Strategic Dialogue And The Alliance Transformation Of Japan-US Alliance: Study On Mechanism Of "2+2"

This paper aims at discussing and researching the role and effect of Japan-US“2+2” meeting mechanism in the strategic dialogue and alliance transformation from theviewpoint of the international politics. After war, both countries explored and tested thepromotion and enhancement from “dialogue” to “strategic dialogue” all along. Sucheffort went through the whole process of the post-war Japan-US alliance developmentand evolution. Since the foundation of Japan-US security consultative committee in1960s, it had gone through reform in199os till the establishment of the strategicdialogue mechanism of Japan-US “2+2” meeting as the top, and the dialogue formbetween both countries had realized the transformation from the security consultation tothe strategic dialogue. Through the constant adjustment and improvement, this meetingmechanism plays a vital role in the security guarantee, defense cooperation, relationshipreinforcement and transformation. In addition, based on sorting and analyzing domesticand foreign data related to the Japan-US alliance and strategic dialogue mechanism, thispaper clarifies the historical change and constitution system of this meeting mechanism,generalizes the basic features, objectively judges the strategic function in such alliancerelationship, and rationally expects the future influence of this mechanism on theJapan-US alliance evolution.This paper is divided into5parts. The main content is as follows:Chapter1is introduction. It mainly expounds the objective and significance of thetopic, current domestic and foreign research status, research structure, research methods,research emphasis, difficulties, innovation, etc.Chapter2mainly studies the establishment and development progress of Japan-US“2+2” meeting and its predecessor security consultative committee (SCC). Firstly, itsorts out the establishment and background of this committee. Secondly, it sorts andanalyzes the establishment and development progress of Japan-US “2+2” strategicdialogue mechanism, systematically and comprehensively masters its formation, change and development. Finally, in the third section, it makes further analysis the effect andinfluence of Japan-US strategic dialogue mechanism establishment on the evolution ofthe Japan-US alliance. Then, it comes to a conclusion that the confirmation of themechanism is the performance and impetus of strengthening the alliance.Chapter3mainly studies the constitution system of Japan-US “2+2” meetingmechanism. Firstly, it sorts out the meeting consultation mechanism and its overallstructure in the form of integrating the figures, charts and texts. Secondly, it summarizesthe composition and change status of the meeting attendees in all previous sessions.Then, it studies the topic selection of the previous “2+2” meeting and its achievements,and then analyzes the change form of the Japan-US alliance relationship.Chapter4mainly studies the role of the meeting mechanism in Japan-US alliancerelationship. The emphasis of this chapter lies in the research on its basic characteristicsand strategic function. Firstly, according to previous research, summary and analysis ofthe previous two parts, it concludes that this meeting mechanism has major basicfeatures in strategic, equal, practical, and political aspects. Then, it analyzes thestrategic function of the meeting mechanism mainly from the viewpoint of planningJapan-US relationship, formulating strategic targets, and designing alliancetransformation routine, etc. Finally, it makes summary and emphasizes the vital role of“2+2” meeting mechanism in the Japan-US alliance.Chapter5studies the future development trend of the Japan-US strategic dialogueand alliance transformation. It puts forward three “news”, i.e. new trend of Japan-USalliance relationship reinforcement, new feature of relationship developmentreinforcement and modernization orientation, and new problems of the internalcontradiction and generation of the alliance relationship.In the conclusion part, it points out that Japan-US “2+2” meeting mechanism playsa vital role in the security guarantee and defense cooperation domain, and its key role asa connecting link between the preceding and the following in the strategic dialogue.Moreover, it lays emphasis to point out that this meeting mechanism has basic featuresof four aspects, i.e. strategic feature of guiding the alliance transformation, equal featureof relative equalization in the dialogue form and alliance framework, practical feature ofsolving the actual problems, and the political feature of America’s containing Japan. Onthat basis, it comes to a conclusion that this meeting mechanism has the strategicfunction of planning the Japan-US relationship, formulating the strategic target and designing the alliance transformation routine. Furthermore, it emphasizes this meetingmechanism can perform its core and important role in the security cooperation andalliance relationship development of both countries.