Autore: Giulio Pugliese
In: Asia Maior. Vol. XXVI / 2015
Abstract

This essay1 focuses on the mounting geopolitical tensions around the South China Sea so as to gauge Japan’s growing assertiveness in foreign and security policy there. It defines regional strategic interaction in 2015 along the lines of a «game of go» (known as go or igo in Japan, and as weiqi in China): China calmed the situation in the East China Sea in the face of Japan’s economic and military-diplomatic pushback, but it has refocused its energies to building massive constructions on disputed coral reefs and rocks in the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands. Key events of 2015 hinted at the insufficiently noted drivers behind Tokyo’s response to Chinese actions in the South China Sea. This study argues that the new US-Japan security guidelines and the Abe government’s security laws have sown the seeds for a progressive institutionalization of Japan’s higher military profile, because these norms granted the United States leverage vis-à-vis Japan. Finally, the essay analyzes the state of Sino-Japanese relations throughout 2015 to find little-appreciated conciliatory overtures that nonetheless clashed with progressively heightened military and constabulary activities. In that spirit, it analyzes the 14 August Abe Statement and accompanying exegesis in order to stress the Janus-face quality to the Sino-Japanese cold peace. In conclusion, the essay pits the logic of power politics against liberal theories of international relations to find that international economic initiatives in 2015 clearly favored strategic and geopolitical imperatives over economic considerations. The essay concludes with an assessment of regional stability, finding mounting turbulence in the short-to-medium term.

Giulio Pugliese | Heidelberg University & Pacific Forum CSIS Non-Resident Fellow | giulio.pugliese@zo.uni-heidelberg.de