Waning influence to China's benefit. Analysts have stated that Japan's influence is inexorably waning as its economic power declines. Prime minister Naoto Kan chaired the economic Asia-Pacific Economic Forum on the 13th and 14th of November in Yokohama, attended by US president Barack Obama and his Russian and Chinese counterparts Dmitri Medvedev and Hu Jintaoi. This diplomatic success, however, does not conceal the catastrophic balance sheet of the 14 months spent in power by his...