U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel takes questions at the Foreign Correspodents Club of Japan in Tokyo on Jan. 18, 2024. (Jennessa Davey/Stars and Stripes)

TOKYO — The U.S.-Japan alliance will “determine the future” of the Indo-Pacific region over the next 30 years as the two countries grow closer via military and economic ties, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said Thursday.

Japan’s economic growth, cultural influence and expanding military capabilities confirm his belief that the alliance will dictate the United States’ future in the region, Ambassador Rahm Emanuel told reporters Thursday.

He made a similar statement during his confirmation as ambassador in December 2021.

“Now, to be true, when I said that, I thought I was doing a sound bite or trying to be pithy — I didn’t think of it as prescient,” he said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.

“But I think anybody that looks back over the last two years sees a Japan that has emerged in a different way and with a different capability.”

Prior to his arrival in Japan, Emanuel said, experts warned him that Japan moves and adapts at an “incredibly slow” pace.

“I have a message for all the experts back in Washington: ‘You don’t know Japan today, you’re wrong,’ ” he told reporters. “All the experts — despite their many degrees and years of experience — their predictions of the future, of where Japan would be, were myths.”

Japan’s efforts to grow its military spending and adapt to a post-COVID-19 world has been so rapid that the onus is now on the U.S. “to make changes at the same pace that Japan has made changes,” Emanuel added. The country’s defense spending is slated to rise to 2% of its current GDP by 2027.

“We have to ask ourselves if our own actions will be bold enough and fast enough to meet the changes taking place throughout the region,” he said.

A former Illinois congressman, mayor of Chicago and chief of staff for President Barack Obama, Emanuel is blunt and, at times, confrontational. Since becoming ambassador, he’s also criticized China and its president, Xi Jinping.

“China preaches cooperation but practices coercion,” he said in a Dec. 18 post to X, formerly Twitter. “On Aug. 24, Beijing banned all Japanese seafood imports. Four months later, Chinese fishing vessels are still fishing in Japanese waters, and Chinese party leaders are still eating fish caught there.”

Emanuel cited a December report from the Pew Research Center that found most adults in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea view China as a major threat.

Emanuel did not mention that the same survey found that most respondents in all three countries view the U.S. as at least a minor threat, with 53% of Japanese adults saying the U.S. poses a major threat to Japan.

Emanuel contrasted the Pew survey with a February 2023 report from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute that found Japan to be “the most trusted major power in the region.”

The difference, he said, is that China’s outreach to other countries only aids the Chinese Communist Party, “while Japan’s aid benefits the intended beneficiaries.”

Emanuel isn’t trying to be a critic, he told Stars and Stripes during the news conference.

“I’m trying to call out what I think is hypocrisy and lack of honesty and transparency,” he said, referring to the seafood import issue.

He ultimately returned to the subject of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

“There is a new Japan emerging, a more competent Japan,” he told Stars and Stripes. “Our alliance is emerging, because of that, from protection to an alliance based on the principle of projection.”