Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century
After decades of accepting US supremacy in Asia as the foundation of its foreign and security policies, finding the right distance between the U.S. and China is the most important strategic choice facing Japan today. “Getting it just right” with these two powers will require both military and econom...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Oxford University Press
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85866 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4545-2193 |
| _version_ | 1826191163900559360 |
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| author | Samuels, Richard J. Michishita, Narushige |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Samuels, Richard J. Michishita, Narushige |
| author_sort | Samuels, Richard J. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | After decades of accepting US supremacy in Asia as the foundation of its foreign and security policies, finding the right distance between the U.S. and China is the most important strategic choice facing Japan today. “Getting it just right” with these two powers will require both military and economic readjustments. There is a great deal at stake in Tokyo’s recalculation. Japan, China, and the United States are, after all, the three largest economies in the world, together accounting for nearly 40% of global production. Each has a deep--and deepening--stake in the other two. The United States and Japan are China’s top two trade partners. The United States and China are Japan’s top two trade partners. And Japan and China are the top two U.S. trade partners outside of NAFTA. In security terms, the United States remains the world’s only hyper power, but China’s rapid (if opaque) military modernization is shifting regional dynamics. For its part, Japan annually spends over $50 billion on defense, no trivial sum despite its self-imposed cap on spending at 1% of GDP. Japan has an impressive navy and air force and has openly debated possessing strike cap abilities. Even the nuclear option reportedly has been discussed among members of the National Diet. In short, each of the three is a bona fide current or potential “great power”--viz., each has the ability to exert its economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic influence on a global scale in ways that could alter the regional and global balances. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:51:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/85866 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:51:48Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/858662022-09-30T11:44:17Z Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century Samuels, Richard J. Michishita, Narushige Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Samuels, Richard J. Samuels, Richard J. After decades of accepting US supremacy in Asia as the foundation of its foreign and security policies, finding the right distance between the U.S. and China is the most important strategic choice facing Japan today. “Getting it just right” with these two powers will require both military and economic readjustments. There is a great deal at stake in Tokyo’s recalculation. Japan, China, and the United States are, after all, the three largest economies in the world, together accounting for nearly 40% of global production. Each has a deep--and deepening--stake in the other two. The United States and Japan are China’s top two trade partners. The United States and China are Japan’s top two trade partners. And Japan and China are the top two U.S. trade partners outside of NAFTA. In security terms, the United States remains the world’s only hyper power, but China’s rapid (if opaque) military modernization is shifting regional dynamics. For its part, Japan annually spends over $50 billion on defense, no trivial sum despite its self-imposed cap on spending at 1% of GDP. Japan has an impressive navy and air force and has openly debated possessing strike cap abilities. Even the nuclear option reportedly has been discussed among members of the National Diet. In short, each of the three is a bona fide current or potential “great power”--viz., each has the ability to exert its economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic influence on a global scale in ways that could alter the regional and global balances. 2014-03-21T14:48:15Z 2014-03-21T14:48:15Z 2012-10 2011-09 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/BookItem 9780199937479 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85866 Samuels, Richard J., and Narushige Michishita. "Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century." Worldviews of Aspiring Powers: Domestic Foreign Policy Debates in China, India, Iran, Japan, and Russia. Eds. Nau, Henry R., and Deepa M. Ollapally. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4545-2193 en_US http://global.oup.com/academic/product/worldviews-of-aspiring-powers-9780199937479?cc=us&lang=en& Worldviews of Aspiring Powers: Domestic Foreign Policy Debates in China, India, Iran, Japan, and Russia Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press Samuels via Jennifer Greenleaf |
| spellingShingle | Samuels, Richard J. Michishita, Narushige Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century |
| title | Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century |
| title_full | Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century |
| title_fullStr | Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century |
| title_full_unstemmed | Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century |
| title_short | Hugging and Hedging: Japanese Grand Strategy in the 21st Century |
| title_sort | hugging and hedging japanese grand strategy in the 21st century |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85866 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4545-2193 |
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