Japan’s Taiwan Policy in the Xi Jinping Era: Moving Toward Strategic Clarity

• Authors: Yu-Hua Chen

Title variants

PL

Japońska polityka wobec Tajwanu w erze Xi Jinpinga, w kierunku strategicznej jednoznaczności

Abstracts

PL

Japonia, podobnie jak USA, postrzega swoje relacje z Tajwanem w szerszym chińskim kontekście. Państwo to jeszcze do niedawna w swej polityce względem Chin oraz Tajwanu posługiwało się znaną z relacji USA–Tajwan koncepcją strategicznej ambiwalencji. Tymczasem, silne poparcie udzielone wyspie wobec coraz intensywniejszych nacisków ze strony ChRL, zdaje się sugerować, iż Japonia w swoich relacjach z Tajwanem zaczyna odchodzić od dotychczasowej polityki strategicznej ambiwalencji w stronę strategicznej jednoznaczności. Celem artykułu jest analiza przyczyn, jakie stały za zmianą japońskiej polityki wobec Tajwanu w ostatnich latach. Zdaniem autora, odejście władz Japonii od dotychczasowej polityki strategicznej ambiwalencji w stosunku do Tajwanu spowodowane jest strukturalną zmianą, jaka zaszła w polityce zagranicznej Japonii znajdującej swój wyraz zarówno w aspekcie normatywnym, jak i militarnym. Przyczyn owej zmiany autor upatruje we wzroście zagrożenia ze strony Chin oraz bezpośrednio związanej z tym presji USA wywieranej na swego japońskiego sojusznika.

EN

Like the United States, Japan views its relations with Taiwan through a greater China framework. It uses a similar strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan to navigate its relations with China and Taiwan. However, Japan’s recent strong support for Taiwan to counter China’s pressure on the island seems to suggest that Japan’s Taiwan policy is moving away from its old strategic ambiguity toward a new strategic clarity. Why has Japan started to protect Taiwan proactively and directly in recent years? How to explain the transformation of Japan’s policy regarding Taiwan from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity? Drawing upon various primary materials, this article approached those questions from a social constructivism lens. It argues that Japan’s new identity is a critical factor in Japan’s strategic transformation of its Taiwan policy. Japan’s new identity has first taken shape due to the growing challenge from China, and second been accelerated and hardened by the caprices of the United States. It is this new identity and its associated normative expectations that have caused Japan’s foreign behaviour to change fundamentally. This article will detail the process in which how Japan steadily changed its state identity over the years after showing that the existing explanations are unable to properly account for the shift of Japan’s policy toward Taiwan. Some policy implications will be offered in the conclusion section.

Keywords

EN

social constructivism; strategic ambiguity; strategic clarity; Japan-Taiwan relations

PL

konstruktywizm społeczny; strategiczna ambiwalencja; strategiczna jednoznaczność; relacje Japonia-Tajwan

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Przegląd Strategiczny
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 15
• Pages: 299-311

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Yu-Hua Chen

• Akita International University

• https://orcid.org/0000000204755449

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Identifiers

DOI

10.14746/ps.2022.1.18

Biblioteka Nauki

30147184