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The China Factor in the U.S.-Japan Alliance: The Myth of a China Threat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Yoshihide Soeya
Yoshihide Soeya*
Affiliation:
Keio University
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Abstract

This paper argues that “China threat” was largely a myth and that the China factor was not the critical factor leading to the re-affirmation process of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the mid-1990s. It took the 1994 Korean crisis for this to materialize. The China factor was important only as a general background, and the role of the U.S.-Japan alliance in dealing with the rise of China was implicit, remaining in the domain of managing shifting major power relations after the Cold War rather than being directed against the myth of a “China threat.” The paper also argues that preoccupation with Japan as an independent security pole is an important source of confusion about the nature of Japan's security policies and its profile therein, which, as before, will continue to be premised on the U.S.-Japan alliance. It explains actual records of Japanese security behaviors as a series of attempts to cope with the dual identity as a security actor. Japan's readjustment to the post-Cold War security environment, founded upon the re-affirmation of the U.S.-Japan alliance, was a clear case in point.

Keywords

The U.S.-Japan allianceChina threatJapan's dual identitythe 1994 Korean Crisisthe 1996 Taiwan CrisisAnti-Terrorism Special Measures Law (Japan)U.S.-Japan Joint Security DeclarationRevision of the Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , August 2002 , pp. 37 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

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