Prospects For Increased Competition In Sino-Japanese African Diplomacy:Implications For African Region

Factors that often prompt two major regional powers with relative balance in their distribution of capabilities to engage in strategic competition have often constituted some thorny debates in much of the contemporary applications of International Relations theories in world politics.Where such immanent issues in the likes of uncertainty over shifts in the balance of power have been discussed within the contexts of structural realism and constructivism,they have tended to be incapable of expunging persistent reservations:One;do all state actors actually engage in competition or balance of power?Two,are all state actors endowed with the resources and tools to engage in strategic competition or balance of power?This thesis therefore,draws on the fundamental issues that engender competition between major regional powers,exploiting the concepts of relative balance in the distribution of power,uncertainty and threat perception over shifts in such balance of power,including but not limited to identity change to propose strong alternative approaches that underlines the prospects for Sino-Japanese competing diplomacy spreading beyond Asia to Africa.In addition,despite their very many forms,existing studies on Sino-Japanese diplomacies in Africa have tended to promote hackneyed debates that,whilst in some ways inspiring,have tended to merely highlight the simplistic paths:differences or similarities in approaches or their receptions by African regional states.While both Sino-Japanese African diplomacies have also been examined in terms of their exceptionalism or goals,there have been little attention in studies discussing both countries' African diplomacy within the contexts of structural factors that prompt their competing relations in Asia,particularly since 2013 going forward when Japan began to institutionalize balancing measures against the rise of China.Acknowledging the risks to Japan of the rise of China,Japan strives to restore its combative posture and has increasingly utilized its African diplomacy to project the 'new normal' in its revitalising military identity.As such,hedging and balancing against China in Asia,Africa and elsewhere have become increasingly vocalized,particularly as China's relative capabilities are displayed in various fronts not only in these regions but also at a time when Japan's similar representational practices alarmed an increasingly apprehensive China.This thesis argues that although Japan's changing muscular African diplomacy is part of the grand strategic reorientation of its ongoing normalization of military identity to intensify its role in the international arena and thus effectively balance China's rise,the latter's responses is a recognition that Japan is in a position to do so,raising the question on whether Sino-Japanese competing engagement with Africa could shape a new kind of regional order in the latter?...