For all the attention given to the rise of China, it is still not the most important nation in Asia. Japan, with the world's No. 2 economy and a growing list of problems, is.
What's more, for Americans, this society is a virtual next-door neighbor -- not some far-off Asian inscrutability. Its government buys U.S. bonds and financials in voracious quantities, thus helping to underwrite the U.S. budget; its multinationals, from Toyota to Sony, are household names; its undulating economic performance casts frightening shadows over other economies or helps light growth fires.
From this perspective, it's not a stretch to say that, after the Republican and Democratic parties, the political party with the greatest impact on Americans -- not to mention Asians -- is Japan's infamous Liberal Democratic Party, the country's largest.