Abe coddled Trump. Ishiba must stand up to the bully

A slew of anticipatory concessions would leave Japan open to being pushed around

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Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends a press conference in Tokyo on Dec. 24. © Reuters

William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of "Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades."

When Shigeru Ishiba meets Donald Trump in Washington on Friday, the Japanese prime minister's real sparring partner will be the memory of a predecessor who died in 2022.

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