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strategic asia 201112

asia responds to
its rising powers
China and India
Edited by
Ashley J. Tellis, Travis Tanner, and Jessica Keough

Japan
Japan, India, and
the Strategic Triangle with China
Michael J. Green

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Strategic Asia 201112: Asia Responds to Its Rising Powers
China and India, in which this chapter appears, please visit
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2011 The National Bureau of Asian Research

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 crisis
management channels with Beijing.
The U.S. should encourage closer Japan-India alignment by realizing
calls for an official trilateral strategic dialogue and enhancing trilateral
military exercises, while reiterating U.S. interests in improved relations
among all the regions powers, including China.
The tragic earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters of March 2011 will put
downward pressure on Japans economic and political performance in the
near term but could be positively transformative in the medium to long term.

Japan

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
defense budget remains flat at less than 1% of GDP, economic restructuring
has 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 and other Asian middle powers have soared in
importance to Japan. India offers Japan a security hedge against China
(particularly given common Japanese and Indian interests in the maritime
Michael J. Green is Associate Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University and Japan Chair and Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS). He can be reached at <mgreen@csis.org>.
The author would like to thank research assistants R. Max Helzberg, Manuel Manriquez, and Nanase
Matsushita for their contributions to the research for this chapter and Nick Szechenyi, senior fellow at
CSIS, for his comments.

132 Strategic Asia 201112

domain), an economic hedge against overdependence on the Chinese


market, an alliance hedge against overdependence on the United States for
security, 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
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in 2009 promising to reverse
the policies of the previous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by distancing
Japan from the United States and placing new demands on India in terms of
nuclear 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
with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1972, the relationship between
the two countries has never been worse, while relations with India have
never been better. The tragic earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters of
March 11, 2011, will put further downward pressure on Japanese economic
and political performance in the near term, although recovery is certain
and a more dynamic and motivated political leadership may emerge from
the crisis. There is no evidence, however, that the events of March 11 have
changed 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
both China and India. This is followed by sections assessing (1) the recent
intensification of Japans rivalry with China and alignment with India, (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
with an assessment of the impact of March 11 on Japanese statecraft and a
brief consideration of future scenarios for Japans strategic responses to the
growth of Chinese and Indian power.

Green Japan 133

Historical Context
For 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
and tragic consequences), and finally with the United States. This strategy
enhanced 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
after World War II. Under the Yoshida Doctrine, Japan would align with
the United States and oppose Communism in principle but would avoid
becoming entrapped in any U.S. conflict with Beijing. Prime Minister
Yoshida, who had served in China as a diplomat before the war, believed
that China would eventually split from the Soviet Union and reach an
entente 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
fathers and grandfathers of Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo
Abe) 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
cooperation with the United States in Asia. Meanwhile, Japanese firms began
trading with the PRC through the 1963 Liao-Takasaki agreement, pushing
the envelope of commercial relations with the mainland even before official
ties were established immediately after President Richard Nixon opened
U.S. relations with China in 1972 (the United States would take another
seven years to normalize relations with Beijing). Japan continued hewing
closer to the PRC than the United States did over the next two decades,
expanding investment in China after the appreciation of the yen in the 1985
Plaza Accord and then serving as a bridge between Beijing and Washington
in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident on June 4, 1989. By
the early 1990s, Japan was Chinas largest trading partner and China was
second only to the United States in terms of Japans trade. Japanese strategic
writers began to anticipate a more balanced U.S.-Japan-China triangle after

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