Politics & Power Quote by Shigeru Yoshida

"Almost a century has passed" is doing quiet rhetorical heavy lifting. Yoshida isn’t just marking time; he’s staking a claim that Japan’s modern identity begins not with mythic origins or imperial conquest, but with a diplomatic handshake in 1854. The choice is strategic: it frames Japan as a nation that joined the "world community" through law, treaties, and mutual recognition, not mere force. For a postwar politician trying to rehabilitate Japan’s legitimacy, that’s a deliberate reset button.

The treaty of amity with the United States is an especially loaded anchor. In 1854, it signals the end of isolation under Western pressure, a moment of vulnerability as much as opening. By calling it "entered the world community", Yoshida converts coerced contact into a narrative of voluntary participation. The phrasing smooths over the asymmetry of the era’s "unequal treaties" and reframes a traumatic pivot as a civilizational milestone.

Context sharpens the intent: Yoshida, architect of Japan’s post-1945 recovery and alliance with the U.S., needed a long historical arc that made partnership with America look less like occupation-era necessity and more like the natural continuation of a century-long trajectory. The subtext is reassurance to both audiences: to Americans, Japan has been a responsible, treaty-making actor for generations; to Japanese listeners, alignment with the U.S. can be read as history’s throughline rather than surrender. The sentence is sober, but it’s also a political instrument: memory edited into strategy.