What is it about?
What explains the fluctuations in Japan's China policy? The analysis in this study points to the competition between a radical and a more moderate discursive representation as a potential answer. Overall, Japan's discourse on China has become more open in the past decades, though it is gradually shifting toward the radical side.
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Why is it important?
It appears that China and Japan are far from developing a cooperative relationship based on trust. So long as a sense of insecurity exists Japan's discourse on China, be it radical or more moderate, future policies would only fall within this boundary. How can both sides fix this situation? On the one hand, politicians of the more moderate line in Japan should push for policies that strengthen the goodwill between the two countries. China will also have to step up in this regard, as Japan's China discourse evolves together with the Chinese discourse on Japan.
Perspectives
While it's difficult to draw a strict causal inference between a policy discourse and the actual policies adopted by actors, analyzing discourse can still shed some light on why these policies come about in the first place. Moreover, some negative predictions can also be made as to what policies are unlikely to be implemented. The arguments in this article show how this can be done in practice.
Professor Linus Hagström
Swedish Defence University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Understanding Fluctuations in Sino-Japanese Relations: To Politicize or to De-politicize the China Issue in the Japanese Diet, Pacific Affairs, December 2010, Pacific Affairs,
DOI: 10.5509/2010834719.
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