The G7 Ise-Shima Summit in Mie Prefecture is expected to be a major opportunity to present Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a key member of the international community.

Abe has been consistent in expressing his desire to end decades of Japan's economic and political decline, and to put Japan back on the map, or to have Japan recognized as a major economic, military and political power. Therefore, the summit provides an opportunity to advance Japan's global reputation, a sort of effort at public relations at the international level. The summit is expected to work as public relations at the domestic level as well, an event that shows Abe as a global leader to the Japanese public in an election year, with the forthcoming Upper House elections.

This will be the last summit with U.S. President Barack Obama, and it is quite appropriate that Obama chose to visit Hiroshima on this occasion. We must not, however, forget that this summit takes place in our global winter of discontent. The eurozone has suffered from economic setbacks, a refugee crisis, the revival of strict border regulations and the menace of "Brexit," the possible exit of Britain from the European Union, hangs over the future of Europe, causing alarms extending over other regions as well. The collapse of governance in the Middle East and northern Africa, with the crisis in Syria and Libya as the most salient cases of state failure and civil war, are no longer regional issues, but have become global concerns, with extremist violence linked with radical Islam breaking out in Paris, Brussels and other cities.