Soft Power in Japan-China Relations

State, sub-state and non-state relations

Utpal Vyas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136858956
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Soft power has tended to be overlooked in the field of international relations, often dismissed as lacking relevance or robustness as a theoretical concept. This book seeks to expand upon the idea of 'soft power' in international relations and to investigate how it actually functions by looking at three case studies in Japan-China relations during the post-war period. These cases involve the action of Japan's soft power in China due to the activities of agents at three levels in society: the state level (an agency of the central government), the sub-state level (a local government), and at the non-state level (a non-governmental organisation).

In addition, a major theme of the book is to examine the role of important international actors whose roles are not covered sufficiently in international relations discourse. Utpal Vyas demonstrates ways in which soft power is a useful analytical tool to understand relations between China and Japan in the early 2000s. The case studies help to reveal the complexities of interaction between China and Japan beyond the usual state-level analyses and offer a valuable resource for the study of Sino-Japanese relations and IR in general.

This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in Japanese studies, Chinese studies and International Relations.

1
Introduction

International relations and the era of globalisation

International relations and the shape of the global system have changed dramatically since the end of the Second World War. In the decades after the war, ideological, economic and technological innovations have variously caused changes to the dynamics which exist between different countries, cultures and societies.

After the dust had settled from the war, it was clear that the USA was by far the pre-eminent nation in the international system. With its military, industrial and natural resources, it emerged from the war as a hegemon. However, the subsequent economic growth of other countries in Europe and East Asia led to its economic dominance gradually being eroded. Technological innovation in other countries, not least in the USSR with its nuclear weapons, space and missile programmes, also reduced the dominance of the USA in the military sphere. Since the collapse of the communist and socialist alternatives, which culminated in the break-up of the USSR in 1991, broadly liberal values such as democracy and free trade have spread around the world, paradoxically contributing to the decline of the relative economic and ideological dominance of the USA.

This cascade of events has caused scholars studying the international system to repeatedly try to produce overall theories of international relations to better enable them to predict and explain change in the global system, and how countries influence it. These theories have inevitably been products of the prevailing international environment (see Cox 1981, 1986), and so have changed according to circumstances. Academics’ ideas about the nature of power in international relations have, therefore, also changed according to these events; notably, scholars have again been rethinking their ideas on power since the end of the Cold War, particularly with the increasing pace of the phenomenon of globalisation.

This chapter will firstly summarise the background of this study, by discussing the context of the global system and international structure in which this study’s conception of power is based. Subsequently, the topics on which the book particularly focuses will be considered, namely soft power, Japan–China relations, and the coverage of non-state actors in international relations. The research questions and hypotheses which the book strives to address will then be detailed, and an explanation of the three-level agent structure used as a theoretical basis will be given. Finally, the structure of the book will be outlined.

The changing face of power in international relations

The term ‘power’ in international relations has, for the most part, been a realist concept; the word suggests a rather negative image of an anarchic, zero-sum world where might is right, and only the strong win (Morgenthau 1952, Waltz 1979, Mearsheimer 1990, 1994, Grieco 1997). The intricacies of state interactions have usually been analysed in Machiavellian terms of which country will be able to control the other’s actions in the end, whether through direct force or through more indirect coercion. In fact, many politicians and leaders still seem to think in these terms, as can be seen through the direct military action taken by countries such as the USA and UK in Afghanistan and then Iraq in recent years, or by the rapid build-up of arms and military technology which is taking place in others, such as China and India (GlobalSecurity.org 2010).

However, globalisation has accelerated in the past few decades and in particular since the ending of the Cold War. This process of increasing trade, exchange of information and movement of people across national borders has been driven by technological changes and the advance of the idea of economic liberalism, and trailing behind it democracy, into many parts of the world (Doyle 1986, Doyle and Ikenberry 1997, Keohane and Nye 2001). The liberalisation of markets and the need for stable global institutions to oversee these processes has led to the liberalist alternative to realism gaining credence in international relations theory.

To many scholars, however, realism deals with one simplistic extreme, of a cold, cynical competition for survival, while liberalism is rooted in the opposite extreme ideal of altruistic co-operation. The post-Cold War world seems to present a complex situation which cannot be described by choosing just one school of thought, if this was ever possible. Theories which try to account for current circumstances, and which build upon some of the ideas of the liberalists and realists (as well as bringing in concepts from other social sciences such as sociology and psychology) have appeared, using labels such as ‘constructivism’ and ‘critical theories’ to describe their models of the global system (Hopf 1998, Wendt 1999, Linklater 1998, Cox 1996). These theories try to take into account various competing identities, interests, ideas and norms which interact to result in changes in the international system. Not only do they deconstruct over-simplistic theories of the past, but they also break down the units which were thought to represent the most important building blocks of the global system, namely states.

Constructivist scholars emphasise the fact that states consist of numerous actors and agents (even more so than liberalist scholars) – all interacting with each other according to their various interests and identities. Not only do central governments play a role in the global system, but other actors such as sub-state local governments, small and medium sized companies as well as large multinational corporations and various forms of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also increasingly been active on the international scene. Sub-state local governments have used the newly developing ideas of globalisation to form links with similar local governments, as well as with other organisations, in different countries.

Other non-governmental bodies have become ‘transnational’ (Nye and Keohane 1971) that is to say, not only do they have operations in many countries, but borders between countries have also become to a large extent irrelevant to them. A transnational company such as Microsoft can have its headquarters in Washington State, a research centre in Beijing, back office processing in Bangalore and offices in over one hundred countries around the world, all working together without regard for national borders. Equally, transnational NGOs (such as Amnesty International or Greenpeace) are spread out around the globe in order to collect funds and carry out activities in a way so as not to depend on any one country, and in a way that pays little heed to national boundaries, as long as the boundaries are kept reasonably open by states.

In addition to these large transnational organisations, smaller groups and even individuals have begun to play a greater role in the global system. Technological advances in communications and travel have reduced the cost of communicating and even travelling between countries to such an extent that individuals can now play their own roles in international relations. Groups and individuals can exchange vast amounts of information across the internet instantaneously, using computers, mobile phones, and an array of other devices which are becoming connectable to the global information network. Meanwhile, millions of people are also moving physically between countries for tourism and work. While many of these processes have been occurring throughout human history, a crucial point which has only become apparent in the last few decades is the dramatic increase in the speed and scale of these processes in contemporary times.

The increasing relevance of soft power in the global system

It is within this context that the concept of ‘soft power’ was developed by Joseph Nye in 1990 (Nye 1990a, 1990b). Nye postulated the idea of soft power, whereby countries’ attractive resources enabled them to set the political agenda, and so ‘co-opt’ other countries. In a further exposition of the concept, Nye (2004) gives as examples of US soft power the effects of Hollywood films, US ideals of freedom and democracy and other aspects of the country’s culture.

Nye gives many examples of soft power resources (mainly from the US perspective), and talks at length about the role of the USA in the global system in terms of its soft power. However, he does not give a clear explanation of how he thinks soft power actually functions in international relations. It seems to be assumed that if a country has soft power resources, this alone will be sufficient to help its relations with other countries.

The idea of soft power has been slow to catch on among mainstream academics and politicians. However, there are now several studies which examine the idea. Chong (2004) utilises soft power ideas in his analysis of the ‘Asian values debate’ with regard to Singapore’s foreign policy, but he too does not provide a mechanism by which soft power is transmitted to other countries. Mattern (2005), in her argument disputing the ‘softness’ of soft power comes closer to a key ingredient in the mechanism, that is communication, but does not take this any further. Heng (2010) provides a useful overview of the various aspects and examples of soft power. Other writers (e.g. Shiraishi 1997, McGray 2002, Kurlantzick 2007) who have touched upon soft power also fail to detail a mechanism for its action. Aspects of soft power could also be covered by the term ‘public diplomacy’ (overlapping with ‘cultural diplomacy’) which has recently come back in vogue (e.g. Melissen 2005a, 2005b, Katzenstein 2002, Vickers 2004, Leonard and Small 2005, Vaughan 2005); however, these expositions are in general limited to action by states and appear to be more concerned with traditional hard power notions of the pushing of values through propaganda and persuasion (see Mattern 2005) than with the attraction of soft power as defined in this study.

Japan and its relations with China

In addition, most academic and journalistic literature on this topic has been focused upon the sources of US soft power. Nye himself, though mentioning other countries in his work, largely focuses on the USA, which is unsurprising considering his main expertise is in US foreign affairs. Only a few authors from other regions of the world have considered other countries’ soft power, such as Chong (2004) on Singapore, Pocha (2003) on India and China, and Heng (2010) on Japan and China.

A country whose soft power is well worth investigating, but about which relatively little has been written in English language academic texts, is Japan. In 2009, the country was still the second largest economy in the world in dollar terms (it is likely to have been surpassed by China in 2010). Its output of ideas, technology, patents and cultural products is undeniably substantial and significant (Iwabuchi 2002, Shiraishi 1997), a point which has been realised by journalists who follow these themes (e.g. Time 1999), and is a hot topic within Japan itself, with even prominent government politicians trying to use these ideas to promote their own agendas (As

2006, Asahi Shimbun 2005).

A significant amount of English language literature on Japan’s relations with China exists, in particular that which considers bilateral relations (mostly from politicians’ or a diplomatic perspective) since the Second World War.¹ Some mention of non-government relations is made in this literature although mostly relating to how non-government actors were used for informal diplomacy. However, in the last two decades, non-government relations between Japan and China have increased greatly in number and importance in their own right – a point difficult to deduce from the small amount of English language literature written on the subject.

The relationship between Japan and China is a particularly pertinent one in terms of an investigation into soft power, due to the particular circumstances surrounding the relationship in the post-war era. For long periods of time, there has been a lack of official government relations between these two countries. In the period after the Second World War this was caused by the ideological rift between socialist/communist and capitalist countries (which developed into the ‘Cold War’), and Japan’s dependence upon the USA, which emphatically opposed any engagement with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) by its allies. In more recent years, a lack of good relations between Japan and China has caused them to suspend official contacts over extended periods of time, and surveys confirm a high degree of suspicion about each other’s countries (e.g. Chicago Council on Global Affairs 2009). Hence, a focus on mechanisms which highlight aspects of communication and links between the two countries provides an alternative perspective on their relations, and on how soft powe...

Table of contents

• Routledge Contemporary Asia Series
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theories of power in international relations
• 3 Soft power: what is it and how does it function?
• 4 Japan’s political and cultural relations with China
• 5 The activities of the Japan Foundation in China
• 6 Kobe City’s activities in China
• 7 The activities of the Japan–China Friendship Association in China
• 8 Conclusions
• Notes
• References
• Index