Implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative for Japan’s Involvement in the Middle East

Introduction

In recent years, the ties between Asian powers and Middle Eastern countries have grown both horizontally and vertically. Economic relations—traditionally, the predominant connection in this region—are markedly widening, and the Asian countries’ political and even strategic interests and involvement are expanding at an unprecedented rate (Ehteshami & Miyagi, 2015; Kemp, 2012; Niblock with Malik, 2013). An expected, though understudied, consequence of this development is a gradual spin-off of intra-Asian political process to the Middle East (Evron, 2017). For instance, it is reasonable to assume that as both China and Japan greatly depend on Middle Eastern oil and the Middle East has been undergoing structural changes in recent years, they will try to secure their positions there, occasionally at each other’s expense. The same goes for their similar and potentially conflicting aspiration for a greater global role, which among other things motivates them to deepen their (largely symbolic) diplomatic involvement in Middle East conflicts (Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet, 2013; Sun, 2012). And together with the US and India, Japan is exerting notable efforts to counterbalance China’s expanding presence in the Indian Ocean; this may make the Middle East one of the frontlines of this strategic competition (Kumar & Barry, 2017).

China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road initiative—also known as Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—provides an intriguing illustration of a possible spin-off of Asian regional politics onto the Middle East. Announced in 2013 by China’s President Xi Jinping, BRI focuses basically on connecting the Eurasian sphere, through the construction and governance of cross-border ground and maritime transportation infrastructure and economic activities, to all countries lying in this geopolitical realm. Primarily economic but also political and even strategic, this trillion-dollar vision is regarded by China as one of its foreign policy cornerstones and a key to its future economic development (National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China [NDRC], 2015; Xinhua, 2015). Moreover, through BRI Beijing is declaring its intended economic dominance in Asia, the Middle East included.

Japan’s response to BRI has been mostly negative, albeit somewhat less since mid-2017. It refused to join BRI’s main financing arm—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that China launched in 2014 and expressed deep skepticism about BRI’s motivations and governance, and this has been recorded already (Xue & Zheng, 2016). So far overlooked, however, have been the possible implications of the China–Japan confrontation over BRI for Asia in general and their interactions with the Middle East in particular.

This article attempts to provide preliminary answers to this question. Starting with an overview of these two countries’ involvement in the Middle East, it shows how their economic, political and strategic interests are inexorably expanding and gradually being shaped by considerations beyond the region. Next it examines Japan’s response to BRI, depicting both its attitude to this initiative in general and the measures it has undertaken to limit its implementation. Among other things, it shows that Japan regards BRI as a threat to its decades-long effort to spread its influence over Asia through infrastructure development projects across the continent.

The following section explores BRI’s impact on China–Japan relations—mostly as viewed from Beijing. Being a Chinese initiative, it is expected that other countries’ reactions to BRI will be met with a Chinese response, in accordance with Beijing’s perception of this reaction. This holds also for Japan, which according to Chinese analyses can influence BRI’s realization in various ways. China’s understanding of, and response to, Japanese measures can impact inter alia BRI’s implementation and China and Japan’s involvement in the Middle East. Analyzing the implications of the actual and potential China–Japan interaction over BRI, the article’s concluding section examines the implications it might have for Japan’s Middle East involvement. While anticipating that Japan will adhere to its restrained approach to this region, it argues that its involvement there will be increasingly influenced by Asia-related political and strategic considerations, including its counter-China alignment with India.

China’s Approach to the Middle East

China’s interest in the Middle East since the mid-1990s has largely focused on securing its access to the region’s energy sources and to a lesser degree on increasing its share in its developing markets. Supplying in the mid-2010s over 50 percent of China’s imported oil and more than 25 percent of its oil consumption, the Middle East has become an irreplaceable source for its energy needs. Concurrently, the Middle East is a growing market for China’s labor, construction companies, and export goods, as well as its investments. Between 2004 and 2014 China’s trade with the Middle East grew from US$ 40 billion to over US$ 300 billion, thus increasing its share in China’s total foreign trade from 3.8 to over 7 percent. ¹ China’s investments in the greater Middle East (a definition equivalent to China’s Foreign Ministry list of West Asian and North African countries) between 2005 and 2016 comprised about 9.5 percent of its entire outward direct investment (America Enterprise Institute [AEI], 2017).

China’s strategic interest in the Middle East is important as well. This has undergone several developments over the years following changes in China’s foreign policy—in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in the world. Since the Maoist period, China has regarded the predominance of any superpower in that region as a strategic risk. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, that concern somewhat eased as China saw how regional resentment of the US was increasing, and the US was finding it ever more difficult to cope with the region’s turbulence. But then Beijing increasingly saw the region as a source of Islamic terrorism, which might inflate separatist sentiments and terror activity in its Uighur minority (Alterman & Garver, 2008, pp. 12–21).

Finally, as China began to seek a world power position in the late 2000s, it started assigning the region greater diplomatic importance. Conceiving the Arab countries as its natural (though not always actual) partners against the superpowers since the mid-1950s, Beijing sees them as potential supporters (or followers) in its effort to modify the West-dominated world order (Scobell & Nader, 2016, pp. 15–19). This aspiration is closely linked to the aforementioned two major interconnected considerations: it obliges China to enlarge its presence in that part of the world and somewhat to counterbalance US dominance there, inasmuch as it does not weaken US efforts to stabilize the region or harm its relations with it on other fronts.

Achieving these diverse objectives however, requires different sets of behaviors. To maximize economic benefits, China has adopted an “everyone’s friend” approach, with limited political engagement in the region. This policy emphasized robust economic and diplomatic relations with as many regional players as possible, while avoiding political and military involvement or taking sides in regional conflicts. But limited political involvement may contradict China’s other interests in the region. Involvement in Middle East conflicts is regarded in Beijing as a means to enhance its world power status (Li, 2014), while the structural changes undergone by the region since the early 2010s are perceived as an opportunity to consolidate its position there (Global Times, 2011).

Attempting to address the new challenges while preserving the advantages of the limited-engagement attitude, China, since the late 2000s, has blended some new ingredients. Contrary to its traditional approach, it has started to build bridges to opposition groups, as well as highlight its involvement in the region’s conflicts (for example, Sun, 2012). Facing open criticism from the US for its free rider behavior in the Middle East, Beijing explains that it contributes to the region’s stabilization in its own way, including advancement of construction works there and conflict resolution by peaceful means (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China [MOFA], 2016).

Most importantly, in this respect, since the late 2000s and early 2010s, it has become a prominent part of Beijing’s strategic plans to increase its engagement on its western peripheries. Such a vision was first publicly articulated in “Marching Westwards,” a resounding article by Wang (2012), one of China’s most influential international relations scholars. Wang envisages a new foreign policy strategy, whereby China would expand its influence in regions farther westward, including the Greater Middle East. This strategy would rest on the assumption that because of the shift to Asia in US foreign policy—also known as Pivot to Asia, Return to Asia, or Rebalancing Asia—tension might be expected to rise on China’s eastern front. Therefore, it should expand its influence in Central Asia and the Greater Middle East, where its confrontation with the US would presumably be milder.

Although the US enjoyed military dominance in the Middle East and bore the burden of preserving stability there, its economic interests there were relatively limited: it was not linked by a network of formal pacts, its ideological influence was weak and even its dependence on oil imported from the region was declining. Moreover, Beijing and Washington shared many common interests there: opposition to fundamentalist Islamic terror and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; a shared interest in regional stability; and a desire to resolve local disputes. In these circumstances, Wang reasoned, China should exploit its land access to Central Asia and the Middle East and consolidate a strategic program, namely “Marching Westwards,” to fill the vacuum forming in those regions. To this end, China must nurture close ties with the countries by turning economic relations into political influence and radiating soft power, thereby acquiring influence. Whether Wang’s proposed strategy was intended to enlarge Chinese influence while reducing friction with the US or to intimate a threat to US attempts to contain China in its traditional zone of influence, the Middle East was brought into the Sino-US global competition and accorded strategic importance.

This perception was reflected in the declarations by President Xi Jinping in September and October 2013 on the creation of BRI. Aimed at economically consolidating China, Central Asia, Russia, and Europe, this vision focuses, inter alia, on linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean countries through a gigantic web of ground and maritime transportation infrastructures. While essentially economic, the initiative includes a distinctly strategic and political aspect. It is supposed to secure and promote China’s transportation lines with its western markets and supply-chain sources but also to develop this huge realm economically while strengthening those countries’ economic, political, and cultural relations with China.

In the short and mid-term, this endeavor is intended to provide new demands for China’s surplus financial and economic capacity by constructing and developing new infrastructures and other national-scale projects along the BRI routes. In the long term, large-scale infrastructure investment and trade and investment agreements are supposed to stimulate growth and developments in the countries along BRI, thus providing China new markets and economic fields of activity. Concurrently, BRI will strengthen China’s political, strategic, and cultural influence in South, Southeast, Central and Western Asia, as well as in Africa and Europe and stabilize China’s western neighbors (Clarke, 2016; Ferdinand, 2016). Beijing regards the latter as a source of terrorist and separatist activities among its Uighur minority, hence a source of national security concern.

In addition, BRI may require a military component for a rapid response to a crisis along its routes (Minnick, 2015), which may make China a potential or actual military player in the relevant regions. In this context, it is noteworthy that China has become somewhat active in the region militarily. Among other things, it participates in a limited way in the international anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, conducts joint military exercises in the region, and has established a military–logistic base in Djibouti.

Japan’s Middle East Policy

Since the mid-twentieth century, Japan’s approach to the Middle East has undergone three stages of development. During the first four decades and mostly through the 1970s–1980s, the Japanese policy was characterized by unconditional support for the Arab states to secure its access to Persian Gulf oil. In the early 1990s, its focus shifted to aligning its Middle East moves with the US policies on the region. And since the early 2010s, it has started gradually and cautiously to extend its role and presence in the region to non-economic areas of activity (Miyagi, 2008, p. 35). Obviously, there has been no clear-cut division between these stages and they occasionally overlap. Furthermore, the relative weight of the considerations behind them has changed from time to time, but over this period, Japan’s interests and calculations on the Middle East have become multilayered and intricate.

Oil dependence started to shape Japan’s behavior in the Middle East mostly in the early 1970s, following the oil crisis that erupted after the 1973 October War. As a resource-poor country, Japan’s dependence on Middle East oil has always been very high. By the late 1980s, this commodity constituted under 70 percent of its imported oil, and by the early 2000s, the Middle East’s share of Japan’s oil sources reached about 85 percent (Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, 2010). That level of dependence can be expected to remain high in the foreseeable future and the Middle East will “remain a crucial player in Japan’s energy policy for quite some time to come …” (Lesbirel, 2013, pp. 41–42).

At first, this dependence was responsible for a policy focused entirely on securing Japan’s energy supplies from the region. Adopted in 1973 and remaining in force through the 1980s, this was characterized by alignment with Arab political demands independent of the US stand on the respective issues (Miyagi, 2008, p. 36). Matters started to change in the early 1990s. Japan was becoming increasingly dependent on the US for its indispensable support against China’s rise and North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. And concerned that its strategic value for the US was decreasing following the end of the Cold War, Japan made its Middle East policy a means to enhance the two countries’ relations. In addition, the fall in oil prices and the fragmentation of the Middle East following the 1991 and 2003 wars in Iraq reduced the Arab world’s ability to use its oil resources as a political tool.

Consequently, Japan’s policy and perspective on the Middle East became more complex. Its one-sided and independent approach to the Arab world was replaced by a policy that greatly considered US positions on the region and that somewhat sacrificed its relations with the oil states to enhance its collaboration with Washington. For instance, during the 1990s and 2000s, it carried out active measures in support of the US military involvement in the region despite growing regional resentment of the US. In one such move, following the 1991 War over Kuwait, Tokyo even passed new laws allowing it to send peacekeeping forces, logistic support, and other types of assistance to the US efforts in the Middle East (Evron, 2017, pp. 197–198).

The growing involvement in Middle East politics, including a greater role in international interventions there, was the outcome of American pressure but was also related to Japan’s ambition for a bigger role in international politics. Drastically suppressed after the Second World War, this ambition started gradually to awaken after the Cold War was over. The resulting position of the US as a single superpower provided Japan with new goals and motivations; it became interested in strengthening its relations with the US and maintaining the Pax Americana which served its indigenous causes. It was therefore willing greatly to contribute to institutions and actions that supported this order. In return, it sought recognition of its “efforts at taking on a greater global responsibility” (Tamamoto, 1997, p. 10). These sentiments were somewhat related to its involvement in the Middle East; Tokyo was surprised and offended by the global—more particularly, the American—criticism for limiting its contribution to the international effort against Iraq in 1991 to financial assistance (“too little, too late”) (Shinoda, 2007, p. 55).

While continuing to limit its involvement in Middle Eastern politics and conflicts, the aspiration for a bigger international role started to impact Japan’s approach in the early 2010s. Before that, its political involvement in the region—mostly supporting the Palestinians at international forums and providing them financial aid (Overseas Development Assistance [ODA]) and supporting US-led interventions—was basically motivated by its energy interests and aligning with the US. But that changed following the election of Shinzo Abe as Japan’s Prime Minister in 2012. Striving to increase Japan’s global influence (Tepperman, 2013), Abe took note of Japan’s limited and passive approach to the Middle East thus far. In May 2013, during a visit to the region, he declared that the goal “has been to go beyond the relationship we have had thus far centered on resources and energy … to forge economic cooperation across a wide range of fields and furthermore a multi-faceted relationship that includes politics and security as well as culture” (Prime Minister of Japan, 2013).

This statement was also included in Japan’s official foreign policy outline for 2014 (Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013, p. 24) and was supported by Abe’s personal attention to the Middle East; between 2013 and 2015, he unprecedentedly carried out five state visits to the region, including to non-oil states such as Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In addition, Japan declared it would reinforce its self-defense forces (SDF) anti-piracy base in Djibouti and increase its participation in collective self-defense efforts, thus expanding its presence in the Middle East while enhancing the role of the SDF in international efforts (Asahi Shimbun, 2015).

Abe’s aspiration for a greater global status for Japan is not the only drive behind Tokyo’s changing approach to the Middle East. Strategic calculations have played a growing role as well, especially those related to the great changes the region has undergone since the late 2010s. Well aware of the region’s economic significance due to its energy sources but also its geostrategic location between three continents, Japan is worried that its acute instability can have a negative impact on trade between Asia and Europe. In addition, as Japan assumes that the Middle East may become a growing market for its products and a destination for investments, its presence there should be enhanced (Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013, p. 24). However, according to some analyses, Japan’s economic activity and interests there might be at risk because of Middle Eastern instability and the relative decline of the US position there (Akiyama, 2014). In addition, Japan perceives the increasing presence of other world powers in the Middle East as a potential threat to its interests there, for example, China’s BRI.

Japan’s Response to BRI

Japan’s perception of BRI has been skeptical and suspicious from the outset, although its actual response has undergone some changes. Itself a major investor in infrastructure and other development projects in Asia for decades, Japan regarded the Chinese mega initiative as another measure intended to increase China’s political influence in Eurasia and to provide it with abundant economic opportunities. The possibility that BRI would facilitate China’s strengthening its military presence along the routes probably intimidated Japan as well. Such a measure could not be disconnected from China’s growing assertiveness in East and Southeast Asia since the early 2010s, which was partly aimed at Japan. In addition, a large part of Japan’s foreign trade flowed along exactly those routes. Finally, Washington adopted a negative approach to BRI and its associated initiatives as well and expected its allies—Japan included—to follow suit (Sobolewski & Lange, 2015).

In line with such a perspective on BRI, Japan has taken various steps to reduce the project’s impact and to raise its own political influence and economic opportunities in Eurasia. One of the first such steps was Japan’s announcement in May 2015 that it would invest US$ 110 billion to promote “quality infrastructure” in Asia over the next five years. It was also announced that Japan would train thousands of young people from Asia in the fields of medicine and energy and would work to promote innovative technological solutions for the regions’ problems (Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015).

The initiative, titled Partnership for Quality Infrastructure, was aimed to weaken the image of China’s BRI. By emphasizing the high standard and advanced technologies involved in its associated initiatives, Tokyo hinted on the low quality of Chinese infrastructure projects and implied that China’s initiative might not be as attractive as it seemed. That hint concerned the quality of China’s construction work but also Japan’s much longer commitment to Asia’s development and the quality of its financial management.

One of the implicit targets of Japan’s initiative was the AIIB—the multilateral financial institution that Beijing established in 2014 to finance infrastructure development across Asia. Unavoidably, the AIIB was perceived as China’s response to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a multilateral financial institution Japan had established and led for the development of Asia—already five decades old when the AIIB was established. Indeed, Japan was one of the very few Asian countries that did not join the AIIB. The 2015 Japanese initiative challenged the AIIB by exceeding its capitalization as well as by granting ADB a central role (50%) in the finance of the Partnership for Quality Infrastructure. This was complemented by declarative and propagandist efforts to damage BRI’s image, such as Japan’s low-level participation in the BRI Forum, hosted by China’s president Xi Jinping in May 2017 and public events at which Japanese officials analyzed in public AIIB’s weaknesses (Nakao, 2016).

Japan’s main efforts to counterbalance BRI remained, however, in the field of infrastructure investments throughout Asia and beyond. While hardly matching BRI’s buzz, Japan steadily advanced its infrastructure diplomacy, and following the launch of the Partnership for Quality Infrastructure plan, it continued initiating projects throughout Asia in areas such as transportation and energy (Shepard, 2016). In 2017, Japan took these efforts one step further and together with India—another Asian power hostile to BRI—initiated the Asia–Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) (Asia Africa Growth Corridor, 2017; Government of India, 2016). In what seems like an explicit response to BRI, AAGC aims also to better integrate the economies of South, Southeast, and East Asia with Oceania and Africa through a web of ground and maritime routes to promote their economic and social development.

However, Japan’s rejection of BRI is not unconditional. In mid-2017, its negative approach apparently relaxed, and in early June, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced his country’s willingness to participate in BRI if the latter’s governance was properly regulated, its procurement arrangements were fair, and the initiative as a whole was compatible with “a free and fair Trans-Pacific economic zone” (Asahi Shimbun, 2017). Arguably, these conditions intimate the reasons behind Japan’s reservations about BRI and its reluctance to join so far. While Japan clearly shares China’s objectives of creating new markets and promoting stability and development across Asia and Africa, it is also concerned that BRI is targeted to raise funds from various states while providing business opportunities mostly to Chinese companies. In addition, Japan is concerned that BRI will increase China’s political and economic influence in regions of significant importance for Japan. Finally, attributing utmost importance to its relations with the US, Japan closely follows Washington’s imperatives—in this case, giving the cold shoulder to BRI as well.

But Japan has also faced strong pressure to join BRI. First, staying out of it stymies business opportunities for Japanese companies. In addition, remaining outside BRI and criticizing it publicly increases tension with China, a highly important economic partner and a major regional power. As East Asian strategic stability is ever more at risk due to North Korea’s nuclearization, improving understanding and cooperation with Beijing seems to be of utmost importance. Finally, as the US and China seemingly attempt to reconcile their differences, Japan probably does not want to be left behind.

This set of considerations has caused various business leaders and politicians in Japan to put pressure on the decision-makers to reduce their objection to BRI and to integrate Japan in this initiative. One such case has been the efforts applied by certain Japanese business lobbies to soften Japan’s objection to BRI (Ji, 2016). Another was the participation of Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a proponent of Japan–China relations, in the May 2017 BRI Forum in Beijing. Attending this top-level forum, in which Japan’s governmental representation was deliberately low, he expressed his support in Japan’s participation in BRI and observed: “It is no longer if, but when, Japan will join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank” (The Asahi Shimbun, 2017). Ultimately, as mentioned, Tokyo decided to go half way toward Beijing by setting various conditions on its participation in BRI. Presuming that China is interested to include Japan in BRI and certainly to eliminate its criticism and the challenges it poses to this initiative, one could assume that Beijing will take certain measures to address these concerns. This in turn can carry certain implications for BRI.

BRI and China–Japan Relations

Ever since the launching of BRI, and still more after the establishment of AIIB, China has been convinced that Japan would object to it and see it as a threat to its own interests in the Asian sphere. More specifically, Chinese officials and experts assume that Tokyo regards BRI as a means to counterbalance the US and Japanese regional policies and activities to expand its own regional influence in Asia and beyond. For example, presenting BRI and its potential for Sino-Japanese collaboration, the Chinese ambassador to Japan said in July 2017 that “part of Japan’s media and intelligentsia are mostly critical of [BRI], pointing out that OBOR [i.e., BRI] was announced following president Obama’s ‘Rebalancing to Asia’ strategy …, there are also people who say that OBOR and TPP compete” (Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, 2017). An analysis of Japan’s perceptions of BRI, published by the influential China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), made a similar point: China’s BRI is collaborative and mutually beneficial, but Japan believes that its actual aim is to advance China’s influence and power at the expense of that of Japan and the US (Huang & Liu, 2015, pp. 37–39).

While such Chinese views on Japan’s approach to BRI are hardly surprising, Japan’s possible impact on BRI is less clear. It is not clear, for example, what benefit China expects from Japanese collaboration, what potential damage it assumes that Japan can cause BRI, and in what ways Japan can promote BRI. Largely overlooked so far, clarification of these points may explain China’s views of its interaction with Japan in various parts of Asia, its efforts to include Japan in BRI and what their collaboration in BRI-related fields and regions may look like.

Running decades-long programs and institutions for economic and human development in Asia and enjoying a clear technological and managerial advantage over China, Japan is regarded by Beijing as a force that can both promote and thwart BRI—depending on Tokyo’s willingness to collaborate. BRI encompasses a large variety of bilateral and multilateral activities, but one of its cardinal features is transnational connectivity projects across Eurasia involved in the development of ground and maritime transportation infrastructures. Such activities are highly challenging as they require inter alia huge financial investments, meticulous planning and risk assessment and complex management and coordination. As various Chinese analyses show, Beijing assumes that Tokyo can successfully compete with Beijing in each one of these parameters and use it to confound BRI. This, for instance, is how China has regarded Japan’s effort in recent years to win high-speed railway projects across Asia. This competition drives Japan to highlight its significant technological superiority over China, deprive China of valuable Japanese financial resources and knowhow (Cui, 2016), and throw China into a price and financial conditions war that may undermine BRI’s economic rationale and feasibility (Wu & Li, 2016).

According to some Chinese analysts, China–Japan economic relations further increase this risk. Pointing out that China and Japan are each other’s biggest trade partners, Pang and Liu (2016) argue that Tokyo may use this circumstance against China if they compete economically in Eurasia over infrastructure projects and make it pay a large price elsewhere. Moreover, China’s ability to execute BRI depends, according to this and other studies, on China’s ability to bridge the technological gap with the leading world countries and climb in the global division of labor (Huang & Liu, 2015). That in turn depends on continuous trade and investments between Japan and China, which are largely responsible for China’s technological improvement. According to these analyses, by denying China essential technologies and investments, Japan can ultimately hinder BRI’s realization.

Japan’s negative position on BRI can also impact China politically. Some Chinese sources are convinced that Japan sees BRI as a countermeasure to the American Rebalancing to Asia policy. According to this interpretation, since the late 2000s, the US and China have competed for dominance over East Asia. Japan, highly disturbed by China’s growing power, supports US efforts to contain China’s growing influence in Asia.

Its position on and measures against BRI are involved, as this initiative follows similar moves that Japan has already made for several years to increase its own influence in Southeast and Central Asia through infrastructure development projects. ODA’s growing budgets and evolving mode of operation is witness to this initiative. Chinese analyses of ODA’s evolvement have shown that in response to China’s growing involvement in Eurasia, Japan has recently increased ODA’s budgets and shifted its emphasis from development programs to financial aid to Asian countries (Cai, 2017; Cui, 2016). It thereby intends to sustain its influence in various Asian countries, in which it has already invested for years, while blocking China’s influence. Concurrently, Japan is acting to undermine the credibility of BRI and its related moves. The clearest example is its refusal to join the AIIB while berating the quality of its governance and the sincerity of China’s intentions about it.

Japan’s countermeasures to BRI are not confined to direct competition with China over development and aid programs in Asian countries. Chinese experts also imply that Japan’s anti-BRI measures include reinforcing a regional anti-Chinese block, which is already taking place under US leadership. According to this line of accusations, Japan’s and India’s above-mentioned AAGC initiative since the mid-2010s to construct a railroad connecting Asia and Africa is more than competition with China over infrastructure projects in Asia, or even over political influence in Asia. In fact, it might be part of their emerging quadrilateral bloc—together with the US and Australia—against China (the ‘Quad’) (Jash, 2017; Panda, 2017), which in turn can be seen as an evolvement of the India–Japan–US Trilateral Partnership. This partnership aims to secure their shared interests in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean (Indo-Pacific region, in a recent coinage) in counterbalancing China (Jash, 2017).

This anti-Chinese alignment, according to Chinese experts, can involve economic, political, and even strategic measures. For instance, certain Chinese experts blame Japan for inflaming China’s regional conflicts in the East China and South China seas to hinder the realization of the maritime part of BRI—the Maritime Silk Road (Huang & Liu, 2015). According to this line of thought, Japan (together with India, Australia, and the US) is increasingly concerned over China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean and exercises various means to block it. A similar accusation is raised against Japan’s effort to cooperate with India and Iran to establish a special economic zone in the seaport of Chabahar, outside the Strait of Hurmuz, as a countermeasure to China’s development of, and presence in, Gwadar port in Pakistan—just 75 km away (Cai, 2017).

BRI and Japan’s Involvement in the Middle East

The BRI and the China–Japan confrontation over it concern aspects far beyond the Middle East. Some of them, however, can pertain to this region too, especially if the recent trend of increasing Chinese and Japanese involvement in this region continues. During the last several decades, the importance of the Middle East for China and Japan has been mostly reflected in economic issues. From the late 1990s, their interests in the region started to expand to other fields as well, some of which are concerned with issues beyond the Middle East. Both countries have started to regard the Middle East as a platform to promote their global image, to shape their respective relations with the US, and in Japan’s case also to advance its remilitarization.

Concurrently, both Asian powers are coming to regard the region as a growing market for their infrastructure construction companies. These developments have impacted their mutual interaction in that region. As their interests there expand and consequently occasionally collide, the region is gradually but unmistakably joining other regions and areas of activities in the world as another frontline of their confrontation (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2016; Yun, 2016).

The BRI, which sparks economic, political, and even strategic tensions between China and Japan, will most likely intensify this development. As the Middle East is one of BRI’s main regional foci, it is only reasonable to assume that BRI will realize its implications for China–Japan relations there too. Among other things, it can be expected that their competition over infrastructure projects in the Middle East will intensify. Clearly, this activity has become an important frontline of the Sino-Japanese battle for political influence in Asia as well as an important source of income. As the construction of infrastructure projects requires close interaction with the client country’s authorities and as engaging in this type of activity is concurrently aimed at exercising political influence, it is plausible that Japan’s political–economic interaction in the Middle East will expand to sectors other than energy.

Such a development can occur even if Japan increases its involvement in BRI. Certainly, well aware of Japan’s suspicious attitude to BRI and somewhat concerned about its ability to thwart it—either actively or just by staying out of it, China is searching for ways to include Japan in the initiative. As asserted in a People’s Daily article, “[Japan, India and China] should join forces to promote the development of the region and other regions. Most importantly, the initiative should not evolve into competing groups that compete against each other” (Cai, 2017). Indeed, since mid-2017, China’s efforts to integrate Japan in this initiative seem to be bearing fruit and it may be assumed that as part of this, Japanese companies will be involved in BRI-related projects.

But this does not eliminate the possibility that BRI will still increase Sino-Japanese competition in the Middle East because the region has become a part of the US–Japan–India struggle to contain and counterbalance China’s rise. As mentioned above, China, India, and other powers see the Indian Ocean as a crucial strategic asset and attempt to block China’s efforts to gain a foothold there. Beijing’s attempts to secure its influence and presence in the Middle East—partly through BRI—might be a part of it. In this context, the Indian–Japanese response to BRI can be seen as a countermeasure to what they see as a Chinese strategic expansion and so is the Indian–Japanese interest in establishing a special economic zone in Iran. And this unofficial counter-BRI initiative, in which Japan participates, can subject Tokyo’s considerations concerning the Middle East to calculations and pressures that exceed its direct interests in the region.

Clearly, these activities and growing interests will not increase Japan’s involvement in Middle East politics dramatically, as Tokyo will do its best to keep aloof from the region’s intricate politics and conflicts. But it is noteworthy that its involvement in this region is becoming related more than ever before to non-Middle East developments and players, hence dependent to some degree on factors beyond its control. As for the Middle East players, the new type and scale of Asian powers’ involvement in the region provide them with new opportunities and require them to overhaul and spread their political–diplomatic attention. As these countries welcome this development and try to make political, economic, and even strategic gains out of it, this may heighten pressure on the Asian powers to increase their involvement in the region. As long as Japan plays this game, it will become ever harder for Tokyo to define the appropriate scale of involvement in this region.