In this land of wonders, a bastion of liberal democracy in a continent dominated by imperial powers, contradictions abound.

The Japanese sit silently in metro cars and stroll noiselessly to work on bustling streets, but cheer raucously at baseball games. Bullet trains whisk by at 200 miles per hour, and impossibly sophisticated toilets adorn even cheap hotel rooms, but its ecosystem of startup companies ranks 18th worldwide. More than 40 million foreigners visit the country every year, but it boasts barely 150,000 annual immigrants.

Yet these inconsistencies pale in comparison to the asymmetries facing the Land of the Rising Sun at a moment of historical ferment, a time when the country is wealthy but somewhat stagnant, powerful but dwarfed by its neighbor across the East China Sea, and technologically mature but a bit underwhelming when it comes to innovation. As Beijing rises, whither Tokyo?

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