Intimate Rivals
Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China
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- CHF 32.00
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- CHF 32.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
No country feels China's rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts over the boundaries of economic zones in the East China Sea, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China.
Smith finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats and include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions complicating Japan's encounters with China, such as those surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine or territorial disputes, have deep roots in the postwar era, and political advocates seeking a stronger Japanese state organize themselves around these causes. Other tensions manifest themselves during the institutional and regulatory reform of maritime boundary and food safety issues.
Smith scrutinizes the role of the Japanese government in coping with contention as China's influence grows and Japanese citizens demand more protection. Underlying the government's efforts is Japan's insecurity about its own capacity for change and its waning status as the leading economy in Asia. For many, China's rise means Japan's decline, and Smith suggests how Japan can maintain its regional and global clout as confidence in its postwar diplomatic and security approach diminishes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This well-informed study explains, with admirable clarity, the increasingly involved and complex attitudes in Japanese domestic politics regarding China. Smith, a Japan specialist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, offers a fine-grained analysis reaching back to the aftermath of World War II and especially the 1970s, when relations between the former combatants were normalized. Postwar narratives of the Second Sino-Japanese War have remained important in both strengthening diplomatic relations and especially as manipulated for nationalist sentiment by conservative Japanese politicians like prime minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro stoking tensions. One key factor are the countries' trade and economic ties, seen for years in Japan, which was instrumental in China's market reforms, as a remedy for historical fears and bad blood. Another factor is Japan's close relationship with the U.S., which adds yet another powerful party to an already delicate balancing act. China's recent rise as both a regional and global power has exacerbated tensions with increasingly security-conscious, former economic hegemon Japan, particularly over natural resources in areas like the East China Sea. Smith plumbs the intricacies of these critical developments, not without an eye to their implications for the United States, stressing the "importance of popular opinion about China" in the delicate web of policy and diplomacy that must be calibrated to a changing global order.
