentially in Japan as it did in the U.S. and Europe. Initially, a conspiracy theory was floated that the government was manipulating the numbers to leave open the possibility for the Olympics to take place, and soon the dominant narrative was that long-standing hygiene practices in Japan of wearing face masks and washing hands were the main reasons for the low number of cases. Despite the recent surge, the number of new cases in Japan has remained two digits below that in the U.S., and the country has avoided the worst of the virus's impact.

Yet, the public gave the government little credit for Japan's relative success. While the legislative measures and guidelines likely helped contain the spread of the virus, some missteps in the distribution of face masks and the economic stimulus package -- confounded by public relations miscalculations -- shaped the public perception that the government does not get what needs to be done.

This, combined with political scandals involving infractions of rules around political funds and elections, put then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on shaky ground by the summer. But it was the recurrence of the same health concern that ended the first Abe administration that forced him to step down again.

After Abe announced his resignation on Aug. 28, jockeying for his successor ensued, and quickly Yoshihide Suga, Abe's right-hand man as Chief Cabinet Secretary, emerged as a near consensus candidate, earning the support of most of the Liberal Democratic Party's major factions. On Sept. 16, Suga succeeded Abe.

Seen as a scrappy, self-made man belonging to no faction and who cares about regular folk, Suga started off with one of the highest approval ratings for any new prime minister. The air was filled with talk of a snap election, with the LDP poised to win big. In the face of continuing corona concerns, Suga decided against it, giving up his best chance of securing his position beyond next fall when he will face an LDP presidential ballot and a parliamentary Lower House election.

In the few months since, Suga has faced some criticisms: his rejection of the appointment of six scholars to the Science Council of Japan -- seen as retaliation for their earlier criticisms of the Abe administration -- drew the ire of the intellectual community, mostly on the left ideologically, and his foreign policy team appeared soft on China, raising concerns among the right-leaning public. Suga's popularity took a major hit in December when, in response to a surge in COVID cases, he was too slow to cancel his signature Go To Travel campaign that was intended to stimulate the economy by encouraging tourism. His approval ratings collapsed, and all of a sudden Suga finds himself fighting for survival.

While these have been the major events that the Japanese public will remember about 2020, what are the three most consequential events that will have a lasting impact on Japan in 2021 and beyond?

First, the end of the Abe era. Becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history is a major accomplishment in itself, but Abe was a transformative leader beyond his longevity. In foreign affairs, Abe strengthened the U.S.-Japan alliance, passing significant laws that enabled Japan to play a greater role and managing his relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump better than any major political leaders.

Furthermore, Abe formulated the concept of the free and open Indo-Pacific and developed the Quad, a quadrilateral grouping involving Japan, the U.S., Australia, and India, in the security realm, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade agreements, all as a way to counter China's expansionist ambitions.

Seen at first as an anti-China hawk, Abe soon mended fences politically and established good economic relationships with Beijing, working to develop multilateral frameworks to manage China's peaceful rise. These efforts constituted the first time in its post-World War II history that Japan led the world with a vision to build a world order governed by the rule of law, freedom, and democracy, an important legacy that should live on in the post-Abe era.

In domestic politics, Abe completed the process started by the government formed by the Democratic Party of Japan from 2009 to 2012 to strengthen cabinet's power to execute policies. The era of bureaucrats shaping much of Japan's future has ended, and politicians now pursue their own policies with electoral successes as their mandate. The personnel decision-making capacity was the critical component, and Suga, who was the main architect of the new system, will likely entrench politician-led policymaking.

The recent investigations into Abe-era political scandals, for which Abe himself had to respond to prosecutors, demonstrate the downside of concentration of power in the Prime Minister's office. Yet, his legacies will live on in the institutional frameworks his administration developed.

The second consequential event was COVID, not just for the obvious health and economic impact, but also for the unexpected ways in which it expedited a much needed social transformation in Japan. With the stay-at-home order, many Japanese workers experienced for the first time an extended period of telework and realized that it can be even more effective to work remotely from home.

Most employers also realized that telework is a viable option, especially in utilizing the hidden talents, particularly among women and the elderly, who cannot work regular hours but have much to contribute to the economy. Given the widespread concerns about Japan's work-life balance prompted by major instances of death by overwork, this offers an opportunity for the nation to achieve what the government's work-style reform policies had sought to accomplish.

The changes that COVID-19 has forced on Japan will likely expedite Japan's digital transformation too. Suga's administration has promoted digital transformation to cut meaningless red tape -- symbolized by the requirement for hanko, a personal seal, for official documents -- and to bring a more productive and efficient social system that can handle Japan's inevitable population decline.

This new system will offer customized support for citizens, depending on their personal situations, not just on their standardized demographic backgrounds. For example, elderly citizens can now receive different kinds of care and work opportunities depending on their health and career backgrounds, while children's school records can be used to identify areas of concern such as bullying or domestic abuse. With fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks becoming accessible to many, Japan is poised to achieve these social transformations and offer a model to the world.

Third-most consequential, but still underrated, was the decision to postpone the Olympics by a year. Until it was announced on Mar. 20, various possibilities surfaced from simple cancellation to postponement for two years. Considering that there was no precedent for postponement, this was uncharted territory.

In the end, the 12-month postponement may have been the best-case scenario. It was a gamble, however, since there were serious concerns about the possibility of the world not being ready by the summer of 2021. Now that COVID vaccines have begun to be distributed, things are looking quite promising for the Olympics to take place next year in Tokyo.

Beyond the actual staging of the games and all that will bring to Japan, the Olympics are important for their long term economic and social impact. Recent studies about the impact of the Olympics on a host country document positive economic impacts that can last as long as 20 years after the actual event, especially in tourism.

Japan had already started betting on international tourism as a major national economic focus and succeeded in increasing tourists dramatically until COVID struck. The infrastructure development required for increased tourism has largely been accomplished and had the Olympics been canceled, much of that investment would have been for naught. The economic impact would have been devastating. With the Olympics likely to be held next summer, Japan can still hope to show the world that it is back after all, just as it hoped to do in 2020.