Japan’s Growing Hard Hedge Against China

As China accumulates more power, Japan is often overlooked as being capable of affecting China’s continued trajectory because of material differences and narratives of Japan being a reactive state. Yet, Beijing’s strategic planning cannot ignore Tokyo because Japan has the ability to affect the region’s security environment. Feeling its presence and influence becoming relatively smaller, Tokyo has been increasingly proactive in its effort to expand its strategic space and shape the regional environment in ways conducive to its interests. A review of Japan’s approach to China since 1972 reveals that it has shifted away from its traditional engagement policy toward first a soft hedge, followed by a harder hedge that continues to this day. Today’s mix of partnerships and capabilities enable Japan to complicate China’s freedom of action and frustrate its continued rise.     

The future impact of energy problems in China

Hisahiro Kanayama graduated from the University of Tokyo with a B.A. in Economics in 1981, then joined the Nippon Steel Corporation. Several years later, he took a two‐year sabbatical to obtain his MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle. Upon returning to Japan, he became a manager at the Plate Sales Division of the Tokyo Head Office. Seconded to IIPS as a senior research fellow in July of 1992, his work is focused on Japanese policy in Asia and he has published several policy papers including “Economic Zones in China” (104J) and “The Marketization of China and Japan's Response” (115E).     

Vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

The term “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy” was used by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the first time at the sixth Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD VI), held in Kenya in August 2016. Today, the United States also supports this initiative. Consequently, many regard it as part of the conflict between the United State and China, and furthermore believe that it is in opposition to China’s “One Belt One Road” (the Belt and Road Initiative). I would like to state that I do not believe this to be the case.     

Dulles’s second visit to Japan: The Tokyo talks of 1951

In January–February 1951, intensive negotiations were conducted in Tokyo between the Japanese and American governments about Japan’s roles in American strategy in Asia. The United States expected Japan to play two vital roles in the cold war. The first was that Japan could act as a potential offensive base from which to mount warfare against Soviet Russia and communist. China. the second was that Japan would serve as a supplementary balancer in the maintenance of the balance of power in Northeast Asia through the reactivation of her defense forces. This article, examining the Japanese government’s preparations for the Tokyo talks, discusses Japanese-American negotiations on a bilateral base arrangement and rearmament. It is argued that, although the United States succeeded in securing Japan as a major strategic base in the cold war by obtaining Japanese agreement to the U.S. proposal for stationing requirements for post-treaty American bases and troops, it failed in having Japan accept a U.S. plan for the revitalization of Japanese power because of the Japanese government’s reservation about rearmament.     

关于后奥运时期中国经济转型与建立中日环境合作机制的思考

后奥运时期中国将面临经济可持续增长与环境治理两大难题。在保持经济可持续增长的前提下兼顾环境治理,必须改变传统的经济增长模式。日本在东京奥运会后,通过产业结构调整,顺利地渡过了70年代的两次石油危机,在保持外需稳定增长的同时,实现了向节能环保型社会的转型。在ODA对华贷款项目中止后,中日之间可以尝试建立环境治理的双边合作机制以推动中国的环境治理。通过设立共同基金的方式,以市场为中心加强节能环保产业和双边贸易的发展,实现互惠共赢。     

Trends in North Korean foreign policy

North Korea’s foreign policy track record in the post-cold war era is mixed. Most notable setbacks are the diplomatic normalization between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and South Korea; the reversal of its UN policy that paved the way for the simultaneous admission of the two Korean states to the world organization; and the diplomatic normalization between China and South Korea. On the credit side of Pyongyang’s diplomatic ledger are changes in its relations with Tokyo and Washington. While tangible results have yet to materialize, particularly in North Korea-Japan relations, the groundwork has nonetheless been laid for significant improvement. North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons development program has played a major role in the unfolding of its relations with the United States. Conceptually, North Korean foreign policy can be explained in terms of its quest for three interrelated goals: security, legitimacy, and development. In the post-cold war era security appears to have emerged as the most important of the three goals. North Korea is at a crossroads. The choices it makes in foreign policy will determine not only the direction of its domestic policy but, ultimately, the survival of the regime itself. The external players in Seoul, Washington, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, and Vienna (the IAEA) have varying degrees of leverage over Pyongyang’s policy as well.     

Hedging Against China: Japanese Strategy Towards A Rising Power

Debates about how states deal with rising powers have been mainly concentrated on a continuum comprising on balancing and bandwagoning strategies. While theory has principally offered realist and liberal explanations, Japanese behavior vis-à-vis China does not match with them. Japan is not powerful enough to balance against China but remains too strong to bandwagon. Accordingly, Tokyo is pursuing a mixed strategy of both containment and engagement, which may be better described as a hedging strategy against Beijing. This article analyzes which strategies states can adopt when dealing with a rising power and proposes a framework to analyze Japan’s recent policy towards China based on Kuik’s analysis. We argue that Japan’s hedging strategy towards China is consistent with how middle-power states deal with rising power.     

Public Opinion in Japan and the Nationalization of the Senkaku Islands

This article examines the role of public opinion in Japan in directly influencing the Japanese government’s decision to nationalize the Senkaku Islands in 2012. The public mood in Japan is becoming increasingly nationalistic. Although this does not immediately mean the return of militarism in the country, such a mood is especially evident with respect to China. The nationalization of the Islands took place within this nationalistic domestic environment. In the case of the nationalization, public opinion was channeled most notably through Tokyo Governor Ishihara. His plan to purchase the Islands and strong public support for his plan eventually forced the central government’s intervention. Prime Minister Noda simply could not force Ishihara to give up his plan because going against such a popular politician who was enjoying strong public support would almost certainly have caused a strong public backlash and resulted in electoral punishment. On the other hand, Noda was also concerned that Tokyo’s successful acquisition of the Islands would lead to severe criticism of his government for not properly protecting Japan’s territorial integrity. There was also a more serious concern that Ishihara’s control of the Islands might lead to a change of the status quo and thus dangerously provoke China. Therefore, Noda had no choice but to intervene and nationalize the Islands. If he was also seeking to mobilize public opinion in his favor, he was not entirely successful.     

How the East Asian Crisis Will Change International Relations

We may expect regional response to the tension and conflict in Asia begun by China in 2009 gradually to transform the international order in that region, where the United States has been the active great power. Today the United States is so overextended in commitments and so lacking in force structure (and political will) that she can no longer play that role. Nor, however, has China succeeded in her initial assumption that regional powers would defer to her vastly increased military power. Unless China finds a way to extricate herself, we may expect regional powers, each strengthening herself, to grow closer together as a group in which Tokyo plays an unaccustomed central role, both in diplomacy and arms supply, although in coordination with the United States. North Korea is also highly dangerous. The likely outcome is greater military strength generally, with South Korea and Japan nuclear powers.     

The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Crises of 2004, 2010, and 2012: A Study of Japanese-Chinese Crisis Management

The diplomatic situation between Japan and China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has become increasingly precarious over the past decade. Weak diplomatic ties and lack of trust between the two nations has made a clash not only more likely, but also unlikely to be effectively contained. This article compares the events and management of three diplomatic crises concerning the islands, including the deportation of Chinese activists who landed on the islands in 2004, the detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain who collided with a Japan Coast Guard vessel in 2010, and the 2012 nationalization of three of the islands by the Japanese central government. These case studies reveal the lack of reliable high-level communication mechanisms between Tokyo and Beijing, diminishing back-channel diplomacy and the asymmetrical influence of each respective Foreign Ministry as just a few of the structural barriers to effective Sino-Japanese crisis management.     

Shifting Domestic Politics and Security Policy in Japan and Taiwan: The Search for a Balancing Strategy between China and the US

This article examines the impact of the changed domestic political environment in Japan and Taiwan in the second half of the 2000s, namely the arrival of administrations with a more moderate China policy, on their respective relations with Beijing and Washington. It seeks to find out the extent to which Japan under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and Taiwan under the Kuomintang (KMT) may have attempted a policy shift towards accommodation of China at the expense of their respective security ties with America. The article also examines how much impact upon security policy can be traced to the changes in domestic politics in the two cases. The discussion suggests that, irrespective of the altered domestic political situation, the concern that China's growing military power may adversely affect national interests has largely trumped the political will for seeking accommodation, more so in the Japanese case than in the Taiwanese case. While both Tokyo and Taipei have avoided deferring to Beijing's interests, each has sought to strike a delicate balance between engaging China and maintaining defense ties with the US.     

Local Governments in Japan and Roles Played in Sino-Japanese Relations

The potential roles played by local governments in Japan regarding Sino-Japanese relations are often neglected. Drawing upon a few representative case studies by highlighting the interaction between local and international politics, the article aims at analyzing the possible impacts of Japan’s local governments on Sino-Japanese relations in the future. First, it reviews the theoretical framework of sub-national or paradiplomacy and the relevant literature on Japan’s local governments in such framework. Second, through showing how their local leaders attempted to pursue local or personal interests by taking Sino-Japanese relations as hostage, it uses four local governments in Japan that have peculiar interaction with China as case studies. Finally, it previews some patterns as derived from the cases, in order to draw some implications for both Tokyo and Beijing.     

China’s Surging Energy Demand: Trigger for Conflict or Cooperation with Japan?

This article revisits a conventional interpretation of Sino-Japanese energy relations from geopolitical and zero-sum viewpoints. Contemporary Sino-Japanese disputes over the East China Sea and their scramble over a crude-oil pipeline from Russia have drawn global attention to the intensification of the rivalry between the two giant energy consumers. Beijing and Tokyo, however, have gradually found common interests resulting from business opportunities, environmental countermeasures, etc. Russia’s failure in driving a wedge between China and Japan, and the United States’ proactive engagement in Asia-Pacific energy issues, appear to provide new opportunities in which the East Asian powers’ energy rivalry can be reduced.

Chinese Security in the Post-11 September World: Implications for Asia and the Pacific

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the Bush administration's policy changes, Chinese strategic specialists are engaged in a wide ranging and increasingly public debate over China's national security strategies and priorities. Although senior leaders continue to argue that most trends remain favorable for Chinese security interests, far more cautionary assessments are also being voiced. In this article, Jonathan D. Pollack, chairman of the Strategic Research Department, US Naval War College, points out that the increased complexity and differentiation in Chinese policymaking reveals multiple trends at work. Even as Chinese policymakers emphasize their keen desire to reinforce regional stability, the longer-term picture remains clouded, from the Taiwan straits to the Korean peninsula to Central Asia to future developments in nuclear weapons policy. Pollack argues that there is a compelling need to invigorate exchanges between senior officials in Beijing, Washington, Tokyo and other major capitals, lest China and other states undertake policies that undermine the prospects for long term regional stability and security.     

Displaying the Worldview of Japanese Fascism: The Tokyo Thought War Exhibition of 1938

ABSTRACT:

This essay explores an imperial state exhibition held in Tokyo in 1938 and explains how the exhibition displayed a fascist worldview of historical crisis and national regeneration that was taking shape in Japan in the late 1930s. The exhibition – entitled the Thought War Exhibition (Shisōsen tenrankai) – was curated by the Japanese state's newly formed Cabinet Information Division (Naikaku jōhōbu) and held in Takashimaya Department Store in downtown Tokyo. Comprised of materials related to the Communist International, the Spanish Civil War, the national liberation struggle in China, and the communist and anticolonial movements inside the Japanese Empire, the Exhibition portrayed Japan's invasion of the Chinese mainland in 1937 as an extension of a global thought war against communism, requiring all imperial subjects to purify themselves of foreign influences and mobilize for national thought defense. While on the surface this Exhibition was an example of prewar state propaganda, it also expressed a fascist worldview that was coalescing in the Japanese state in the late 1930s. This essay investigates how this fascist worldview was exhibited in a sequence of displays, including dioramas, panoramas, illuminated maps, and display cases, and how these displays revealed constitutive contradictions that underwrote the formation of fascism in Japan.     

The impact of the information age

The Internet era of the twenty‐first century will be one of unprecedented information exchange on a global scale, but there is potential for the cultures and values of certain nations to overwhelm and erase those of other nations. Toru Nishigaki, professor at Tokyo University's Information Center for Social Science Research on Japan, argues that a multilingual information processing environment is essential for ensuring a stable order in the twenty‐first century. This paper was originally presented at the IIPS 10th Anniversary Symposium, “Transforming the Global Order for the 21st Century,” held in Tokyo on 18–19 May 1998.     

Japan and the Middle East

Hirokazu Oikawa, a correspondent in Israel for Jiji News for nearly 20 years and former lecturer and fellow at Hebrew University, discusses the history of relations between Japan and the Middle East and shows how Japan's relative ignorance of the region has affected some crucial diplomatic and domestic policy decisions. He explains that potential misperceptions about the Middle East continue among Japanese policymakers, especially in the areas of energy policy and official‐development aid (ODA). Oikawa is currently a professor at Kyorin University in Tokyo.     

The future of the international nonproliferation regime

The nuclear nonproliferation regime should be strengthened in order to meet the needs of an unstable international security environment, says Hiroyoshi Kurihara, Senior Executive Director of the Nuclear Material Control Center in Tokyo. He proposes that Japan can contribute more actively to strengthening nonproliferation efforts by considering the establishment of a regional confidence building mechanism to monitor peaceful nuclear activities in the Northeast Asian region. The establishment of such a mechanism is vital, he says, if the nations of the region are to develop confidence in each other such that war, and particularly nuclear war, between them will become impossible.     

Could Japan become the 'Great Britain of the Far East?'

The United States' relationship with the United Kingdom was held up as the model for future US-Japan relations by the bipartisan writers of the so-called Armitage report published in October 2000 before the US election. The two new administrations in both Washington and Tokyo have signaled the potential for a revitalized US-Japan alliance. In this article, David Asher, associate director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), argues that it is high time the two countries work together to build a security and economic alliance between the US and Japan that is as committed and durable as that between the US and the UK. He concludes that although it will not be easy, if both countries combine forces there is no reason why this should not be possible.     

Japan and the development of Africa: A preliminary evaluation of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development

From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, relations between Japanand sub-Saharan Africa were very low-key.This, Japanese policy-makersproclaimed, was because Japan had no history of colonial involvementin Africa, and the lack of historical guilt exempted their countryfrom participating in Africa's economic development. Since theearly 1990s, however, Japan has been reassessing its relationswith the countries in the region and now seems to have decidedon a more pro-active approach to African affairs organized throughthe Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).