The Senkaku Islands and Japan
179U.S. alliance is the best way to secure Japan’s national defense. From this
point of view, the security policies of the Abe administration can be
understood as efforts to make the Japan-U.S. alliance stronger and more
effective to deter China, and it is obvious that Japan doesn’t aspire to
become a military power.
However, many Asian countries, including Japan, have voiced doubts
about the durability of America’s national power and its hegemony in the
Asia-Pacific region due to domestic political confrontations in the United
States, the unsettled budget sequestration issue, and fluctuations in the
foreign and defense policies of the Obama administration. For example, a
U.S. media outlet has pointed out that, “Japan appears to have lost its trust
in the U.S. security guarantee over the issue of North Korea.”^31 In fact, it
is true that many Japanese lawmakers complain that the United States
could not prevent North Korea’s nuclear development. Yet I think that the
biggest reason why some Japanese doubt the security guarantee of the
United States, even though the Abe administration tries to strengthen the
alliance, is that nobody could answer to a basic dilemma: whether or not
the United States can keep its hegemony in the region for eternity. That is
why Abe stresses the need to develop self-defense capabilities at the same
time as strengthening the Japan-U.S. alliance. I also want to emphasize the
importance of improving relations with the PRC in addition to Abe’s three
pillars.
Moreover, Japan and the PRC have been strongly dependent on each
other economically for many decades. This specific relationship is the
biggest difference from the East-West confrontation during the Cold War
and makes the situation very complicated. China’s total exports to Japan
have been steadily increasing even after the series of accidents related to
the Senkaku Islands. In 2012 they recorded the total export value of 189
billion USD as the highest figure in history, while Japan’s exports to the
PRC decreased by 17 billion USD since 2011. China is the second biggest
trade partner of Japan, while Japan is the biggest investor and the third
biggest trade partner of China. It is also undeniable that Chinese tourists
are boosting Japanese domestic tourism industries.
After the massive protest in China in September 2012, many of the
22,790 Japanese companies that are registered commercial businesses in
the PRC considered shifting their factories or branches from China to
ASEAN countries. However, it is estimated that the Chinese domestic
market will not decrease in importance for Japanese companies in the near
future. In fact, the Chinese market has played, and will play, an important
(^31) Lignet.com, “Why Japan lost faith in America’s security guarantee.“