Competing as potential superpowers: Japan's China policy, 1978-1998

This dissertation examines Japan's relations with China in the context of interactions between potential hegemonic powers in the world political economy. It contends that the fundamental question in Sino-Japanese relations is neither misperception nor misunderstanding. The nature of Japan's relations with China is predominately determined by the two countries' relative positions in the world political economy which has gone through major structural changes in the past two decades. It is the two countries' changing status in the changing international system, their conflicting national interests, and their irreconcilable national goals in the region and in the world that have been primarily responsible for the ups and downs in the bilateral relationship in the closing decades of the twentieth century.; This thesis also argues that Japan's domestic politics has played a powerful role in shaping its relations with China. Successfully dealing with Beijing is critical for Japan if it is to assert any meaningful global role, yet despite Tokyo's repeated attempts since the 1970s to incorporate China into an East Asian regional framework centred on Japan, a set of complicated internal developments in Japanese politics, interacting with external factors, have hampered the realization of this policy goal. Japan is still in the process of. searching for a successful China policy while coping with the uncertainties presented by a China that is rapidly emerging as a major world power.; Theoretically, the project explores how the interaction between structural factors at the level of the international system and domestic factors at the nation-state or unit level have affected Japan's China policy. Empirically, this thesis argues, through eight case studies, that a number of commonly accepted models of Japanese foreign policy do not accurately depict Japanese behaviour towards the People's Republic of China; that the perception of Beijing as the sole unstable and unpredictable party in the bilateral relationship is incorrect; and that Japan's relations with China must be studied in a broader framework of systemic transformations of the international political economy.