The politics of Japan's response to Chinese pressure

Contemporary Japanese foreign policy is often characterized as reactive, i.e., appropriate policy changes occur only when induced by foreign pressure. In fact, Japan really reacts to pressure from only two countries: America and China. With extensive studies done on Japan's reactions to American pressure, the puzzlement of Japanese responses to Chinese pressure, which did not reflect their relative power positions, remained a challenge to the political realist school.;My study responds to such a challenge with two case studies of Japan's concessions to Chinese pressure in the 1980s. It finds that the Chinese pressure made Japan change its domestic policies by inducing (1) a redefinition of the issues as diplomatic and moral ones and (2) a centralization in Japan's decision-making structure concerning them. The former led to changes in Japan's perception of national interests, which gave priority to diplomatic relations over domestic bureaucratic and special-group interests. The latter broke down the previous balance of power in the policy making structure and concentrated decision making into the hands of the prime ministers who, despite their hesitation and reservation, finally took the hard decisions to concede.;This study differs from many previous attempts to approach the puzzlement by treating China's power over Japan as a mythical combination of cultural, moral and psychological superiority, as if interests and power did not matter. Rather than dismissing the role of cultural and psychological factors, my study presumes these factors.;My research shares with major studies of Japan's reactions to American economic pressure the domestic approach to foreign policy and the argument that a centralized decision-making structure helps to bring about concessive or internationally cooperative policies. It reveals, however, that such a tendency becomes even more evident in these cases of Chinese political pressure, when the tension between the international volatility of the issues, which demanded prompt policy changes, and polarization of Japan's domestic political interests involved, which prevented such changes, left no domestic actors but the Japanese political leaders with a stake in and the power to decide on the policy concessions.