China-U.S. Strategic Game-Play: Japan's Choice and China's Response

China-U.S. Strategic Game-Play: Japan's Choice and China's Response

XuWansheng

Professor of PLA Information Engineering University

The strategic game-play between China and the United States also needs to be analyzed from the perspective of the international system and the third party. As an ally of the United States and a close neighbor of China, Japan's policy choice deserves our close attention and careful response.

I. The interaction of Sino-U.S. -Japan relations and Japan's positioning

Supported by the Japan-U.S. security treaty, the Japan-U.S. alliance is the basic axis of Japan's diplomacy and also affects its choice of China policy. For a long time, Japan's China policy was in conformity with that of the United States, and restricted by U.S. China policy. However, there are differences between Japan and the United States regarding the "timing" and "focus" on China policy. For example in the 1970s, after U.S. President Nixon's visit to China and the improvement of Sino-U.S. relations, Japan's Tanaka government achieved the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations at one fell swoop in September 1972, while the establishment of Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations was delayed until January 1979. Different from the U.S. pressure imposed on China in the fields of human rights and ideology, Japan pays more attention to economic and trade cooperation with China. In recent years, even in the field of geopolitical security, compared with the United States drawing in Japan for joint intervention in the South China Sea disputes, Japan has paid more attention to asking the United States to commit itself to the obligation of co-defense concerning the Diaoyu Islands.

In view of the interaction among China, the United States and Japan, the academic circles in China intensively discussed the "triangular relationship between China, the United States and Japan" in the middle and late 1990s. Some scholars put forward a goal to build an "equilateral triangle" to promote the interaction between China, the United States and Japan. Obviously, the development practice of Sino-U.S.-Japan relations in the early 21st century is far from the original imagined intention. Among them, in the aspect of security, the construction of Japan-U.S. defense cooperation mechanism was deepening day by day, and the "side" of Japan-U.S in the "triangle relationship" is "shorter and shorter"; in the aspect of economic strength, since China's GDP surpassed Japan in 2010, the gap between China and Japan is widening and the gap between China and the United States narrowing down in the past 10 years. By 2019, China's GDP amounts to 66% of that of the United States and 2.74 times of that of Japan. In addition, the enhancement of China's economic strength and international status is also reflected in the fact that China has become the world's No.1 country in terms of trade in goods, foreign exchange reserves and manufacturing, as well as the largest country in terms of foreign direct investment and Chinese investment abroad.

China, the United States and Japan used to be the relationship between the "No. 3" China and the "No. 1" the United States & the "No. 2" Japan. The No.2 Japan can coordinate the relationship between the "No. 1" and the "No. 3" in the "middle". However, nowadays, China, the United States and Japan have become the relationship between the "No. 2", "No. 1" and "No. 3", China has become the "No. 2" which is closer to the "No. 1", and Japan has become "No. 3"more and more left behind by the "No. 2" China. As a result, the "No. 3" Japan began to face the problem of how to "choose the side".

For Japan, how to obtain political interests and international status in the Western bloc headed by the United States, while simultaneously seeking economic interests from its relations with China, which is not only a major issue, but also a difficult one. On the one hand, Japan benefits from and is subject to the Japan-U.S. alliance; on the other hand, Japan also benefits from the development of Sino-Japanese relations, sharing China's huge market demand and development dividend. Different from the Cold War, it is difficult or impossible for China and Japan to achieve economic "decoupling" in the new era.

At the moment, Japan's national positioning in the interaction among China, the United States and Japan still maintains two "inertia": first, Japan still regards itself as the "representative of Asian countries" and the "bridge between the East and the West"; second, based on the strategic culture of advocating strength, the turning point for Japan to recognize and follow China has yet to come.

II. The Sino-U.S. strategic game-play and Japan's policy choice

Today's strategic game-play between China and the United States is of significance not only in bilateral relations, but also in changes of the international system. The Sino-U.S. strategic game-play is basically the following: This is the game-play between the second largest power and the largest power in the world. In 2019, the total GDP of China and the United States accounted for 40.76% of the world's total, and population accounted for 22.76% of the world's total. This is the all-around game-play between the two countries in the fields of economy, trade, science and technology, security and others, especially the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 aggravated the game-play between the two sides in the national governance capacity and ideology. This is a game-play concerning the cognition of changes in the international system, i.e., the United States believes that the fundamental reason for the game-play lies in the vacillation of its hegemonic position, while China advocates the reform of the existing international system. The above connotation shows that the strategic game-play between China and the United States will inevitably lead to changes in the international system. Under the background of the intensified Sino-U.S. strategic game-play, Japan, as a U.S. ally, is further facing the problem of how to "choose sides" between China and the United States.

Since the U.S. Trump administration came to power in January 2017, there were two "turning points" in the adjustment of Japan's Shinzo Abe government's China policy.

The first "turning point" occurred in the second half of the year 2017. Under the circumstances of the Trump administration's pursuing the concept of "America First" and Sino-U.S. trade frictions, in order to hedge against multiple pressures and uncertainties from the United States, the Abe administration began to adjust its China policy. His adjustments are mainly reflected in the following: the Abe administration began slightly refining the main obstacles impacting development of the Sino-Japanese relations, supporting China's Belt and Road Initiative conditionally and carrying out third party market cooperation with China and guiding development of Sino-Japanese relations through summit visits. In May 2018, Premier Li Keqiang visited Japan; in October of the same year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited China. With the joint efforts of China and Japan, the development of Sino- Japanese relations has returned to the normal track.

The second "turning point" is in the first half of 2020. With the outbreak of novel coronavirus pandemic worldwide, the Trump administration sharply intensified the strategic containment on China in various fields, especially in the field of geo-security, so the Abe administration had to readjust its policy toward China in response to the alliance strategic needs. The core connotation of this readjustment is that its security policy toward China represents a trend of "Trump" thinking. Different from the past "silence" or "ambiguity", in relation to the South China Sea disputes, Hong Kong and Xinjiang issues and Taiwan issue, Abe's government "clearly" supports the U.S. policy position and sides with the United States in its political statements. What's more, on September 9, 2020, in his speech to U.S. think tanks, Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono openly declared that "China has become a security threat to Japan.". In addition, under the new situation of the Sino-U.S. trade frictions and the normal pandemic prevention and control, Abe's government also tried to seek partial adjustment of the Sino-Japanese economic and trade industrial chain.

The above policy adjustment shows that Abe's China policy adjustment has a strong "duel betting" attribute, and the signs of "choosing side" are becoming more and more obvious.

After Abe resigned for health reasons, on September 16, 2020,Yoshihide Suga, the new president of the Liberal Democratic Party, became Prime Minister of Japan. He proposed to build stable relations with neighboring countries such as China and others. His China policy orientation will continue the established path of Abe administration as a whole, and try to seek some kind of strategic balance between China and the United States. On the one hand, through structuring “free and open Indo-Pacific” and pushing the U.S.-Japan-Australia-India cooperation, Japan’s containment policy on China gets stronger and has the potential to increase its involvement in China's peripheral security situation. On the other hand, Japan needs to win support and cooperation from China to fight the pandemic outbreak, boost economic development and host the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. In addition, after Abe, the ruling difficulty of Yoshihide Suga government increased, and the uncertainty of Japan's political situation elevated. This will increase the uncertainty of Japan's China policy adjustment, and then affect the development of Sino- Japanese relations.

III. Some ideas on stabilizing Sino-Japanese relations

Against the backdrop of intensified strategic game-play between China and the United States, it is very important for China to stabilize the Sino-Japanese relations. For this reason, China can neither lead or replace its "policy toward Japan" with its "policy toward the United States", nor shelve the Sino-Japanese relations.

Firstly, China should deepen its economic cooperation with Japan in the course of battling the COVID-19 outbreak and improving economy. This is not only in line with the political concept of "community with a shared future for human kind" and the common interests of China and Japan, but also an effective support for Yoshihide Suga's Government in power, so as to create a good environment for the stable development of Sino-Japanese relations. Secondly, we should focus on leading the development of Sino-Japanese relations through high-level dialogue and exchange visits between heads of state. The postponed plan of Chinese leaders' visit to Japan should be properly implemented by China and Japan according to Japan's domestic political agenda and the situation of pandemic prevention and control. Thirdly, we should accurately grasp and deal with the different strategic concerns of the United States and Japan separately. As for how to deal with the South China Sea disputes, the East China Sea disputes and the Taiwan issue, the United States and Japan have both common interests as well as different focuses. In view of this, we should grasp the main problems and the main aspects of the problems and concentrate our efforts to respond to them. Finally, we should make full preparations to deal with Japan's China policy mutation and a Japan-U.S. joint action. Only when we are fully prepared can we deter Japan from delusions and effectively guarantee the stability of Sino-Japanese relations.

In any case, the stable development of Sino-Japanese relations is not only in the interests of China and Japan, but also conducive to buffer Sino-U,S. strategic game-play. Looking forward to the future, the development of Sino-Japanese relations should be led and promoted by the Chinese and Japanese governments and peoples, and try to avoid the negative influence of the American factor. Especially for the Japanese government, how to play its leading role instead of blindly "following the United States" is not only the logical embodiment of its goal of becoming a major political power, but also the only way to build Sino-Japanese relations meeting the needs of the new era.

(Edited excerpts of the articles in International Security Studies, No.6, 2020)