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AbstractDespite a clear and common threat from North Korea, why has the security cooperation between Japan and South Korea been less developed than the security cooperation between Australia and Japan? This paper explains this puzzle by focusing on policymakers’ perceptions of the rise of China. The paper concludes that, not only historical issues between Japan and South Korea, but different threat perceptions of China between Australia, Japan, and South Korea can best explain why Australia-Japan security cooperation has developed more than Japan-South Korea security cooperation in terms of the degree of institutionalization and the scope of cooperation. Throughout the post-Cold War era, Australian and Japanese policymakers were increasingly concerned about the rise of Chinese power and influence. This has ultimately led Tokyo and Canberra to strengthen their bilateral and trilateral cooperation with the United States as a means of hedging or balancing against the rise of China. On the other hand, South Korean policymakers were less concerned about China and more concerned about North Korean threat. Indeed, some Korean policymakers understood China as the indispensable power to maintain peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula. Thus, many Korean policymaker were reluctant to enhance security cooperation with Japan in areas beyond Northeast Asia. However, with rapidly changing security environments and the intensifying U.S.-Sino rivalry, as well as deteriorating relations with China, Korean policymakers’ perceptions of China have become increasingly closer to those of Australia and Japan. Accordingly, there has been growing momentum for stronger security cooperation between Japan and South Korea not only in Northeast Asia, but also in broader Indo-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'China threat' has been identified as an important driver of Japan's security agenda and discourse. The threat posed by China has been discussed either as a given factor determining the trajectory of Tokyo's security approach, as a product of identity construction, or as an expression of securitizing processes that facilitate institutional and policy change. This paper contributes to this debate by offering an alternative explanation of the process through which the Abe government constructed China as a threat. Building on securitization theory, the paper examines the modes and strategies employed by the Abe Administration to successfully securitize China. The paper argues that, while Beijing was labeled a 'concern' rather than an 'existential threat,' it was still securitized through a process of securitization that involves an association with those domains in which China engages assertively, namely the maritime commons. The paper suggests calling this type of securitizing pattern 'transversal securitization' and explores how this indirect strategy allowed the Abe government to pragmatically pursue its objectives both domestically and at the international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts agricultural protection of Japan and Korea with the West and identifies major differences between them. It characterizes agricultural protection of Japan and Korea (net heavy food importers) as "tariff-based and scarcity-sensitive" aimed at promoting survival and the West (net food exporters) as "subsidy-based and surplus-inducing" aimed at enhancing farm income. We then identify factors underlying the coevolution and divergence in the extent of agricultural trade liberalization between Japan and Korea since the launch of the Uruguay Round in 1986. Korea accepted deep cuts in agricultural tariffs in bilateral FTAs with the US and EU during the 2000s while Japan continued to protect farm interests by concluding low levels of FTAs with politically sensitive products excluded from tariff concessions. The two countries' stances reversed since 2013 with Japan becoming proactive in pursuing high levels of FTAs with major agricultural exporting countries and Korea decelerating its opening of agricultural markets. To explain such divergences, this paper develops a political economy framework in which the incumbent political leadership would consider both national interests and sectoral (farm as import competing industries and business/manufacturing as exporting industries) special interests. Our analysis shows that President Roh (2002–2007)'s embracing of neoliberal paradigm in formulating foreign trade policies that would promote national interests underlies the unprecedented level of agricultural trade liberalization in Korea during the 2000s, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's determination not to be outcompeted by the rising China and Korea's ambitious FTA strategies underlies Japan's proactive bilateral and mega-FTA drives since 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has historically been a major player within the Indo-Pacific region due to its rapid post-war economic expansion, technological advancement, massive overseas development aid as well as its cultural outreach. As the Indo-Pacific today is marred with various challenges in the form of maritime and energy security, border conflicts, booming population, developing economies, and rising carbon emissions, among others. The region requires a multipolar balance of power wherein nations can lead by example and concerted action towards creating a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future for an extensively dynamic Indo-Pacific. This paper focuses on one of the critical variables of the region, i.e., the energy sector, and attempts to place Japan's role and contribution to the region's ongoing energy transitions. The extent and means through which Japan can propel itself and the region towards a just transition with the help of regional and international cooperation have been analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the notion of state security inform national approaches to managing cross-border in-migration in the increasingly interconnected but volatile Northeast Asian region? This paper explores this question by focusing on the intermestic politics of labor importation. Specifically, it theorizes the multidimensionality and multifunctionality of security fears that inform Japan's and Taiwan's approaches to the admission of low-skilled foreign workers. The paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework that explicates these relationships and argues that Northeast Asian labor importation regimes were formed at the intersection of a threefold logic of state security. Whereas economic security acted as an enabling (inclusionary) factor in both Japan and Taiwan and motivated the acceptance of foreign workers, internal security in Japan and external security in Taiwan acted as constraining (exclusionary) factors, which directly and distinctively conditioned the resulting policies. Moreover, ever since their inception in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the divergent policy regimes have been interlocked in these economic-internal and economic-external dynamics of state security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the striking similarities in strategic environment of Japan and South Korea, US deterrence through nonproliferation policy toward the two allies varied in terms of its measures applied: reward-based deterrence and threat-based deterrence. Using the critical junctures framework, this paper argues that 1) domestic structural circumstances of divided with idealist bias or unified with realist bias in two allies led to different local responses to US policy that signalled the level of credibility of US security guarantee; 2) intermediaries that played a critical role in promoting mutual trust and confidence have influenced the credibility and confidence on intra-alliance level; 3) this credibility and confidence had shaped the direction of the US deterrence strategy of reward-based deterrence for Japan and threat-based deterrence for South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the conceptualisation of (regional) order in International Relations (IR) theory to illuminate key aspects of Japan's order-building role in the Indo-Pacific. The framework is based upon a multi-dimensional understanding of regional order-building allowing for an examination of Japan's vision for a 'Free and Open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) policy 'vision', the challenges it faces as a secondary power, and its conduct as an emerging entrepreneurial power in the Indo-Pacific. The article's central argument is that Japan's order-building should be understood in the context of the country's deeper strategic situation and, in particular, its position as a secondary, but still highly influential, power. This has implications for understanding Japan's approach to international order and how it might deploy norm entrepreneurship in shaping the new Indo-Pacific order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Japan is commonly regarded as a strong proponent of the existing liberal international order championed by the US in the Indo-Pacific, sometimes it has been half-hearted in opposing a Sino-centric order and been rather supportive of Chinese diplomacy. In particular, it has to some degree supported the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) implemented by Beijing, effectively offered its endorsement to the international legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) without problematizing human rights issues, and severely restricted the enhancement of its own defense capabilities. These policies have been shaped by pro-China individuals and groups who hold privileged positions inside the government, and their privileged positions have been determined by haphazard domestic political factors which have little to do with Sino-Japanese relations. This means that, although on the surface Japan may seem to have rationally calculated its international strategic interests and implemented hedging as a coherent strategy amid Sino-US rivalries, its implementation of what seems to be a hedging strategy has actually been incidental. Its policy has turned out to resemble what has been regarded by International Relations (IR) theorists as a hedging strategy, due to haphazard domestic political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the new millennium, Japan found a renewed interest in infrastructure investment and engaged in this policy issue with diplomatic initiatives and external partnerships with due attention to China's geo-economic presence. In formulating strategies for infrastructure investment, Japan has presented and disseminated a specific idea of 'quality infrastructure' as a principal component of its external infrastructure push. This article seeks to trace the evolution of Japan's ideational principles for quality infrastructure and elucidate policy motivation, policy objective, and external influence. It argues that Japan's advocacy of quality infrastructure derived from domestic impetus to expand infrastructure exports and external impetus to compete against China's infrastructural push through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Japan advocated quality infrastructure as a strategic tool to pursue multiple policy objectives that shifted from justifying Japanese infrastructural push to using as means to check and accommodate the BRI, and to legitimising common governance principles for infrastructure investment. In relations to external influence, Japan's persistence in norm-setting encouraged China to incorporate normative principles first at business dialogues and then embed common governance principles in its policy approach to infrastructure investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's increasingly active economic diplomacy in recent years has often been deeply linked to its geostrategic interests. Japan is said to be watching this development with alarm. Analysts have often claimed that this has resulted in Sino-Japanese rivalry, where the Japanese see any gains made by China in zero-sum terms, and make concerted efforts to counter China's growing influence. This article, however, is critical of such views. While elements of rivalry may indeed be visible in some aspects of Sino-Japanese relations, it would be premature to apply this perspective to economic statecraft, which is inherently multifaceted. This article claims that too much attention has been paid to the strategic aspects of Chinese economic statecraft at the expense of economic/commercial ones that could foster cooperative relations between Beijing and Tokyo. It argues that Japan does not hold a monolithic view that Chinese diplomatic activities in the economic realm are an axiomatic threat to Japanese security interests, and it remains premature to say that Japan and China are 'rivals' in the realm of economic statecraft. Future analysis in this area needs to pay greater attention to the complicating effects that economic interdependence can have in strategic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses wedge strategies in the context of Russo-Japanese relations. In particular, it looks at how both countries have sought to generate a dis-alignment in the opposing side, preventing further steps toward the consolidation of potentially threatening partnerships: the US-Japan alliance for Russia, and the Russia-China entente for Japan. After identifying the respective goals of Russia and Japan, the article examines the conditions that enable the success of wedge strategies. Looking at the case of Russia-Japan relations from 2012 to 2020, the article argues that a strategy constituted of a mix of positive economic and political incentives and a limited amount of coercion can succeed in producing a degree of dis-alignment in the opposing camp. Russia's strategy seems to be more productive than Japan's since Moscow has managed to minimize the effect of sanctions imposed by Japan and it has reduced political differences to mostly bilateral and regional issues. A greater level of cooperation with established partners for both Russia and Japan, and limited costs of wedging strategies, have resulted in dis-alignment but not a reversal of existing alignments. The article also indicates that in this case credibility issues do not fundamentally affect the degree of success of wedge strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing proliferation of bilateral strategic partnerships in and beyond the Indo-Pacific region. Yet such a partnership between Japan and New Zealand is underexplored. The central aim of this article is to fill the gap. This article first clarifies the definition of, and then provides an analytical framework for, a 'strategic partnership'. The article then analyses how these countries laid the foundation of their strategic partnership and how they have since built upon that foundation. In the implementation process of the strategic partnership, this article examines three elements: 1) the consolidation of their strategic partnership in official documents; 2) the institutionalisation of regular meetings; and 3) participation in defence and security exercises. Although the Japan-New Zealand strategic partnership is still in the early stages, this article argues that it has the potential to grow further given bipartisan support and positive perceptions in civil society in both countries. This article also analyses three factors that exert an impact on the development of their strategic partnership: China's continued assertive maritime presence, the rejuvenation of the US-New Zealand bilateral relationship, and Japan and New Zealand's ongoing commitment to the South Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]