From the Financial Crisis to the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Direction of Japan’s Foreign Strategy in Times of Great Changes
2019 marks the end of the Heisei Era. During this 30-year postwar period, Japan witnessed the end of the Cold War and the birth of a unipolar world. After entering the 21st century, particularly since the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, Japan’s external development environment has greatly changed. First, the balance of power among the world’s major countries has changed. Compared with the “flattened curve” of growth in traditional developed countries, emerging market countries represented by China have developed rapidly. Second, the distribution of international power has changed. In 2011, for example, the voting rights of emerging market countries in the International Monetary Fund increased by 5 percentage points, marking a real redistribution of international power. Third, the global governance system has changed. The creation and institutionalization of the G20 Summit marked an attempt by traditional developed countries to share power in part with emerging market countries, and give the latter greater responsibility for solving the world’s problems. The COVID-19 outbreak has further accelerated the historical process of “profound changes unseen in a century”. Faced with the complex and profound changes in the international situation, Japan has made rapid adjustments in its deliberations and made all-out efforts to meet the challenges.
Japan's Cognition of International Strategies in Times of Great Changes
Since 2008, the balance of power between major countries in the world has changed at a scale and speed unparalleled in the history of international relations. As a result, the international structure of “one superpower and many great powers” has begun to shake. Japan believes that “the Peace under the Rule of the US” has been shaken, the rise of China has become the general trend of the world today, and “the hegemonic order led by the US is being transformed into a balanced international order in which the US and China stand in opposition”. What’s more, although this change in international situation started from the economic strengths of different countries, its impact has gone far beyond the economic field, bringing profound geopolitical effects to the rest of the world.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, Japan has felt that the pressure from external competition continues to increase, and the risks and challenges it faces far outweigh the opportunities. The shift of power in the world continues to exert impact on Japan. The transformation from G7 to G20 not only diluted Japan’s voice in the core circle of world economic governance, but also weakened the effectiveness of Japan’s model and reduced its soft power and potential strategic action capacity due to the diversity of development models and political systems within G20. On
Japan-US relations, the Trump administration’s unilateralist “unconventional foreign policy” has raised doubts in Japan about the “reliability” of the alliance. Although the US has not abandoned the traditional policy of placing bilateral alliance as the main path for achieving regional strategic goals, the Trump administration’s foreign policy that upholds “America first” and pragmatism as the principle, and pursues unilateralism and “tradism”, and its approach to maximize America’s selfinterest even at the expense of its allies’ interests, have caused the conflict of interests and policy divergences between the US and Japan in economy, trade, defense and international order construction to rise, and the “alliance cracks” to expand. Even in the fields of arms sales and military purchases that symbolize enhanced bilateral military cooperation, Trump demanded that Japan buy more American-made weapons, but avoided making clear commitments to treaty obligations.
Trade frictions between China and the US have directly or indirectly caused economic losses to Japan. Japan’s economic growth depends on complex but resilient supply chains, which are shaped by the interdependence of China-US trade. As the friction between the US and China spreads to the high-tech sector, the “Toshiba incident” is likely to repeat. Meanwhile, the intensification of strategic competition between China and the US has further deepened Japan’s sense of crisis in strategy. For Japan, the US-China relations is the primary factor affecting its international environment. Although America’s containment of China gives Japan convenience in its efforts to obstruct China’s rise, it is also important for Japan to maintain stable relations with China. If Japan and the US synchronously adjust their strategies towards China, especially increase pressure on China over BRI construction and at bilateral political and military levels, Japan-China relations will deteriorate again and plunge East Asia into instability.
The COVID-19 outbreak and the pandemic it causes in 2020 have accelerated the historical process of great changes, and Japan’s assessment of the international situation has become more cautious and pessimistic. First, with China’s relatively rapid economic recovery, China’s relative strength and international influence will rise further, and the superiority of its social system will emerge. Second, as the COVID-19 pandemic “intensifies competition and mutual exclusion between the US and China”, the uncertainty of the international situation and the instability of the international order have continued to increase. Third, Japan faces a more severe security environment and greater pressure on the Diaoyu Island issue. Earlier, the Abe cabinet issued the Foreign Policy Blue Book and the Defense White Paper for the year 2020, reflecting the latest official judgment of Japan. The former stressed that the current international order is under chal
lenge, “Japan’s surrounding security environment is more severe, and uncertainty has further increased”. The latter stressed that the COVID-19 outbreak has “further accentuated strategic competition between different countries”. Military forces from countries with military advantages around Japan have become markedly active, and “there is a risk of major security incidents in the region”.
Japan Takes Striking a Balance Between US and China as the Core Issue of Its Foreign Strategy
With the intensifying strategic competition between China and the US and the increasing downward pressure on the world economy, Japan concludes that “the US and China confrontation” has constituted the normalized background of Japan’s foreign relations, which means increasing uncertainties and pressure on the environment for its safety and development. Faced with the general trend that “China’s rise cannot be stopped and the US cannot be relied on”, Japan has enhanced its sense of strategic independence, promoted the transformation of its security strategy into an outward-looking one, and strengthened the construction of its independent power. In terms of foreign strategies, Japan has actively conducted the “globe-trotting diplomacy” to expand international space and gain a favorable position in the world in times of great changes.
In Japan’s foreign strategy, handling its relations with China and the US and maintaining a comprehensive strategic balance between them are the core issues. Given that “Japan-US relations and Japan-China relations constitute the two major axes of Japan’s diplomacy,” Japan needs to “make a highly delicate technical package between the US and China to avoid being engulfed by changes in US-China balance of power.” After the Trump administration came into power, Japan has entered an era of conflict and confrontation between the US and China, and takes “how to be unharmed” as the top issue. Faced with the continuous intensification of strategic competition between China and the US, Japan’s intention to adopt the “Japan First” stance has grown more and more obvious. While grasping the delicate balance between China and the US, Japan is seeking the reasonable positioning of its policy towards the US and China in its overall strategy: to follow the US is to counterbalance China with its alliance; to cooperate with China is to gain economic benefits, as well as to expand strategic space and offset dependence on the US.
Meanwhile, the balance is reflected not only in Japan’s distances with the US and China, but also in its internal self-balance of the policies towards the US and China.
For the US, Japan continues to strengthen the alliance system at the strategic level. At the tactical level, it increasingly emphasizes strategic independence, that is, to shift from the past “Japan for the alliance” to “the alliance for Japan”, and takes alliance as an important tool to achieve its national strategic goals. After the 2008 financial crisis, Japan began “a forward-looking assessment of the risks brought by US strategic contraction and retreat from Asia”. After Trump was elected, “in view of the increased urgency of these risks, relevant people in Japan suggested implementation of more decisive changes”. Compared with the proposals to construct an “East Asian Community” and a “Reciprocal Japan-US relationship” by the DPJ, the sense of autonomy revealed in the strategies towards the US by Abe’s cabinet went even further, including adhering to the establishment of CPTPP after the US withdrew from TPP; taking the lead in promoting the “Indo-Pacific” concept and convincing the newly elected Trump of the concept; continuing to improve relations with China in the context of US-China frictions; rejecting the US invitation to form a “convoy alliance” in the Middle East; ending plans to deploy the land-based Aegis systems; and maintaining distance with Trump’s “unprincipled compromise” policies towards the DPRK.
For China, Japan shows a posture of following the US and exerting pressure to contain China, but seems to deviate from the US when it comes to specific measures and in terms of implementation intensity. On the one hand, in view of the great influence of the US on Japan-China relations and Japan’s policy towards China, Japan proposed to maintain coordination with the US on strategies toward China to “avoid unnecessary friction caused by the ‘temperature differences’ between Japan and the US in different fields”. On the other hand, Japan continues to tighten economic cooperation ties with China, especially in the areas of security, trade and investment, and strives to integrate China into the international mechanism it has actively built, to implement the so-called “institutional checks and balances” on China. Since 2016, Japan has been giving attention to and thinking about how to realize the coordination and form synergy between the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and the Belt and Road Initiative. Before and after his visit to China in October 2018, Abe repeatedly mentioned three proposals on developing Japan-China relations, in the hope of “leading Japan-China relations into a new era”. Even in highly sensitive fields to the US, such as high-end technology and intellectual property, the Abe administration has proposed an “innovation cooperation dialogue” with China. This has formed a sharp contrast
In Japan’s foreign strategy, handling its relations with China and the US and maintaining a comprehensive strategic balance between them are the core issues.
to the US’ escalating containment of and “decoupling” from China.
Promote Self-Reliance Construction to Enhance the Strength Foundation for Japan's Foreign Strategies
From Yukio Hatoyama to Shinzo Abe’s second time in office, Japan’s strategy against the world’s great changes has been in the making while being implemented for a long time, and even after two shifts of power between the LDP and DPJ, it has still shown strong continuity. The basic idea of Japan’s response to the great changes is “to work hard on diplomacy”, the core of which lies in pursuing “principal diplomacy”, that is, seeking strategic space through political self-reliance and strategic independence, so as to safeguard its own interests more firmly and effectively.
After Abe was in office for the second time, “to work hard on the military” was added on the basis of “to work hard on diplomacy”, which gradually evolved to promoting the construction of “independent power” in an all-round way, and Japan’s “comprehensive strategic activity” to the outside reached an unprecedented level. In fact, “even before Trump entered the White House, the Japanese government had begun to adjust its security policies to enhance Japan’s independence”. After the Brexit referendum result was unveiled and Trump was elected President of the US, “the British and American populist election and nationalist remarks shocked analysts in Tokyo”, and reignited discussion on “independent defense policy” in the Japanese political community. “Given the uncertainty in the Trump administration’s policy, Japan should act on its own as much as possible on security and defense policies”.
Japan’s independent capability construction includes not only security and defense, but also diplomatic and economic cooperation. It is not only a supplement to the Japan-US alliance system and a replacement in case of alliance failure, but also an operation to cling to the US and reduce the risk of being abandoned through self-improvement. In the field of defense, the construction of independent capability in the early stage of Abe's administration was mainly about soft power enhancement by removing “self-restraint”. In the later stage, Japan’s independent power construction in defense began to go both “soft” and “hard”, including revising the National Defense Program Outline again in advance, updating the defense concept, equipping highend weapon systems, and realizing “eight consecutive increases” in defense budget. According to the 2018 National Defense Program Outline and Mediumterm Defense Force Readiness Plan, Japan’s total defense budget for 2019-2023 will reach 27.47 trillion yen, an increase of 11.3 percent over the previous fiveyear period and a record high. The new outline explicitly states the “subjectivity” and “independence” of Japan’s security policy, and adopted relevant content from the 2015 edition of Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation and the New Security Law, proposing “to strengthen Japan-US cooperation in space and cyberspace, and to deepen and expand the strategic containment capacity”. To avoid provoking domestic opposition forces, the outline has not explicitly stated the construction of “the capacity to attack enemy bases”, but stressed specific plans such as accelerating long-range attack capacity building, strengthening anti-missile air defense capacity, introducing long-range cruise missiles and refitting the “Izumo” class destroyer, which has paved the way for possessing “the capability to attack enemy bases” in the real sense. Till this, Japan’s defense policy has markedly moved beyond the principle of “exclusive defense” and started to show strong offensive characteristics.
Integrating “Middle Powers” Cooperation to Build a New Fulcrum of Japan's Foreign Strategies
To cope with the world’s great changes, Japan takes developing comprehensive cooperation with important countries other than China and the US, or the so-called “middle powers”, as a strategic priority, draws up principles in various fields by integrating the rules in diplomacy, security, and economic and technological cooperation, and actively gets involved in the gaming of major countries, to achieve a diversified construction of foreign strategic relations. Cooperation with “middle powers” is not only a preventive measure against the intensifying strategic competition between China and the US, but also an important strategic means to balance relations with the US and China. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, cooperation with “middle powers” has become a “new growth point” in Japan's foreign strategy and is highly goaloriented.
Japan’s all-round strategic cooperation with Europe is progressing rapidly. Abe has always cherished the strategic
The basic idea of Japan’s response to the great changes is “to work hard on diplomacy”, the core of which lies in pursuing “principal diplomacy”, that is, seeking strategic space through political self-reliance and strategic independence, so as to safeguard its own interests more firmly and effectively.
conception of “building a bridge of strategic cooperation between Japan, the US and Europe”. In recent years, strengthening security, economic and trade cooperation between Japan and Europe has become a core issue in Japan’s close consultations with leaders of NATO, EU and major European member states. In 2018, Japan and the EU signed the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the Japan-EU Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA). In September 2019, Abe attended the 2019 EU-Asia Connectivity Forum, where Japan and the EU signed Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity and Quality Infrastructure between the European Union and Japan.
Abe stressed at the forum that “connectivity of ‘high quality’ and ‘broader spatial scale’ must be built” to “ensure the freedom and openness of the sea lanes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions to achieve true connectivity”. The enhanced interaction between Japan and Europe is intended to “deal with the risks brought by the US and China”. It is also a response to and hedge against the Belt and Road Initiative while confronting the protectionist and unilateral policies of the Trump Administration. In view of this, the “Sustainable Connectivity” between Japan and Europe could develop into a new platform for geopolitical competition in Eurasia.
In terms of promoting security cooperation with the world’s “middle powers”, Japan’s ever-closer relationship with India is the most prominent, which has reflected the Abe cabinet’s strategic guidelines of “promoting security cooperation from multiple angles and at multiple levels based on the concept of ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ and maintaining close cooperation with countries that share universal values and security interests with the Japan-US alliance as the base”. In November 2019, Japan and India held the first “2+2” ministerial meeting to discuss joint training and conducting cooperation based on the concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”. In September, Japan and India formally signed the Acquisition and CrossServicing Agreement (ACSA). The deal will cover overall defense cooperation between the two countries, which has prompted comments from Japanese media that Japan was elevating India to “quasi-allied” status “in order to contain China with growing military strength”.
Conclusion
Based on the overall assessment of various impact variables, Japan’s foreign strategic cognition in the post pandemic era will move forward along the current line at a faster pace. It is worth noting that on August 28, 2020, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo officially announced that he would resign as Prime Minister due to health reasons. In September, Yoshihide Suga was elected new President of the LDP, and later formally appointed as Japan's 99th prime minister. In the “post-Abe era”, the general trend of upholding “striking balance between the US and China, strengthening independent strength building, and advancing cooperation with ‘middle powers’” as the basic paths in Japan’s response to the great changes will continue and gain more strength. The composition of response to China will increase significantly, and the “China directivity” will continue to strengthen. From the perspective of China’s foreign strategy, Japan’s perception of the great changes of the world and the trend of its strategic response will undoubtedly increase uncertainty in the international strategic environment. Therefore, continuously enhancing the strategic stability and certainty of China-Japan relations should be an important part of the construction of “China-Japan relations meeting the needs of the new era”. Under this premise, as the strategic gaming between China and Japan, part of the multilateral gaming between major powers, has entered the “deep water zone” and a new phase, given Japan’s two-sided nature in its policies towards China, how to effectively restrain its negative side and arouse its positive side, and how to effectively enhance the certainty and curb the uncertainty of China-Japan relations have become the key. From Japan’s point of view, China’s rise constitutes an important source of the “Japanese crisis”, yet cooperation with China is the only way to overcome the crisis. With such a strategic view full of inherent contradictions, Japan will unveil more and more of its “super toolbox” that contains various complicated policy portfolios in its strategies towards China. At the international level, Japan will continue to make tactical and strategic arrangements by mobilizing all resources to balance and restrain China. At the bilateral level, Japan will adopt policies of different tones towards China in different fields. The competition, containment and hedging elements will also be incorporated in specific cooperation areas and projects. In this sense, ChinaJapan relations will become more complex, and may not be simply measured and expressed in terms of “friendship and cooperation” or “deterioration and confrontation”. Instead, delicate designs and precise measures are needed.
From the perspective of China’s foreign strategy, Japan’s perception of the great changes of the world and the trend of its strategic response will undoubtedly increase uncertainty in the international strategic environment.