Now that Japan is the world's largest creditor nation, her economic responsibility is the biggest ever. By examining the nature of the three revolutions in Japanese society since the Meiji Restoration, it is apparent that while the speed of economic structural change has been remarkably high, other aspects of the Japanese social framework have remained archaic and premodern.After discussing the structural changes in the Japanese, Asian, and U.S. economies, this paper makes a case for structural changes in the Japanese political, bureaucratic, and diplomatic world. The new perspective to be suggested is (1) to change the system to utilize more of individuals' initiatives, less of the regulated, restrained, and group‐shackled way of management, and (2) for Japan to take positive leadership in a new global political economy based on the principle of independent and equal partnership in the world for world peace and stabilit