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Japan is abandoning its once unidirectional foreign security policy towards the USA, two notable examples of which are its increasingly comprehensive and substantial security relations with the Philippines and Vietnam. Putting these burgeoning Japanese security partnerships front and center, this paper asks the following questions: What are the characteristics of Japan's maturing security partnerships with the Philippines and Vietnam? What factors have driven and enabled their recent emergence? What promotes and constrains their future development? What do these maturing Japanese non-US security partnerships reveal about Japan's direction as a security actor in and beyond East Asia? The paper finds that these two Japanese security bilaterals, which have six basic characteristics in common, are fundamentally driven by the contemporary shift in the balance of power and the strategic challenge that China's emerging maritime power and ambitions present Japan. It moreover argues that the substantiation of these security partnerships have been pursued under American auspices and further invited by Japanese nationalism and security legislative reforms. Notwithstanding these encouraging factors, however, domestic and geo-strategic constraints and counter incentives lead this paper to expect further substantiation, but limited military significance in the future of these security partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper joins the debate on Japan's territorial dispute with South Korea over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets. Informed by the ontological security framework of analysis, this paper seeks to explain the decision to adopt the ‘Takeshima Day’ ordinance by the Shimane Prefectural Assembly and the subsequent ascendance of ‘Takeshima’ to the fore of Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. In this paper, I distinguish between two processes: one that led to the adoption of the ordinance and another that resulted in the entrenchment of ‘Takeshima’ in Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. The paper argues that the former process should be understood within the context of Shimane Prefecture's distinct identity construction vis-à-vis Tokyo, while the latter can be attributed to recent changes in Japan–Korea relations unrelated to the territorial dispute per se. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reexamines the conventional wisdom that characterizes Sino-Japanese energy relations as predominantly competitive, but views Sino-Japanese environmental relations as essentially cooperative. Using sociological theories of risk, it is argued that Sino-Japanese cooperation is more likely in both the energy and environmental areas when common risks are perceived and relative gains are minimized. Despite their many conflicting strategic, political, and economic interests, as energy importers who are vulnerable to supply interruptions in the Middle East and competitors for global energy supplies, China and Japan share common risks to their energy security. Consequently, there actually may be increasing opportunities for China and Japan to address their common concerns through bilateral and multilateral cooperative practices, such as common positions on pricing or energy conservation initiatives. Although one would expect China and Japan to highlight their mutual interests in tackling environmental problems such as air pollution, in fact relative gains often impede cooperation. Japan increasingly views China as an economic competitor and is reducing environmental aid, while China continues to set a priority on economic growth, which sets limits on the use of costlier Japanese green technologies. By examining a selection of scholarly articles, reports and newspaper articles by Chinese and Japanese analysts, as well as material from interviews in Beijing and Tokyo in May-June 2007, the paper shows how environmental and energy issues in Sino-Japanese relations may be framed as threats, requiring counter-measures, or common risks, which can be addressed through cooperative practices. Lastly, the paper discusses the possibility of the development of an energy security 'risk community' as cooperative practices develop between China and Japan. Nonetheless, conflicting political interests, strategies, and self-images, accentuating relative gains, may provide obstacles to their cooperation in both energy security and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's economic and political relationship with South Africa has been characterised historically by ambiguity. Throughout the twentieth century, economic ties were underpinned by mercantilist and strategic considerations. During apartheid, this placed Japan in an uneasy position as it sought to balance a relationship of expediency with wider foreign policy objectives in the rest of Africa and beyond. The demise of apartheid created the space for new forms of engagement centred on the pursuit of cognate goals. This has seen the intensification and deepening of economic ties in particular. Yet relations, especially at the political and diplomatic levels, have also been more complex than anticipated, and in recent years, the rise in Africa of other players from Asia and the Global South has had a bearing on South Africa–Japan ties. In this paper, it is argued that two related dynamics pivoting on policy elites’ changing conceptions (or self-view) of the nature of the state they are running and its place in the wider world order help explain the post-apartheid evolution of the South Africa–Japan relationship. First, there has been an apparent shift in South African foreign policy elites’ self-view, mediated by a changing systemic context. The development and manifestation over time of a stronger Global South self-conception in South African foreign policy, fashioned in juxtaposition to what have been considered in the past key Global North relationships, had direct consequences for South Africa–Japan ties. Second, meso- and micro-level dynamics – the role of the general operations in the diplomatic (i.e. bureaucratic) arena, and the personalities and shifting political preferences of individual executive leaders – had major impacts on how South Africa engaged with Japan in the past two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the defense interdependence between Japan and the United States (US) in the short and long run and to investigate whether Japan is a follower or a free rider of the “US” over the 1975–2009 period. Given that mutual aid between Japan and the US has been maintained, the empirical results suggest that Japanese defense has a stable relationship with US defense. Furthermore, the results reveal that Japan is not a free rider but rather a follower in the period under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deploys the Gramscian concepts of hegemony and consent in order to explore the process whereby nuclear power was brought to Japan. The core argument is that nuclear power was brought to Japan as a consequence of US hegemony. Rather than a simple manifestation of one state exerting material ‘power over' another, bringing nuclear power to Japan involved a series of compromises worked out within and between state and civil society in both Japan and the USA. Ideologies of nationalism, imperialism and modernity underpinned the process, coalescing in post-war debates about the future trajectory of Japanese society, Japan's Cold War alliance with the USA and the role of nuclear power in both. Consent to nuclear power was secured through the generation of a psychological state in the public mind combining the fear of nuclear attack and the hope of unlimited consumption in a nuclear-fuelled post-modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the post-war period Australian Prime Ministers have played a proactive role in formulating foreign policy towards Japan. This paper explores the role of executive leadership towards Japan and its impact on the bilateral relationship. The Howard period and current Rudd-led initiatives on whaling, nuclear disarmament, climate change and regional architecture are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the evolution of Japan-Southeast Asia security relations over the Cold War and the post-Cold War periods. It makes two main points. First, Japan's relationship with Southeast Asia is slowly overcoming its traditional aversion of security affairs in defining its relations with Southeast Asia in the post-Cold War period. Japan has moved beyond economics to gradually carve out a more proactive role in the security affairs of Southeast Asia in the areas of multilateral security dialogues, peacekeeping missions, disaster relief provision, combating piracy, and others. Second, Southeast Asian states have become more amenable to Japan assuming a security role in the region. Not only have the new security roles contributed to enhanced trust and confidence between Japan and Southeast Asia, but Japan has also achieved the status of being a core security actor in Southeast Asian affairs. This role will continue to flourish in the post-Cold War period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines why Japan is not perceived to be attractive by foreign technical talent even though there is growing demand for such professionals. It examines three sets of barriers: Japanese business practices, immigration policies and social-cultural factors. Given Japan's sluggish growth and demographic crisis, the study also suggests that countries and cities, when playing the globalisation game of attracting talent for national competitiveness, must balance domestic and expatriate needs. Based on both published data from Japanese and other sources as well as primary data collected through field surveys of Indian technical professionals in Japan and India, this study places Japan in the wider context of globalisation and mobility of international talent. Based on the patterns of Asian flows of talent, especially Chinese and Indian talent, the paper concludes that Japan must create a conducive professional and social environment to attract talent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines US, Japanese, and European political economy approaches to China, and their effect on US-Japan and US-EU relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less of a concern are preoccupied with calculations for wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe, and Japan are not that different in the scheme of things. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world to outflank the US-Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]