Japanese Intellectual Responses to China's Rise

Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise Peter Mauch DOI: 10.1057/9781137299338.0014 Palgrave Macmillan Please respect intellectual property rights This material is copyright and its use is restricted by our standard site license terms and conditions (see palgraveconnect.com/pc/connect/info/terms_conditions.html). If you plan to copy, distribute or share in any format, including, for the avoidance of doubt, posting on websites, you need the express prior permission of Palgrave Macmillan. To request permission please contact [email protected]. 9 Peter Mauch One of Japan’s leading daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun, carried an interview on December 12, 2012 with Dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Modern International Relations Yan Xuetong. In the course of that interview, Yan made a number of interesting observations. First, he made clear that he regarded Sino–American ‘conflict and rivalry’ as ‘inevitable’. Second, he suggested that the United States and China should ‘drop’ the idea of ‘mutual trust’, and that they should instead seek ‘cooperation without mutual trust’. Yan also seemed certain that China need not lose out to the United States in a competition for the world’s hearts-and-minds. Arguing that China’s ‘political morality’ is at a higher level than that of the West, Yan argued that the ancient Chinese emphasis on ‘fairness’ trumps ‘equality’; similarly, ‘civility’ surpasses ‘freedom’; and also, ‘justice’ is better than ‘democracy’. Turning his attention to the Sino–Japanese relationship, Yan argued that it need not descend into such conflict and rivalry. The preconditions to an improved Sino–Japanese relationship are, according to Yan, essentially twofold: (1) Japan must accustom itself to the ‘reality’ whereby it is a ‘declining’ power and China is on an unstoppable rise, and (2) Japan must ‘define’ itself as an ‘Asian country’. An improvement in the Sino–Japanese relationship, he asserted, would ensure Japan’s ‘importance’ to China. Conversely, any deterioration in the relationship would have a deleterious effect on Japan’s significance to China. As if to demonstrate his point, Yan seemed almost dismissive of the ongoing Sino–Japanese dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. He predicted that passions would cool quickly, and suggested that the Japanese government would soon seek to ‘improve its relationship with China’. 192 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise This essay takes as its point of departure Yan’s thoughts on China’s rise and his suggestions regarding how Japan might best respond. It addresses itself to a host of questions, including: How are the Japanese responding to the rise of China? Do the Japanese – like Yan – see China’s continuing rise as inevitable? Do the Japanese agree that their own nation is in a state of decline? Is there concern in Japan with Chinese hubris? Have the Japanese – as did Yan for the Asahi Shimbun – looked to China’s past for explanations of its present behavior? Do the Japanese see in China’s past any clues as to how it might behave in the future? Is there consensus – or even an emerging consensus – concerning the response Japan might most properly devise to China’s rise? In a word, this essay surveys twenty-first century Japanese opinion concerning China’s phenomenal rise. Sino–Japanese relations through history China has loomed large in the Japanese experience for many centuries. Indeed, from the moment the Japanese adopted the Chinese writing system and began recording their own history, they looked to China as a model or object of emulation. This remained the case until the midnineteenth century, when the Western powers brought their newfound preponderance of power to bear upon Japan and its surrounding environs. Much of the region was reduced to semi-colonial status. The Japanese in 1868 launched the so-called Meiji Restoration in a concerted attempt at meeting the West on its own terms. This involved creating, centralizing, industrializing, and strengthening the Japanese state, and the model for Japanese efforts to this end was not China but the West. As the influential contemporary academic Fukuzawa Yukichi famously put it, it was necessary for Japan to ‘leave Asia’ and instead cast its lot with ‘civilized nations of the West’ (Hopper 2005: 121–122). In this sense, Japan’s smashing victory in the Sino–Japanese War of 1894–1895 was highly symbolic: Japan had met with stunning success in its drive to modernization, whereas China had not. Indeed, it seemed that the traditional Sino–Japanese relationship had been turned on its head, for at the turn of the twentieth century, Chinese reformers like Sun Yat-sen were learning from Japan. To borrow the words of historian Marius Jansen, Japan appealed to men like Sun because it embodied the ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’, and because it alone amongst Asian nations ‘resisted and weakened ... Western imperialism’ (Jansen 1954: 204). 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise 193 Peter Mauch The ensuing century was an unhappy interlude in Sino–Japanese relations. Until 1945, China bore the brunt of Japan’s imperialistic expansion. The outbreak of the second Sino–Japanese war in July 1937 was unplanned and certainly unwanted by either the Japanese or the Chinese; it was, nonetheless, the logical outcome of Japan’s aggressive expansion as well as China’s determination to stand up to the aggressor. The war continued for eight long years, and ultimately drew in many nations other than Japan and China. By the end of the war in August 1945, Japan was utterly defeated. There were also some 2.1 million Japanese and perhaps 10 million Chinese war dead. Immediately thereafter, China descended into civil war and, for this reason, did not participate in the postwar allied occupation of Japan. Nor was China represented at the San Francisco Peace Conference in September 1951, which brought a formal end to the war. Soon thereafter, at the insistence of its US ally, Japan concluded peace with the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan, and thereby precluded a formal relationship with the People’s Republic of China. Still, to borrow the words of Ogata Sadako: ‘Not many Japanese regard[ed] Communist China as a “cold war” enemy, nor [did] they accept the “China-communism-enemy” equation that [was] so widely held in the United States’ (Ogata 1965: 389). Even so, no formal relationship existed between Japan and the People’s Republic of China until 1972 – and, it must be acknowledged, such a relationship was only possible because of a dramatic turn in Sino–American relations (Suzuki 2009). Whatever the case, Sino–Japanese relations throughout the 1970s were predicated largely on the notion of mutual profitability. The relationship ran headlong into various issues in the 1980s, including the problem of Japanese high school history textbooks and their coverage of Japan’s imperial past. Still, such issues were then an irritant, rather than the virtual relationship-breaker they have since become. The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s reset the backdrop of Sino–Japanese relations. It also coincided with China’s economic takeoff, which in turn coincided with economic stagnation in Japan. That basic trend has continued to the present day. Indeed, the Chinese economy has now overtaken that of Japan as the world’s second largest; the Chinese and Japanese economies are now the world’s second and third largest economies, respectively. This will not change in the foreseeable future, and so the twenty-first century has ushered in an unprecedented era in which Japan and China stand alongside each other as great world powers. It should 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 194 Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise 195 hardly be surprising, then, that the Japanese are, in ever-increasing numbers, looking with real intent at China’s rise. Practically nobody in Japan questions the veracity of China’s rise. Japanese academics nonetheless point to various issues which China must confront if it is to continue to rise. These issues include: ensuring supplies of energy, raw materials, and water; the inefficiency of nationalized industries; the ever-increasing numbers of unemployed; corruption; environmental degradation; the widening rural–urban chasm; and economic and social inequality (Nishida 2012: 5). Few regard these issues as insurmountable – those like former diplomat Tsugami Toshiya (2013), who has questioned China’s rise, remain the exception rather than the rule. In other words, most Japanese academics agree that China is indeed on an upward trajectory. Japanese opinion concerning their own nation’s place in world affairs generally differs with Yan Xuetong’s abovementioned suggestion that Japan is in a state of terminal decline. Debate in Japan understandably revolves around the perennially underperforming Japanese economy, which in turn has implications for Japan’s geopolitical importance. Some, including geographer Musha Ryoji (2011), believe that the Japanese economy has turned the corner. Others, including a group of distinguished panelists convened by the Japanese government at the turn of the century, caution that ‘as things stand Japan is heading for decline’ (Prime Minister’s Commission 2000). Particularly interesting are the recently penned reflections of former National Defense Academy of Japan president Iokibe Makoto. He wrote of the ‘deep frustration’ with which the Japanese people consider the ‘lost twenty years’ that has comprised Japan’s post-Cold War period. He notes that commentators have linked Japan’s stalling economy with such demographic issues as the ever-declining birth rate and Japan’s rapidly ageing population, and acknowledges the widespread conclusion that Japan is in a state of ‘fatalistic decline’. Iokibe clearly does not buy into this argument. He argues that the events of 3.11 (the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear meltdown) revealed anew the Japanese people’s many strengths, including the virtue of self-sacrifice. Iokibe then draws a parallel between contemporary Japan and an orchestra, which boasts ‘top notch’ violinists, cellists, and flautists but which nonetheless lacks a ‘conductor’ to unify and shape the overall sound. To reinforce 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 China’s rise and Japan’s decline? Peter Mauch his point, Iokibe argues that ‘political leadership’ is ‘indispensable’ to Japan’s future. He regards such political leadership as eminently attainable (and cites a series of historical instances in which Japanese leaders have responded with alacrity to a challenging international environment) and counsels against ‘unnecessary pessimism’ (Iokibe 2012; Heng 2014). It would be folly to suggest that Iokibe speaks for all Japanese academics; still, his is a respected voice within Japan, and at the very least, his analysis provides an interesting corrective to those – including Yan Xuetong – who have perhaps been too quick to dismiss Japan as a declining, middling power of the twenty-first century. The divisive historical issue If Japan is not on the decline – or, at least, if Japanese academics do not necessarily accept that Japan is a declining power – then it stands to reason that Japanese academics will most likely depart from Yan Xuetong’s thoughts concerning Sino–Japanese relations. In this regard, the thoughts of the recently deceased dean of Japanese diplomacy, Hosoya Chihiro, are of interest. Writing at the turn of the century, Hosoya offered a number of observations concerning the future of the Sino–Japanese relationship. For one thing, he suggested that the Sino– Japanese relationship would continue to evolve within the broader framework of ‘triangular Sino–Japanese–US relations’. He also foresaw a deepening of the two nations’ ‘mutual economic interdependence’. And, he believed in the likelihood of an ‘intensification of [Sino–Japanese] competition at the political level’ (Hosoya 1999: 221). These suggestions have stood the test of time. Yet, even Hosoya probably did not foresee the extent to which Sino–Japanese political competition would intensify. At issue has been the two nations’ shared past: how that past might best be remembered, and how that past affects questions of national territory. Either way, the historical issue came into particularly sharp focus during the prime ministership of Koizumi Jun’ichirō (April 2001–September 2006). The most immediate issue was Koizumi’s veneration of Japan’s war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine. It should be noted at the outset that Koizumi achieved broad and enduring popularity in Japan. Koizumi offered a stark contrast not only to his predecessor Mori Yoshirō’s bumbling persona; he struck most Japanese as being somehow different from the run-of-the-mill politician. Koizumi’s success in portraying himself as a maverick partly accounted for his popularity in a nation that had otherwise lost patience with its politicians and their inability to overcome the nation’s economic 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 196 malaise. Yet, there was more to Koizumi’s popularity than mere economic imperatives. Certainly, economic imperatives do nothing to explain the mobile phone straps with dolls bearing Koizumi’s likeness that became an almost ubiquitous fashion accessory amongst Japanese schoolgirls renowned for their dedication to all that is cute. It must also be noted that Koizumi actively courted that portion of the Japanese population which locates itself – consciously or otherwise – towards the right-wing of the political spectrum. This became evident during the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election of April 2001, when Koizumi pledged to visit the Yasukuni Shrine annually if he were elected LDP president (because the LDP held a majority of seats in the Lower House of the Japanese Diet, the party president also became prime minister). Political scientist Sasada Hironori, for one, argues that Koizumi’s nod to the right emerged precisely because the LDP in the early twenty-first century reformed its party presidential elections so that all party members became eligible voters. In other words, the popularization of the LDP presidential election served – perhaps unwittingly – to ‘pull’ Koizumi and others towards the right (Sasada 2010: 7; Suzuki 2013). For all his domestic popularity, Koizumi quickly became a figure of vilification in China. (It might be noted parenthetically that he was hardly less popular in South Korea). The immediate issue was Koizumi’s veneration of Japan’s war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine. He first visited the shrine on August 13, 2001, and made five subsequent visits as prime minister. The Chinese response was vitriolic. The popular Chinese response came in the form of demonstrations. After Koizumi’s fourth visit to the Yasukuni Shrine – on January 1, 2004 – public demonstrations broke out in Beijing and Shanghai. Not long thereafter, China hosted the Asian Football Confederation Cup final; the Chinese fans’ booing drowned out the Japanese national anthem before the game began. The official Chinese reaction was – if anything – even more noteworthy. To cite but one example: China’s then foreign minister, the Japanese-speaking Tang Jianxuan, emerged in July 2001 from a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Tanaka Makiko (on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum) and faced Japanese reporters asking what he had said concerning Koizumi’s intention to visit the Yasukuni Shrine. Tang explained that his basic message had been simple, if decidedly undiplomatic: ‘Don’t you dare!’ Koizumi was, in effect, persona non grata in Beijing. Be that as it may, the Chinese reaction had the unintended effect of shoring up domestic support for Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni. To quote 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise 197 Peter Mauch the Asahi Shimbun’s chief diplomatic correspondent, Yoichi Funabashi (2005): ‘Japanese across the political spectrum resent what they perceive as ... [China’s] audacity [in criticizing Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine] ... ’. In this way, the Chinese reaction confirmed – however unwittingly – the domestic political imperatives which informed Koizumi’s decision to make his annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. China’s frostiness towards Koizumi – coupled with its subsequent embrace of Koizumi’s prime ministerial successor, Abe Shinzō, who has since re-emerged as prime minister – calls to mind the scholarship of China specialist Etō Shinkichi. According to Etō, China’s foreign policymaking process affords unusual weight to the question as to whether or not a foreign leader is a ‘friend’ of China (Etō 1972: 64–65). In this formula, Koizumi’s repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine branded him as anything but a ‘friend’ of China; Sino–Japanese relations, for that very reason, reached a nadir during his tenure as prime minister. Overcoming the historical issue Towards the end of his prime ministership, Koizumi – in a move which suggests he was thinking of leaving a legacy other than enmity – instigated a joint Sino–Japanese history research initiative. Koizumi sought, in short, to overcome the perennial problem of Japan’s imperial past and how it might best be remembered. This was no simple task. After all, the Japanese themselves are by no means united in their memory of their nation’s imperial past. To borrow the words of Harvard historian Akira Iriye (1995): ‘The [Japanese] nation as a whole has failed to develop a coherent picture, a public memory, of the war.’ In other words, Japan’s imperial past and World War II remains a contested memory within Japan (as attested to by the existence of such groups as Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukurukai, or Japanese Society for Textbook Reform). That Japan’s imperial past impacted on Japan’s neighbors – including China – serves to complicate the issue immeasurably. Still, the Japanese government in May 2005 sought to overcome this myriad of issues by broaching with the Chinese government the so-called Japan–China Joint History Research Committee. The Committee met for the first time in late December 2006. It aimed not only to reach a shared understanding of the recent past, but also to ‘deepen peaceful, friendly relations between both nations’. Its membership comprised a veritable who’s who of the Japanese and Chinese historical professions: Japanese members included Kitaoka Shin’ichi, Kojima Tomoyuki, Hatano Sumio, Sakamoto Kazuya, and Shōji Jun’ichirō, while 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 198 Chinese members included Bu Ping, Wang Jianlang, Rong Weimu, Tao Wenzhao, Xu Yong, and Zang Yunhu. Still, it faced considerable obstacles. As University of Tokyo professor Kitaoka put it, there was a very considerable ‘gap’ separating the historical awareness of Chinese and Japanese participants (MOFA 2008). Some four years later, in September 2010, the Japan–China Joint History Research Committee released its findings. It reported that researchers – whether Chinese or Japanese – had the ‘same’ or ‘close’ understanding of the ‘vast majority of historical facts’. This perhaps conveniently overlooked the reality that ‘facts’ are merely history’s building blocks, and that scholars can (and do) ask different questions of the ‘facts’. In other words, an agreement on the ‘vast majority of historical facts’ does not necessarily suggest an agreement on the big historical issues. Even so, an agreement on facts provoked those in Japan – and undoubtedly also in China – who regard the Sino–Japanese relationship as very much a zero-sum game. To cite but one example: Kōchi University emeritus professor Fukuchi Atsushi expressed incredulity. ‘Beijing is jubilant,’ he wrote. ‘Why, then, is Tokyo also jubilant when, really, it should be crying?’ He admonished his ‘foolish’ fellow Japanese: ‘Open your eyes!’ (Rose 2010, 10). Fukuchi’s remarks bear just a hint of hysteria. They were also wide of the mark. Indeed, it is worth questioning whether the Japan–China Joint History Research Committee was really able to take steps towards a shared bi-national reading of the past. Particularly noteworthy in this regard is the damning assessment of the Chinese education system offered recently by Kitaoka Shin’ichi. Kitaoka – who, along with Chinese scholar Bu Ping chaired the abovementioned Japan–China Joint History Research Committee – wrote in 2011 that the ‘rise of Chinese nationalism’ was at least partly attributable to that nation’s ‘jingoistic education’, which incidentally paints Japan as the ‘principal villain’. Kitaoka was, if anything, more forthcoming in his assessment of Chinese foreign policy. China, according to Kitaoka, is doing its utmost to build a ‘new order’. That ‘new order’ bears a striking resemblance to China’s ‘traditional worldview’, in which China’s neighbors acknowledged and respected its ‘predominance’. The Chinese government’s complete inability to ‘control’ the People’s Liberation Army, in Kitaoka’s assessment, renders this trend even more disturbing. If Japan is to play a role in slowing or stopping such disturbing trends, Kitaoka foresees the need for a ‘major turnaround in [Japan’s] economic and defense policies’. In concrete terms, this means increased defense spending and a more concerted effort at bringing the Trans-Pacific Partnership 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise 199 Peter Mauch (TPP) free trade negotiations to a successful conclusion. Such steps, Kitaoka suggests, can be undertaken with a degree of confidence. Many nations – he specifically mentions Vietnam and Indonesia – are uneasy about China’s future intentions; he also regards Japan’s commitment to such ‘universal values’ as democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and freedom of the seas as aces up Japan’s sleeve (Kitaoka 2011: 97, 99, 101). Perceptions of China in Japanese academia Pessimism for the future of Sino–Japanese relations abounds in Japanese academia. To cite but a few examples: Tsunekawa Jun has written of China’s ever-expanding military budgets, as well as the ‘massive influence’ which the military wields over Chinese foreign policy, and has concluded that ‘it is not possible to view the future of Sino–Japanese relations optimistically’ (Tsunekawa 2009: 16). Shōji Tomotaka (2009) has argued that, in pursuing their policies towards ASEAN, ‘Japan and China should seek to cooperate’. He nonetheless acknowledges that, the imperatives for cooperation notwithstanding, Japan and China are engaged in a ‘competition’ for influence in Southeast Asia. Keio University professor Soeya Yoshihide has questioned whether China will become a responsible power on the world scene, or whether China will follow the dictates of a jingoistic nationalism which challenges the politics and thought of modern international politics. ‘If China’s rise continues, international politics will increasingly be shaken by the contradictions in these two choices,’ he asserts. Whatever the case, he believes the signs for Japan are far from encouraging. He advocates ever-increasing levels of cooperation not only with ASEAN but also South Korea and Australia. He nonetheless insists that such diplomacy need not be anti-Chinese. Instead, it should ‘have the significant aim of strengthening an international order led by the nations of East Asia’ (NHK Kaisetsu Iinshitsu 2013). Nakajima Mineo is convinced that the Cold War has not ended. He writes that the ideological and systemic divisions which characterized the Cold War continue to exist in Asia, and he argues that China’s ‘opening’ to the world is on Chinese Communist Party terms and in no way resonant with long-standing American concerns for democracy and human rights. As for US policy vis-à-vis China, and in particular President Obama’s so-called Asia pivot, Nakajima argues that it is largely a response to China’s territorial claims from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea to the western Pacific. ‘There is no room to doubt that there is already a Sino–American “new” Cold War.’ This supposedly new 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 200 Cold War might well be a Sino–American phenomenon, but Nakajima sees Japan on the front lines. He believes that the recent Sino–Japanese spat over the Senkaku Islands – as well as the subsequent anti-Japanese demonstrations throughout China – suggest the full extent of China’s territorial claims. Those claims allow for ‘absolutely no indication of understanding Japan’s position.’ Not only does China claim sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, but Nakajima believes it is especially noteworthy that anti-Japanese demonstrators have recently been calling for the ‘return’ of the Ryukyu Islands to Chinese sovereignty (Nakajima 2010). The foregoing should not be read to mean that Japanese academia is bereft of scholars who are optimistic about the future of Sino–Japanese relations. There are, indeed, many scholars who believe the Sino– Japanese relationship has every reason to progress smoothly. To cite but one example: National Defense Academy of Japan President Kokubun Ryōsei concedes that the Sino–Japanese relationship is ‘bad’ at the ‘top political level’ and also at the level of ‘public opinion’, but he also claims that the relationship has never been better amongst diplomats, businessmen and women, and scholars. He also argues that there are ‘many issues which [Japan and China] should consider mutually’. These include energy, the environment, security, finance, crime, piracy, and protection of sea lanes. Kokubun is convinced of the need to further mutual understanding between and amongst Japanese and Chinese, and for that reason criticizes any moves – such as prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine – which in his estimation betray a lack of ‘long term’ vision for the Sino–Japanese relationship (Kokubun 2005: 28, 32). Kokubun’s predecessor as National Defense Academy of Japan, President Iokibe Makoto, is similarly optimistic about the future of Sino–Japanese relations. Iokibe concedes the imperative of maintaining Japan’s alliance relationship with the United States and of maintaining Japan’s own defensive posture; he nonetheless regards the Sino–Japanese relationship as being of extreme importance for Japan. Iokibe (2012) was critical of Prime Minister Koizumi’s repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, condemning Koizumi for having ‘paralyzed [Japan’s] Asian diplomacy’ and for having ‘complicated Japan’s otherwise ‘constructive foreign relationships’. Iokibe subsequently emerged as a senior member of Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo’s brains trust. He also served as a member of the so-called New Japan–China Friendship Committee for the Twenty-First Century, which according to Itō Motoshige (who served on the same committee), frankly acknowledged the parlous state of Sino–Japanese relations at the ‘political level’, but also worked from the belief that 10.1057/9781137299338 - Asian Thought on China's Changing International Relations, Edited by Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Western Sydney - PalgraveConnect - 2014-08-25 Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise 201 Peter Mauch greater Sino–Japanese exchange at the grassroots level would lessen the influence of politics over the overall relationship. The National Defense Academy of Japan has produced yet another voice of optimism concerning the Sino–Japanese relationship. Yamaguchi Noboru recently wrote (2012) that the posture which Japan adopted in its dealings with China was a ‘profound issue’. He was unequivocal in his understanding of the military relationship between the two nations: ‘Communication between Japanese and Chinese defense officials is extremely important for [Japan’s] national defense.’ That communication would help to build Sino–Japanese trust, which would in turn ‘ease tensions’ and also help the two nations ‘avoid unnecessary tensions and accidental clashes’. He signed off with what amounted to an exhortation: Japan ‘should make persistent and continual efforts to cultivate a constructive relationship with China.’ Not even the recent spat over the Senkaku/Daioyu Islands (which is not under consideration in this essay) disabused Yamaguchi of this imperative. Conclusion What does all this mean? For one thing, it seems fair to suggest that Yan Xuetong’s thinking about the Sino–Japanese relationship has gained very little traction amongst Japanese academics. Very few seem willing to accept that Japan is in a state of terminal decline. A significant portion of academics believe that Japan’s ongoing economic malaise is reversible. This has obvious implications for Japan’s geopolitical place in the twenty-first century world. Few address the question as to whether Japan ought to redefine itself (to borrow Yan’s phraseology) as an Asian nation. Quite what Yan meant by this is perhaps open to interpretation, but it seems to imply that Japan should dispense with its existing security alliance with the non-Asian United States. Very few Japanese academics would endorse such a drastic step – the alliance with the United States has provided the foundation-stone for Japanese foreign and security policies throughout the post-World War II era, and those policies have, on the whole, served the nation very well. This brings us back to the overarching question, namely, what does all this mean? 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