Abe Administration’s Adjustment Of Security Policy Toward China

Based on important official documents released by the Abe administration, this thesis first analyzes Abe administration’s previous security policy toward China, its policy changes throughout the years as well as the essence underlying these changes; then it analyzes the internal as well as external factors behind these changes; lastly it discusses China’s countermeasures against the security policy of Japan.At the beginning of the Koizumi Administration, China and Japan had regular security exchanges, but in the late period, due to Japan’s denial of historical facts and long lasting policy of “depend on the U.S.”, China-Japan relations reached the lowest level. After the Liberal Democratic Party came into power, Japan began to modify Koizumi’s “depend on the U.S.” policy and attached great importance to the Asia-Pacific area, especially diplomatic relations with China. With the security exchanges between the two countries enhanced, their relations reached the highest level. After the Democratic Party came into power, Japan at first committed itself to building a friendly relation with China, upholding a cooperative foreign policy, but during the late period, ship collision incident near the Diaoyu Islands marked a turning point of the China-Japan relations. After the incident to “nationalize the Diaoyu Islands”, Japan began to take a hard stand on security policy toward China.After its formation, Abe administration released a series of documents concerning China, including the National Security Strategy, the 2014 National Defense Program Guidelines, the Mid-Term Defense Program, the Diplomatic Bluebook for 2014 and the Defense White Paper 2014 etc., and actively adjusted its security policy toward China, beginning to take a hard stand. “Containing China” is a focus of the new security policy and security exchanges with China almost came to a stop. In order to contain China, Abe continue to strengthen prevention against China from six levels: First, its defense concept emphasizes more on quality and quantity, aiming at improving ability to contain and counter China; Second, after Abe came into power, the propaganda of China Threat theory reached a climax; Third, it began to strengthen the defense of Diaoyu Islands; Fourth, after the release of the 2014 National Defense Program Guidelines, in order to contain China, Japan began to build an integrated mobile force to enhance its defense status; Fifth, multiple measures were taken to consolidate the Japan-US alliance so as to contain China; Sixth, it began to adopt a strategic policy of “overlooking the world map” to contain China; Through these analyses, it is revealed that on the surface, Japan tries to propagandize the threat posed by China’s defense expenditure expansion military adjustment, but its real intention is to take advantage of China’s rise to mislead the public opinion so that it can exercise its right of self-defense, expand its military and to revise the Peace Constitution. For the reasons underlying Abe administration’s adjustment of policy toward china, the thesis mainly focuses on three aspects: the political ideas of Abe and the changes of Japan’s domestic as well as external environments. First, the political ideas of Abe; Second, the change of international environment; Third, the change of domestic environment.To counter Japan’s policy, China should 1) to make clear to the world that the legal basis of the “right of collective self-defense” is the UN Charter, thus to restrain Japan; 2) to demonstrate to the world that peace and development are the fundamental national policy of China, and China means no threat to the other countries; 3) to strengthen the exchange with Japan’s peaceful forces in the country to restrain Abe; 4) dare to fight to win so that we can win peace. China needs to build a strong defense capability and demonstrate to the world that China will never provoke, but will never be afraid of provocation.