Leadership and Japan’s China Policy: From Diplomacy to Grand Strategy

The rise of China has fueled the hopes and kindled the insecurities of many of its neighbors. This project engages with the wider implications of such a rise by examining Japan’s China policy, because Japan’s approach to China is symptomatic of region-wide trends, if not global ones. Understanding it offers a unique window into the complex interplay and links among economic, political, and security dynamics of the Asia-Pacific region. The Japanese government has responded to the structural change of the regional system -- centered on China’s re-emergence and US relative decline -- with strategies in line with the preferences of sitting premiers and their foreign policy entourage.

Through the adoption and enrichment of Neo-Classical Realism theory, this study marks the evolution of political leadership, or lack thereof, in post-war Japan’s China policy to find that the US and domestic veto players have traditionally constrained Tokyo’s diplomatic outlook. 21st Century Japan’s harsher security predicament and domestic transformations have instead empowered the prime minister. Upon Abe Shinzō’s comeback to power in 2012, the prime ministerial executive neutralized domestic and international veto players and towered over the decision-making machine. It did so to overhaul Japan’s security regime and to churn out a Grand Strategy across the diplomatic, information, military and economic domains (DIME) that allowed for strategic balance with China. In the process, Japan would turn into a quiet leader in world politics. From Tokyo’s creation of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategic narrative to its embrace of economic security, the Japanese government has enlisted the United States and major liberal democracies in its China balancing agenda.

Location: LMU Japan-Center, Oettingenstraße 67, Room L155