Ceasing to Pet the Tiger: Analyzing the Strategic Shift in U.S. and Japanese Policy Toward China

Abstract

The People’s Republic of China has developed tremendously through the US-led international order. It has become the world’s second largest economy, become included in international institutions, and is an international stakeholder. However, Beijing has used its newfound economic and military power to coerce other countries. This paper aims to understand how two other international stakeholders, the United States and Japan, viewed China during its ascent to power, in order to understand some of the limitations of viewing this relationship through a liberalist lens. By analyzing the National Security Strategies of the United States, and the Diplomatic Bluebooks of Japan, we are able to see that the belief that China would liberalize and become a supportive member of the international order led to economic co-binding and an oversight on the indications that the PRC would not do so. Under the Trump and Biden Administrations, the United States and Japan turned to balancing China’s rise through increased military and economic cooperation. This paper concludes that the United States and Japan have shifted towards a neo-realist perspective towards China, aiming to constrain, deter, and detach rather than integrate with Beijing. The policy proposed within this paper is for the US-Japan integration to move into US Naval Shipyards.