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A Council on Foreign Relations Book
Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China
No country feels China's rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts over the boundaries of economic zones in the East China Sea, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China.
Smith finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats and include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions complicating Japan's encounters with China, such as those surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine or territorial disputes, have deep roots in the postwar era, and political advocates seeking a stronger Japanese state organize themselves around these causes. Other tensions manifest themselves during the institutional and regulatory reform of maritime boundary and food safety issues.
Smith scrutinizes the role of the Japanese government in coping with contention as China's influence grows and Japanese citizens demand more protection. Underlying the government's efforts is Japan's insecurity about its own capacity for change and its waning status as the leading economy in Asia. For many, China's rise means Japan's decline, and Smith suggests how Japan can maintain its regional and global clout as confidence in its postwar diplomatic and security approach diminishes.
This is an alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 0231167881/ ISBN13: 9780231167888.
Smith finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats and include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions complicating Japan's encounters with China, such as those surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine or territorial disputes, have deep roots in the postwar era, and political advocates seeking a stronger Japanese state organize themselves around these causes. Other tensions manifest themselves during the institutional and regulatory reform of maritime boundary and food safety issues.
Smith scrutinizes the role of the Japanese government in coping with contention as China's influence grows and Japanese citizens demand more protection. Underlying the government's efforts is Japan's insecurity about its own capacity for change and its waning status as the leading economy in Asia. For many, China's rise means Japan's decline, and Smith suggests how Japan can maintain its regional and global clout as confidence in its postwar diplomatic and security approach diminishes.
This is an alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 0231167881/ ISBN13: 9780231167888.
Unknown Binding
First published December 2, 2014
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About the author
Sheila A. Smith
10 books12 followersSheila A. Smith, an expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, is senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is the author of Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia University Press, 2015) and Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (Council on Foreign Relations, June 2014). Her current research focuses on how geostrategic change in Asia is shaping Japan's strategic choices. In the fall of 2014, Smith began a new project on Northeast Asian Nationalisms and Alliance Management.
Smith is a regular contributor to the CFR blog Asia Unbound, and frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia. She joined CFR from the East-West Center in 2007, where she directed a multinational research team in a cross-national study of the domestic politics of the U.S. military presence in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. She was a visiting scholar at Keio University in 2007-08, where she researched Japan’s foreign policy towards China, supported by the Abe Fellowship. Smith has been a visiting researcher at two leading Japanese foreign and security policy think tanks, the Japan Institute of International Affairs and the Research Institute for Peace and Security, and at the University of Tokyo and the University of the Ryukyus.
Smith is vice chair of the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Exchange (CULCON), a bi-national advisory panel of government officials and private sector members. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the Asian Studies Department of Georgetown University and serves on the board of its Journal of Asian Affairs. She earned her MA and PhD degrees from the department of political science at Columbia University.
(from http://www.cfr.org/experts/asia-and-p...)
Smith is a regular contributor to the CFR blog Asia Unbound, and frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia. She joined CFR from the East-West Center in 2007, where she directed a multinational research team in a cross-national study of the domestic politics of the U.S. military presence in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. She was a visiting scholar at Keio University in 2007-08, where she researched Japan’s foreign policy towards China, supported by the Abe Fellowship. Smith has been a visiting researcher at two leading Japanese foreign and security policy think tanks, the Japan Institute of International Affairs and the Research Institute for Peace and Security, and at the University of Tokyo and the University of the Ryukyus.
Smith is vice chair of the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Exchange (CULCON), a bi-national advisory panel of government officials and private sector members. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the Asian Studies Department of Georgetown University and serves on the board of its Journal of Asian Affairs. She earned her MA and PhD degrees from the department of political science at Columbia University.
(from http://www.cfr.org/experts/asia-and-p...)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 2, 2020
I would have prefered that its title was Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China. The phrase ‘Intimate Rivals’ sets an expectation that it does not meet. Mexico and the USA, to put it into perspective, are intimate rivals. Although reliant on each other economically and for security, there is an undertone of hostility in their politics. Japan and China, in contrast, may be rivals, but intimate they are not, and this book does not show otherwise.
What it does do well is explore the issue of ‘a Rising China’. The rise of China reverberates across the domestic politics of every country. Japan just dealt with it first.
Japan and China go way back. The author does not cover that long history. Her book begins in the 20th-century when a rebuilding Japan was rocketing off into becoming the world’s second-largest economy and ends in the 21st-century as a reforming China knocked Japan down into third.
When China was weak, her leaders were willing to put aside matters on which they disagreed with Japan in exchange for economic aid. At a certain point, Japan was responsible for forty-per cent of all foreign aid that went to China. The book points out, and it bears restating, that the investment that primed the pump for China’s takeoff came from Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Konger investors seeking fatter margins. In the Japanese case, even before official ties were established, between the PRC and the Japanese government, business ties were tight.
The restoration of official ties led to the steady erosion of the premium previously placed on economic ties as a substitute for political disagreement. A major flashpoint in China-Japan relations is their overlapping territorial claims. The most visible being the jostle over the Senkaku/Daioyu/Diaoyutai islands. I learned that the primary claim over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai is from Taiwan, and the PRC’s claim proceeds from its claim over Taiwan. Also, despite neither Taiwan nor the Senkakus being under mainland control, those claims serve as a further basis for bigger claims for a wider Economic Exclusive Zone in the China Sea. It is not quite Schleswig/Holstein, but it is close.
Other flashpoints include the question over the memorials at Yasukuni, framed by the Chinese as revisionism on Japan’s path and as foreign meddling in internal affairs by the Japanese. Also, there is a question of increased Chinese economic gravity in Japan.
Citizens of countries that do not share the historical and geographical complications between Japan and China, will be heartened to know that the economic issues were those that reached the swiftest and most peaceful conclusions. The caveat is that it has proved impossible to divorce economic questions from political issues.
The main takeaway from this book is that ‘carefully calibrated strategies can be easily derailed by popular emotions and political opportunity[opportunism]’. The rise of China holds up a mirror to the politics of every country. Questions of confrontation or accommodation often turn out to be questions of what sort of country they want to be.
This book is a useful if drily written compilation. The one thing I wished it had done was detail Taiwan’s flashpoints with Japan. It hovers in the background, occasionally intruding, most times being ignored yet the absence of a detailed treatment left a gaping hole.
What it does do well is explore the issue of ‘a Rising China’. The rise of China reverberates across the domestic politics of every country. Japan just dealt with it first.
Japan and China go way back. The author does not cover that long history. Her book begins in the 20th-century when a rebuilding Japan was rocketing off into becoming the world’s second-largest economy and ends in the 21st-century as a reforming China knocked Japan down into third.
When China was weak, her leaders were willing to put aside matters on which they disagreed with Japan in exchange for economic aid. At a certain point, Japan was responsible for forty-per cent of all foreign aid that went to China. The book points out, and it bears restating, that the investment that primed the pump for China’s takeoff came from Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Konger investors seeking fatter margins. In the Japanese case, even before official ties were established, between the PRC and the Japanese government, business ties were tight.
The restoration of official ties led to the steady erosion of the premium previously placed on economic ties as a substitute for political disagreement. A major flashpoint in China-Japan relations is their overlapping territorial claims. The most visible being the jostle over the Senkaku/Daioyu/Diaoyutai islands. I learned that the primary claim over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai is from Taiwan, and the PRC’s claim proceeds from its claim over Taiwan. Also, despite neither Taiwan nor the Senkakus being under mainland control, those claims serve as a further basis for bigger claims for a wider Economic Exclusive Zone in the China Sea. It is not quite Schleswig/Holstein, but it is close.
Other flashpoints include the question over the memorials at Yasukuni, framed by the Chinese as revisionism on Japan’s path and as foreign meddling in internal affairs by the Japanese. Also, there is a question of increased Chinese economic gravity in Japan.
Citizens of countries that do not share the historical and geographical complications between Japan and China, will be heartened to know that the economic issues were those that reached the swiftest and most peaceful conclusions. The caveat is that it has proved impossible to divorce economic questions from political issues.
The main takeaway from this book is that ‘carefully calibrated strategies can be easily derailed by popular emotions and political opportunity[opportunism]’. The rise of China holds up a mirror to the politics of every country. Questions of confrontation or accommodation often turn out to be questions of what sort of country they want to be.
This book is a useful if drily written compilation. The one thing I wished it had done was detail Taiwan’s flashpoints with Japan. It hovers in the background, occasionally intruding, most times being ignored yet the absence of a detailed treatment left a gaping hole.
May 1, 2015
A truly exceptional account of where the Japan-China relationship stands today. Not only does Smith provides excellent, thoroughly researched account of several of the major crises in Sino-Japanese relations over the past decade - territorial and maritime disputes, the poisoned gyoza scandal, history issues - she provides both "second image" and "second image reversed" discussions of how China's rise is affecting Japan. In other words, she shows how domestic political change (the decline of old actors and the emergence of new ones) has affected how Japan makes policy towards China but also shows that the rise of China is exerting subtle if real effects on Japan's domestic politics. It is interesting to note, however, that thus far those changes have been incremental. One of the most interesting questions going forward is whether the rise of China will trigger domestic change akin to the Meiji restoration and the end of World War II.
April 27, 2015
Four case studies (about Japanese ministerial visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, the competition between China and Japan for maritime resources, consumer protection and food safety, and the Senkaku Islands territorial dispute) are here examined and elucidated by author Smith with admirable clarity and objectivity. Although I've lived in Japan for the past decade and have followed most of these issues during that time, the level of detail here still surprised and enlightened me. Overall: a dry but fascinating read for those interested in Sino-Japanese relations and how foreign policy can shape or reflect domestic political tensions and movements.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews