An Analysis On Japanese Politicians’ Threat Cognition Towards China And Its Reasons

Since the1990s, threat cognition aiming to the rapid development of China has emerged in Japan.According to an analytic hierarchy process, the cognition of decision-makers who are closest to a finaldecision directly affects the content and the results of the decision. Therefore, the accurate identificationand analysis on Japanese politicians’ threat cognition towards China and its reasons have great values intheory and practical significance.The cognitive theory in international politics was derived from cognitive psychology. According tothe cognitive psychology, threat cognition is a subjective psychological inference from a subject to anobjective situation, and is also a cognitive construction. On the basis of four measurement criteria aboutthreat cognition of Stephen M. Walt and a history case analysis method of Robert Jervis, the paperindicated that Japanese politicians’ threat cognition towards China was a misperception after analyzingand judging it from the longitudinal dimension of reviewing the history of Sino-Japanese relations andthe horizontal dimension including overall strength of China and Japan, China’s offensive power,geographical relationship of China and Japan, and China’s aggressive intentions.Jervis said that frequent misperceptions in international politics included unity consciousness,decision-makers always tending to overestimate their own influence and the degree of their influence toothers, wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance. Corresponding to these four misperceptions, thispaper analyzed Japanese politicians’ threat cognition towards China from four manifestations ofspreading the ‘China threat theory’, further strengthening the Us-Japan alliance, amending the historytextbook for many times and making the Diaoyu Island issue acute. In Jervis’ viewpoint, themisperception is caused by three reasons: the consistent cognitive imagination phenomenon, evoked setand the influence of historical experience. On this basis, this paper took two more elements such ascrisis awareness and concept of hierarchy in social psychological factors and Sino-Japanese culturaldifferences into consideration when analyzing the reasons for Japanese politicians’ threat cognitiontowards China. Finally, according to these reasons, this paper put forward some countermeasures toalleviate Japanese politicians’ threat cognition towards China in aspects of China and Japan.