Abstract
Sheila Smith’s book Intimate Rivals explores the complex dynamics of Japan’s foreign policy towards China at the start of the 21st century. In particular, the author’s aim is to assess how the failure of successive Japanese administrations to negotiate successfully with Beijing has encouraged the rise of nationalist or anti-China advocacy groups which have further impeded the ability of Japanese administrations to independently guide their policy towards China. The book starts with a short overview outlining key tensions in Sino-Japanese relations today. The second chapter provides a historical narrative of Sino-Japanese relations since normalization in 1972 and asserts that changing domestic politics has increasingly constrained Japan’s foreign policy options – an argument that Smith then develops in four case studies. These cases comprise visits by Japanese politicians to Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社), contestation over maritime boundaries in the East China Sea, food safety, and strategies of island defence. Smith meticulously sets out how, in each of the case studies, successive Japanese governments have slowly adapted their political and security policies to deal with China’s rise whilst coming under pressure from nationalist and anti-China advocacy groups. She concludes that by enacting substantial institutional reforms the Japanese government can still maintain its regional power and global status and restore confidence, particularly in the United States, that Japan will meet its diplomatic and security obligations.
Though readers will enjoy the level of detail given to each of the four case studies, the book as a whole would have benefitted from addressing three issues. First, a more compelling justification of the case study selection is needed, including the extent to which these cases are comparable. No doubt a certain degree of parsimony is needed, but it comes at the expense of key issues pertaining to regionalism, Free Trade Agreements, environmental issues, history textbooks, and ‘comfort women’, to name just a few. Even when these issues are relevant to the argument, such as Free Trade Agreements, food safety and self-sufficiency, they are not developed. A concluding section in each chapter would also have helped make the connections between each case more explicit, especially in the case of island defence and maritime disputes, where there is a significant amount of overlap and repetition. There are also some omissions. Smith’s chapter on food security, for example, would have been strengthened with the inclusion of cross-country comparisons and a deeper analysis of food scandals caused by the negligence of domestic Japanese producers, such as the 2011 contaminated beef incident.
Second, Smith maintains that the case studies reveal the extent to which a growing nationalist agenda in Japan impedes policymaking with regard to China, but does not provide a methodological framework to make this case. The chapter on diplomacy and domestic interests could have engaged with the various foreign policy models used to understand Japan’s international relations, as well as a discussion of bureaucratic politics, the role of the media and US pressure. A conceptual framework that assesses why domestic constraints were overcome in certain cases but not in others would have elevated the academic contribution of the volume.
Third, though Smith stresses the role of Japan’s domestic politics in its relations with China, she seldom considers the domestic political context facing Chinese foreign policymakers and does not problematize the nature of Chinese power in a globalized political economy. Her analysis of China’s alleged embargo of rare earth materials in the wake of the September 2010 Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands incident, for example, relies on media reports, and the analysis does not consider the substantial evidence that the Chinese government’s decision was taken before September 2010 and was made on the basis of pricing and environmental concerns. When the Chinese government has employed economic tools against Japan, it has often been motivated by domestic considerations and has removed any form of sanction quickly out of concern for harming Japanese investments. It is also not clear that Chinese foreign policy actors agree on taking such measures. Rather than asserting that China is a revisionist power seeking to reshape the global economy, a serious assessment of how China is adapting to the demands of the global economy is needed.
Overall, Smith provides impressive narrative detail in the case studies based on a sustained engagement with a variety of sources in English and Japanese as well as numerous interviews. The in-depth knowledge she displays in each case study is elaborated upon in extensive notes providing a rich vein of information that will interest students, policymakers and the general public. Intimate Rivals is a timely volume and a welcome addition to the expanding literature on Sino-Japanese relations.