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strategic asia 201112
asia responds to its rising powersChina and India
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2011 The National Bureau of Asian Research
Japan
Japan, India, and the Strategic Triangle with ChinaMichael J.
Green
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executive summary
This chapter examines Japans relations with and strategies
toward China and India.
main argument:Though Japan is declining in relative power, its
strategic response to the rise of China and India will have a
significant impact on the balance of power in Asia. After years of
distant relations, Japan is increasingly turning to India as a
counterweight to China, encouraging Indian participation in the
East Asia Summit and moving forward on security and nuclear
cooperation talks. Japanese corporations are also shifting future
investment plans from China to India (and other developing Asian
economies) to hedge against growing political and economic risk in
China. The Japan-India relationship is still hampered by New Delhis
lingering Nehruvian socialism and nonalignment ideology and Japans
own anti-nuclear allergies and political malaise, but the trend of
closer alignment will continue to increase the strategic
equilibrium in Asia as China rises.
policy implications: External balancing strategies are
insufficient to prevent further waning
of Japans influence in Asia; economic reform and revitalization,
defense spending increases, and more credible political leadership
are also needed.
Japan must work on establishing stable political linkages and
crisismanagement channels with Beijing.
The U.S. should encourage closer Japan-India alignment by
realizingcalls for an official trilateral strategic dialogue and
enhancing trilateralmilitary exercises,while reiteratingU.S.
interests in improved relationsamong all the regions powers,
including China.
Thetragicearthquake,tsunami,andnucleardisastersofMarch2011willputdownward
pressure on Japans economic and political performance in the near
term but could be positively transformative in the medium to long
term.
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Japan
Michael J. Green is Associate Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh
School of Foreign Service at
GeorgetownUniversityandJapanChairandSeniorAdviserattheCenterforStrategicandInternationalStudies
(CSIS). He can be reached at .
Theauthorwould like to
thankresearchassistantsR.MaxHelzberg,ManuelManriquez,andNanaseMatsushitafortheircontributionstotheresearchforthischapterandNickSzechenyi,seniorfellowatCSIS,
for his comments.
Japan, India, and the Strategic Triangle with China
Michael J. Green
Though Japan is declining in relative power, its strategic
response to the rise of China and India will nevertheless have a
significant impact on the overall military, political, economic,
and ideational balance of power in Asia. Realist theory teaches
that status quo powers such as Japan will respond to rising powers
either by bandwagoning with them or by attempting to maintain the
existing strategic equilibrium through internal or external
balancing. Thus far, the dynamics of Japan-China relations have not
suggested bandwagoning behavior, despite growing economic
interdependence between the two nations. On the other hand, Japan
has exhibited only limited internal balancing behavior. Postwar
restrictions on the Self-Defense Forces are steadily fading and
public attitudes about national security are dramatically different
than in the past, but Japans
defensebudgetremainsflatatlessthan1%ofGDP,economicrestructuringhas
at least temporarily stalled, and Japans unpopular political
parties are failing to produce leaders capable of sustaining a
mandate for change and revitalization. As a result, the most
pronounced strategic behavior from Japan in response to the rise of
Chinese power has been external balancing.
While the focus of Japanese external balancing strategy remains
the U.S.-Japan alliance, India andotherAsianmiddle powers have
soared inimportance to Japan. India offers Japan a security hedge
against China (particularly given common Japanese and Indian
interests in the maritime
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132 StrategicAsia201112
domain), an economic hedge against overdependence on the Chinese
market,analliancehedgeagainstoverdependenceontheUnitedStatesforsecurity,
and an ideational hedge with a fellow democratic state against the
Beijing Consensus and criticism of Japans past. However, with the
strategic convergence between Tokyo and New Delhi still at a
nascent stage, these propositions have yet to be fully tested. Will
India be the new frontier for expanded Japanese defense
cooperation, the focus of a new growth model based on
infrastructure exports, and a pillar in a new partnership of
democratic maritime states? Or will the promising Indo-Japanese
relationship founder on traditional Japanese anti-nuclear
sentiments, the risk aversion of corporate Japan, and the undertow
of Indias own residual ideologies of Nehruvian socialism and
nonalignment?
For now, there appears to be a broad political consensus in
Tokyo about the strategic importance of India and the threat from
China. The
DemocraticPartyofJapan(DPJ)cametopowerin2009promisingtoreversethe
policies of the previous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by
distancing
JapanfromtheUnitedStatesandplacingnewdemandsonIndiaintermsofnuclear
nonproliferation. However, the structural realities of
international relations in Northeast Asia have shifted the DPJ back
onto the same general foreign policy ground as the LDP. Indeed,
since normalization of relations
withthePeoplesRepublicofChina(PRC)in1972,therelationshipbetweenthe
two countries has never been worse, while relations with India have
never been better. The tragic earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear
disasters of
March11,2011,willputfurtherdownwardpressureonJapaneseeconomicand
political performance in the near term, although recovery is
certain and a more dynamic and motivated political leadership may
emerge from
thecrisis.Thereisnoevidence,however,thattheeventsofMarch11havechanged
the basic dynamics of Japans relations with China and India.
This chapter dissects this new Japan-China-India strategic
triangle. The first section provides historical background on
Japanese strategic views of
bothChinaandIndia.Thisisfollowedbysectionsassessing(1)therecentintensificationofJapansrivalrywithChinaandalignmentwithIndia,(2)the
influence of increased economic dependence on China and attempted
economic diversification toward India, and (3) the ideational
drivers behind Japans strategic responses to both nations. The
chapter concludes
withanassessmentoftheimpactofMarch11onJapanesestatecraftandabrief
consideration of future scenarios for Japans strategic responses to
the growth of Chinese and Indian power.
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Green Japan 133
Historical ContextFor the first two millennia of its history,
Japans strategic worldview
was shaped by the Sinocentric system in Asia. When China was
weak, Japan expanded. When China was strong, Japan was restrained.
After the imposition of Western imperialism on Asia and the end of
Japans so-called closed state period (sakoku jidai) in the
nineteenth century, Japanese statecraft added a new card to its
deckalignment with the worlds hegemonic power, first with Britain,
then with Germany (with brief
andtragicconsequences),andfinallywiththeUnitedStates.Thisstrategyenhanced
Japanese power against other states in the system, while giving
Japan maximum latitude to develop its own foreign and economic
policies within Asia.
It was precisely this latitude that the architect of Japans
postwar foreign policy strategy, Shigeru Yoshida, sought vis--vis
Communist China afterWorldWar II.Under theYoshidaDoctrine,
JapanwouldalignwiththeUnited States and opposeCommunism in
principle butwould avoidbecoming entrapped in any U.S. conflict
with Beijing. Prime MinisterYoshida, who had served in China as a
diplomat before the war, believed that China would eventually split
from the Soviet Union and reach anentente with Japan based on
commercial ties. Japanese political elites were divided on the
question of China, with mainstream politicians in the LDP following
Yoshidas line and anti-mainstream politicians (including the
fathersandgrandfathersofPrimeMinistersJunichiroKoizumiandShinzoAbe)
arguing for closer ties with Taiwan, revision of the pacifist
Article Nine of Japans Constitution, and more explicit security
ties with the West. Yoshidas view prevailed, however, as successive
Japanese governments used Article Nine to construct policy and
legislative obstacles to military
cooperationwiththeUnitedStatesinAsia.Meanwhile,JapanesefirmsbegantradingwiththePRCthroughthe1963Liao-Takasakiagreement,pushingtheenvelopeofcommercialrelationswiththemainlandevenbeforeofficialties
were established immediately after President Richard Nixon opened
U.S. relationswithChina in 1972 (theUnited Stateswould take
anotherseven years to normalize relations with Beijing). Japan
continued hewing closer to thePRC than theUnited States did over
the next
twodecades,expandinginvestmentinChinaaftertheappreciationoftheyeninthe1985Plaza
Accord and then serving as a bridge between Beijing and Washington
in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident on June 4, 1989.
Bythe early1990s, JapanwasChinas largest
tradingpartnerandChinawassecondonlytotheUnitedStatesintermsofJapanstrade.JapanesestrategicwritersbegantoanticipateamorebalancedU.S.-Japan-Chinatriangleafter
[Green] Japan, India, and the Strategic Triangle with
ChinaExecutive SummaryMain TextHistorical ContextThe Strategic
Triangle under the DPJ: A Return to the New Normal?The Reverse
Image: Economic RelationsThe Ideational FactorThe Impact of March
11Looking Ahead
