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Although Sino–Japanese relations have been on a recovery course, the deterioration of ties in the first one and a half decades since 2000 should not be forgotten. This article aims to unpack China's perception formation mechanism toward Japan during these turbulent fifteen years by introducing the perspective of strategic perception. Because China's strategic perception toward Japan is largely derived from its overall perceptions of the international system, this article focuses on China's strategic elites to systemically trace the evolution of China's perception of Japan and its policy implications, and to provide a new perception equilibrium that reduced the US factor in the formation of a mutual Sino–Japanese perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I describe an important aspect of the intellectual tradition of Japanese political theory while focusing on the Japanese scholar Fujita Shōzō’s political and scholarly activities. Not surprisingly, he has been chiefly considered a thinker or a historian of ideas, due to his being a pupil of Japan's brightest political scientist, Maruyama Masao. It must be stressed, however, that his scholarly works do not confine his academic scope to their ingredients; they are composed of theoretical requisites for the disciplinary activity of political theory, as can be seen particularly in his early contributions. He requires his theory to constitute integral aspects of practice, experience and perspective on the basis of his political concerns and practices in terms of detachment realism. From this perspective, I explore how Fujita changed his primary purpose from criticising Japan's ‘Tennō system’ (Tennōsei) to criticising its ‘high-speed growth’ (kōdo seichō) by highlighting the psychological transformation of his self-critical and self-reflective political thinking and acting according to his optimistic state of ‘hope’ (kibō) and his pessimistic state of ‘despair’ (zetsubō), especially in terms of his early work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Japan's foreign policy elite has started to increasingly securitize China in their security discourse. The harsher tone from Tokyo is widely evaluated as a direct reaction to China's own assertive behavior since 2009/2010. Yet, the change in the Japanese government's rhetoric had started changing before 2010. In order to close this gap, the present article sheds light on an alternative causal variable that has been overlooked in the literature: a change in Japan's security institutions, more specifically, the upgrade of the Defense Agency to the Ministry of Defense, in 2007. While utilizing discursive institutionalism and securitization-approaches, the present article demonstrates that a strong correlation indeed exists between the institutional shift and the change in Japan's defense whitepapers in the 2007-10 period. It thus opens up a research avenue for the further scrutiny of the hitherto understudied but significant causal linkage in the study of contemporary Japanese security policy toward China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Japan's increasing emphasis on democracy support, the amount of foreign aid allocated to Indonesia for this purpose remains small. Furthermore, democracy support is mostly provided to state institutions, and little is provided to civil society. This article analyzes the causes of this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks into the role of policy-making carried out by various government officials in the Japanese financial community who contributed to the formulation and implementation of Japanese "Silk Road Diplomacy" in the 1990s and 2000s. Furthermore, it examines the role of key Japanese ministries in the overall Japanese geopolitical engagement in Central Asia. When the five Central Asian republics of the USSR became independent in 1991, they soon encountered a proactive engagement of Japanese diplomacy toward them. Besides boosting bilateral assistance and economic ties, official Tokyo has vigorously promoted the Central Asian states' eligibility in many international financial institutions and provided extensive advice on reform policies. Both Japanese and Central Asian officials shared a preference for gradualism in economic reforms as a popular approach alternative to the Western neoliberalism in Central Asian countries, although the extent of embracing gradualism varied upon individual republics and advising officials. Spurred by the failures of the Washington consensus and financial crises of the 1990s, Central Asian gradualism can be regarded as an early precursor attempt at post-neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese foreign policy is at a crossroads. A global power transition is under way; while the United States remains the leading global power, across the globe non-western developing states are on the rise. Within Asia, China is a growing presence, wielding expansive claims on islands and maritime rights, and embarking on a defence buildup. As power shifts across Asia and the wider world, the terms of leadership and global governance have become more uncertain. Japan now finds itself asking basic questions about its own identity and strategic goals as a Great Power. Within this changing context, there are three foreign policy approaches available to Japan: (1) a classical realist line of working closely with the US in meeting China's rise and optimizing deep US engagement with China by pursuing a diplomacy focused on counterbalancing and hedging; (2) a transformative pragmatist line of rejuvenating itself through Abenomics and repositioning itself in East Asia; and (3) a liberal international line of pursuing a common agenda of enhancing global liberal-oriented norms and rules through multilateral institutions along with the United States and the Asia-Pacific countries. Current Japanese foreign policy contains a mix of all three approaches. The article argues that a greater focus on the second and the third lines would enhance the current approach; it would ensure that Japan is more in harmony with the global environment and help it work positively for global and regional stability and prosperity, thus enabling Japan to pursue an 'honorable place in the world' (as stated in the preamble to its constitution). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security environment in East Asia has been going through drastic changes. As China and North Korea pose a serious threat to Japan, the Japanese are now more concerned about the security issue in the region. Recognizing the highly volatile situation Japan is facing, the purpose of this study is to examine the issue of nuclear proliferation by focusing on people's attitudes in Japan. More specifically, it systematically analyzes the factors that can determine people's opinions of nuclear weapons by utilizing the survey data. The result of the statistical analysis suggests that threat perceptions significantly boost people's support for nuclear armament. Advancing our understanding of nuclear proliferation from a unique perspective, this study makes an important contribution to the literature, thus helping us predict Japan's security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the military policy of Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the early 2010s. Particular focus is given to role that Japan's perceived threat of China and North Korea plays in Japan's development of its Self-Defense Forces (SDF), including in regard to hegemony in the East China Sea region. An overview of Japan's national security strategy that allegedly focuses on military defense, including the SDF's development of a surveillance unit along Japan's coast, is provided.

In 2013, China's new party and state leadership specified its domestic and foreign policies in the context of Xi Jinping's vision of the "Chinese Dream." A new reform package modifying China's growth and development model has been announced. In foreign policy, a debate has commenced regarding another side of the "Chinese Dream": China's rise as a "Great Power." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of events in politics, government and international relations in the Asia-Pacific region from July 2012-July 2013. Changes in political leadership including the naming of Xi Jinping as leader of China and the elections of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Park Geun-hye of South Korea are discussed. Deteriorating foreign relations between Japan and China are considered. Burma's improved foreign relations are noted.

The article focuses on the new political leadership in Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, achieved a landslide election victory last December 2012. It notes that Abe, who served as a prime minister from 2006 to 2007, was able to regain his power by capitalising on growth nationalism and heightened sense of national-security threats among Japanese voters. Abe's return as prime minister post some concerns since its relationship with China and Korea is not stable. Foreign newspapers "The Economist" and "The New York Times" warned that Abe's conservative government could threaten regional stability.

The year 2012 was fascinating for domestic politics and international relations in Northeast Asia. Perhaps most notably, every country in the region experienced a change of leadership. China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan all saw new leaders begin their tenure. In addition, regional relations took a turn for the worse, with numerous countries engaging in territorial and maritime disputes, disagreeing over interpretations of their shared histories. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What explains major foreign policy changes? Why and when does the state change its foreign policy? Despite the importance of foreign policy change, which can (re)shape the nature of a given state's international relations vis-à-vis other states and international systems, explanations of foreign policy change have received only sporadic attention in foreign policy analysis literature. Against this backdrop, I offer in this article a new framework designed to capture both motivational and processual aspects of foreign policy change. I develop the framework by critically examining and synthesising two recent systematic explorations of foreign policy change: one framework within the tradition of rationalism (broadly defined) – David Welch's Painful Choice: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (2005) – and the other within constructivism – Jeffrey Legro's Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (2006). For the motivational analysis, I link the role of crisis-defining ideas to threat perception to sharpen prospect theory. I illustrate this reformulated synthesis with an example of Japan's policy shift toward East Asian financial regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For Japan, 2011 was one of the most difficult years following the end of World War II. On March 11, 2011, Japan suffered a natural disaster in the form of a magnitude 9 earthquake that occurred in the Pacific Ocean not far from the northeastern section of the island of Honshu. This generated an enormous tsunami that inundated the Tohoku District. This was followed by natural and technogenic accidents at the Fukushima-1 Nuclear Power Plant that led to radioactive pollution of the environment. The country was forced to adopt a course not only of rebuilding the regions destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami but of creating a new energy policy in the context of the rise in antinuclear attitudes resulting from a loss of faith in the "peaceful atom." The disaster dealt a palpable blow to the country's economy, which in 2011 had barely begun to recover from the world financial and economic crisis. The political situation in Japan deteriorated as well, leading to a change in prime ministers. Tokyo was also forced to resolve a number of complicated issues in relations with its main foreign policy partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promises from the DPJ government that emerged after the 2009 election threw the U.S.-Japan alliance into turmoil. Following nine months of bruising criticism, Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio resigned, and the DPJ began shifting its foreign and economic policies back toward the general strategic trajectory it inherited. The unfinished business of political realignment is the most important variable for Japan's strategic future. Japanese voters wanted--and received--a more competitive and accountable political system. Will this new political chapter produce the leadership necessary to revitalize Japanese foreign and economic policies, or will it yield more twisted Diets and policy drift? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, scholarly literature and media analysis shifted from representing the Sino-Japanese relationship as generally "good," to portraying it as generally "bad," and then back to describing it as generally "good" again. This article aims to make sense of what could thus be construed as fluctuations in Sino-Japanese relations and Japan's China policy, through employing discourse analysis as foreign policy theory. The aim is operationalized by analyzing Japanese China discourse as it has played out in the Diet. The article demonstrates that there is a fault line between a "radical representation," epitomizing further politicization of a prevalent Japanese sense of insecurity about China, and a "moderate representation," reflecting de-politicization of the same phenomenon. Furthermore, it shows that in the period examined (a) China has come to be discussed more frequently, and (b) a greater variety of aspects of the relationship have reached the political agenda. Together, these two changes have been conducive in altering the relative position of the two representations. In 2008 the moderate representation was still dominant, but less so than in 1999. The main argument of this article is thus that recent fluctuations in Japan's China policy--and by implication Sino-Japanese relations--can be understood in terms of an increasingly open Japanese China discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information related to world politics. It says that the result of 2010 general election in Great Britain shows the end of the country's two-party system, in which the Conservatives are forming coalitions with the Liberal Democrats. It states that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has a positive and negative effect to the British government. It mentions the relations of Syria with other countries, in which the election of U.S. President Barack Obama made a little impact on the U.S.-Syria relations. Furthermore, Japan is experiencing a political instability after the Liberal Democratic Party has been replaced with the Democratic Party of Japan.

The article explores the effects of globalization in Japanese education. It discusses the historical and present dimension of Japanese education. It mentions that Japan has recognized the significance of interconnectedness and interdependency principles. It states that Japan concentrates on educational competitiveness and educational association with human capital theory. It cites that globalization helped Japan positions itself in international relations and examines Japanese people. Moreover, globalization taught Japan to recognize its politics behind a multi-polarized country.

The article examines the relations between Japan and the U.S. in the first quarter of 2009. It provides an overview of the political turmoil in Japan in line with the leadership of Prime Minister Taro Aso. It relates that Aso used the urgency of economic stimulus to justify the delay of the election in Japan. It discusses the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Tokyo, Japan and the visit of Prime Minister Aso at the White House.

In this article the author discusses the military strength of Japan. The central focus of the article is the author's contention that Japan's armed forces and military power have been enhanced because they are faced with a growing military threat from North Korea. Also at issue is the perception that North Korea is attempting to undermine the stable relations that exists between Japan and the United States. In addition the author suggests that a North Korean threat has been used as a premise in some quarters in Japan to justify a significant military build up.

Japan's strong economic performance and its disproportionately low profile in international affairs up to the 1990s led many observers to reasonably conclude that the country's foreign policy, including its aid policy, was organized to advance national economic interests. But Japan responded to new international approaches to aid that ran counter to its own by modifying its approach and seeking to establish itself as a leader in the aid field. The formation of an economic development program for Vietnam presented Japan with a test for its newly adopted strategy. This article examines Japan's new aid approach to the world and its goals through a case study of its involvement in Vietnam's economic development program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After examining different theoretical expectations of how Japan might respond strategically to the rise of China, this article analyzes the evolution of Japan's policy toward China from 1972 to 2006. It argues that Japan has shifted away from the 'friendship diplomacy' paradigm to a mixed strategy that involves both positive engagement and realistic balancing to hedge against the potential threats that China may pose in the future. Japan is engaged in a vigorous domestic debate about China policy that centers around four options: cooperative engagement with a soft hedge, competitive engagement with a hard hedge, balancing and containment, and strategic accommodation. The current mixed strategy of engagement and hedging is consistent with different theoretical traditions such as offensive realism, defensive realism, and liberalism. Future developments such as Japan-China interactive effects, shifts in the military power balance, and changes in US strategy, however, could steer Japan to make choices that point in a certain theoretical direction as opposed to others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan, in responding to US expectations for support in the 'war on terror', has displayed a degree of strategic convergence on global security objectives, thus prompting policy-makers and observers to dub it the 'Great Britain of the Far East'. This article argues, however, that Japan is far from assuming this role. For Japan, the 'war on terror' serves more as a political pretext for legitimating long-planned changes in military security policy that are often only marginally related to the US's anti-terrorism agenda. Instead, Japan has focused much more on using the terror threat rationale as a means to push forward its response to the regional and traditional security challenges of North Korea and China, even if at times it attempts to depict both as 'new security challenges' or as involving elements of counterterrorism. The final conclusion is that US military hegemony may be weakened by Japan's and the Asia-Pacific's potential divergence from the US global security agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the role of Germany and Japan in the war on terror. Germany and Japan play a key, if sometimes under appreciated role in U.S. grand strategy. The U.S. alliance with Germany and Japan serves a vital function in maintaining stability in Europe and Asia. In particular, the German and Japanese contributions to the Afghan campaign, while of relatively small importance militarily, are of potentially huge political significance. They represent critical breakthroughs in the ways in which those countries understand their role internationally and may well lead to the eventual creation of a more stable international order.

The article discusses the nature and functioning of Japanese politics in world affairs. It focuses on the style of the Japanese in decision-making, policy implementation, power structure and the aspect of democracy relevant to politics. According to the author, the Japanese style does not totally reflect with the Lockean type of democracy where accountability are made more explicit. He denotes that the restructuring of the political-economic system of Japan since 1945 connotes a lot of change. He adds that the study of Japanese politics has flourished internationally.

The article focuses on Japan's strategies of interdependence. It distinguishes three strategies of interdependece. One is the so-called community strength insurance strategy which sees the society created by the web of interdependencies as the source of security. Another is the power-maximizer strategy which is described as recognizing the need for internally generated strength in an intensely competitive environment. Satellite strategy is accepting comparative weakness concerning a significant other but balancing the relation by bargaining loyalty for protection.

The article describes and illustrates how Japan conceives and uses the concept of politics of interdependence to advance what it considers to be its national interests and global interests without upsetting the balance of world interdependence. Japan's politics of interdependence is said to mean how Japan makes strategic use of interdependence guided by its own standards of conduct. The three principles of Japan's political conceptualization of interdependence are summarized and are illustrated by some recent examples. Prospects for Japan's politics of interdependence are also discussed along with some discussion on the lines of research which is further explored.