Abstract
Cooperation between Japan and China as the two largest economies in East Asia is essential for any stable and predictable East Asian international order. But the two countries now experience heightened security tension over territorial disputes. They also have competing nationalist narratives about history. Japan is concerned about China gaining more ground and will do its utmost to thwart that. Japan and China are adequate spoilers for each other’s regional leadership ambition. Thus, the Japan-China conflict means an absence of a peaceful and coherent East Asian regional order however we define the term. With uncertainties abound partly due to the unpredictable Trump administration, one cannot rule out a scenario of cautious bilateral improvement of Japan-China relations but that is unlikely to extend to regional cooperation.
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Notes
- 1.
Giulio Pugliese and Aurelio Insisa, Sino-Japanese Power Politics: Might, Money and Minds (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 1–9.
- 2.
See Hideo Sato and I.M. Destler, eds., “Leadership Sharing in the New International System: Japan and the United States,” Special Research Project on the New International System, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, September 1996.
- 3.
For a recent study of the 1972 system by Japanese and Chinese scholars, see Takahara Akio, et al., eds., Nicchūkankei naniga mondai ka 1972 nen taisen no saikenshō [The problems in Japan-China relations: Reexamining the 1972 system] (Tokyo: Iwanami, 2014).
- 4.
For discussion of Japan’s great power identity, see Gilbert Rozman, “Japan’s Quest for Great Power Identity,” Orbis, vol. 46, no. 1 (Winter 2002), pp. 73–91.
- 5.
Ming Wan, “Sino-Japanese Relations during the Obama Presidency,” The Wilson Quarterly 39, 1 (Winter 2016), http://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-post-obama-world/sino-japanese-relations-during-the-obama-presidency/
- 6.
Ming Wan, “Sino-Japanese Relations Adrift in a Changing World,” Asia-Pacific Review 18, 1 (May 2011), pp. 73–83; Ming Wan, “Japan’s Party Politics and China Policy: The Chinese Fishing Boat Collision Incident,” The Journal of Social Science (University of Tokyo) 63, 3–4 (December 2011), pp. 95–110.
- 7.
Abe Shinzō, Utsukushii kunie [Toward a beautiful country] (Tokyo: Bunshun shinsho, 2006).
- 8.
Ming Wan, The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: The Construction of Power and the Struggle for the East Asian International Order (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
- 9.
Ming Wan, Understanding Japan-China Relations: Theories and Issues (Singapore: World Scientific, 2016), pp. 207–34.
- 10.
Sankei shimbun, November 22, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016, http://www.sankei.com/world/news/161122/wor1611220045-n1.html; Yomiuri shimbun, November 22, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016, http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20161122-OYT1T50055.html?from=ytop_ylist; Mainichi shimbun, November 22, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016, http://mainichi.jp/articles/20161122/k00/00e/010/167000c
- 11.
Yomiuri shimbun, November 22, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016, http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/20161122-OYT1T50104.html?from=ytop_main1. Former Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo also felt so. “Abe gaikō e no chōkoku” [Advice for Abe diplomacy], Bungeishunju, December 9, 2016, p. 243.
- 12.
Yomiuri shimbun, December 10, 2016, p. 2.
- 13.
Yomiuri shimbun, December 10, 2016, p. 3.
- 14.
Nihon keizai shimbun, December 11, 2016, p. 2.
- 15.
Mainichi shimbun, December 11, 2016, p. 5. See also Asahi shimbun, December 11, 2016, p. 3.
- 16.
White House, accessed on January 20, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/trade-deals-working-all-Americans
- 17.
Jiji News Agency, January 25, 2017, accessed on January 25, 2017, http://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2017012500857&g=use
- 18.
Sankei shimbun, March 14, 2017, accessed on March 14, 2017, http://www.sankei.com/politics/news/170313/plt1703130034-n1.html
- 19.
“Japan Takes Leadership Role in Bringing TPP back from Dead after U.S. Pullout,” Japan Times, May 1, 2017, accessed May 1, 2017, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/01/business/japan-takes-leadership-role-bringing-tpp-back-dead-u-s-pullout/#.WQdTNU2GPs0
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“Led by Japan, Pacific Rim Nations Agree to Pursue Revival of TPP,” Japan Times, May 21, 2017, accessed May 21, 2017, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/21/business/led-japan-pacific-rim-nations-agree-pursue-revival-tpp/#.WSG36sLD9Zc
- 21.
Sankei shimbun, May 21, 2017, accessed May 21, 2017, http://www.sankei.com/economy/news/170521/ecn1705210007-n1.html
- 22.
One can find many books and articles about the danger around Japan. For two samples, see Miyazaki Masahiro, Sekaitairande rensahōkaisuru chūgoku nichibeini semaru gekihen [World chaos leads to chain collapse in China: the drastic change facing Japan and the United States] (Tokyo: Tokuma, 2016); Akita Hiroyuki, Ranyu beichūnichi anzen hoshō sangokushi [Turbulence: security triangle among the United States, China, and Japan] (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 2016).
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Yomiuri shimbun, November 22, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016, http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/20161122-OYT1T50104.html?from=ytop_main1
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Wan, M. (2019). Japan-China Relations and the Changing East Asian Regional Order. In: Sohn, Y., Pempel, T.J. (eds) Japan and Asia’s Contested Order. Asia Today. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0256-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0256-5_11
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