Reassuring and Unnerving Japan } 707
Japan’s fundamental geopolitical reality is that it is a densely populated but
resource-poor island nation extremely vulnerable to blockade. The increas-
ingly militarized standoff over disputed territories in the East China Sea
combined with virulent anti-Japanese sentiments that erupted periodically
in China during the 2000s to cause many Japanese to wonder if Japan did
not need to better defend itself against possible Chinese belligerency.
China’s sentiments and interests toward Japan’s alliance with the United
States are also deeply conflicted. Japan’s alliance with the United States
brings US power into threatening proximity to China and is the keystone of a
region-wide structure of US power encircling China. If China is to someday
become pre-eminent in Asia, that may well require that America “go home”
and leave Asians to deal with Asian security issues. From Beijing’s point of
view, this would ideally mean that Japan would take China as a security part-
ner, perhaps treating China as its older brother—rather as Japan now treats
the United States. On the other hand, Chinese analysts understand that over
many centuries Japan’s rulers were unwilling to accept a position formally
subordinate to China’s emperor. They realize too that rather than subordi-
nating itself to China, Japan could well decide to arm itself to become able to
defend itself independently without US support. This would mean far greater
Japanese military capability—and a Japan no longer held on a leash by US
desires for a cooperative relation with China.^3
China’s policy toward Japan since the upheaval of 1989–1991 has oscillated
between periods of friendship diplomacy and periods of punitive pressure.
Following the strategy of “unity, struggle, unity,” Beijing launched periodic
pressure campaigns intended to compel Japan to recognize its shortcomings
and abandon policies unacceptable to Beijing. These pressure campaigns were
followed by renewed campaigns of smile diplomacy designed to repair ties
and avoid pushing Japan in directions adverse to China’s interests. This oscil-
lation between smile and frown diplomacy was paralleled by a steady deepen-
ing of economic relations between the two countries.
The memoir of Tang Jiaxuan, one of China’s top Japan specialists and foreign
minister from 1998 to 2003, offers an explanation of this oscillation between
friendship and browbeating. Beijing sought friendship with its neighbors, but
certain incorrect beliefs and derivative policies in neighboring countries con-
stituted “obstacles” to friendship: visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, purchasing
the Senkakus from private Japanese, detaining a Chinese trawler captain, etc.
These “obstacles” had to be eliminated for friendship to flourish. There were
two ways to eliminate them. First, educational work by Chinese diplomats,
leaders, the media, think tanks, and so on, to explain to foreign parties the
errors of their ways. Second, punitive measures: suspension of exchanges and
dialogues, restricting rare-earth exports, condoning angry demonstrations
by PRC citizens, military pressure on disputed territories, negative diplomatic
moves, and media and cyber threats. While there was often some element
of punishment and implicit Chinese military threat behind these punitive