It was less than a year ago that then-Prime Minister Kishida Fumio stood next to US President Joe Biden at the White House and celebrated how, in Biden’s words, “Over the last three years, the partnership between Japan and the United States has been transformed into a truly global partnership.” Kishida’s visit to Washington marked a productive period for the bilateral relationship. Not only did they build on Japan’s 2022 security policy changes to deepen operational cooperation between the two militaries, they also strengthened economic security cooperation (the establishment of an “economic 2+2”); collaborated on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), an initiative that facilitated US reengagement in economic rulemaking in the region; worked together to institutionalize the Quad, strengthen trilateral cooperation with South Korea, and build out new frameworks with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian partners; and incorporated Japan in discussions of European security as Tokyo played a greater role in supporting Ukraine.
The foundation for this “new era” – the phrase used for the joint statement issued at Biden’s’ first meeting with a Japanese prime minister, his April 2021 meeting with then-prime minister Suga Yoshihide at the White House – was heightened concerns about China. That 2021 joint statement, which was more explicit in articulating shared concerns about China than virtually any bilateral document in the history of the US-Japan alliance, set the tone for everything that followed, with Japan closing ranks with the United States to bolster deterrence and counter what the statement described as “Chinese activities that are inconsistent with the international rules-based order.”
In theory, as the second Trump administration prepares to take over from the Biden administration, it is reasonable to think that the new global partnership between the US and Japan will continue. The presence of China hawks at the cabinet and sub-cabinet levels in the incoming administration may perhaps entail a sharper edge towards both China and US allies perceived as free-riding on US efforts – see this discussion of possible members of the National Security Council – but there may be grounds for Tokyo to anticipate more continuity than change.
However, with one week until inauguration day, the most noteworthy development in the Ishiba government’s foreign policy has been not outreach to the president-elect – notwithstanding hints that Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru could meet Donald Trump before inauguration day, preparations are now underway for an early February meeting instead – but rather engagement with China at increasingly senior levels, with the possibility of a state visit to Japan by President Xi Jinping floated for later this year. The Ishiba government, after sending National Security Advisor Akiba Takeo in November and Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi in December to China, is preparing to host Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in February, as the two governments aim to revive their “high-level economic dialogue.” Meanwhile, LDP Secretary-General Moriyama Hiroshi and Kōmeitō Secretary-General Nishida Makoto are leading a twelve-person delegation to China this week in the first official bilateral exchange between Japanese and Chinese ruling party officials since 2018. Finally, later this month Japan will host a delegation from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command for meetings with Defense Minister and Self-Defense Forces (SDF) officials, the first such visit since 2018, which Beijing described as an opportunity to deepen mutual trust and understanding.
What should we make of this thaw between Tokyo and Beijing?
Although double hedging continued to influence Japan’s foreign policy in subsequent decades – including, it should be noted, during the second Abe administration, when the late Abe Shinzō was seeking to improve relations with Beijing even as he was cultivating his friendship with Trump – one could be forgiven for thinking that during the Biden years, the Japanese government broke decisively with double hedging in its investment in relationships with the US and other maritime democracies (including Taiwan), its willingness to identify China and Russia as “states not sharing universal values” that threatened international order, and the withering of domestic support for improving relations with a China widely seen as hostile to Japan’s’ security as well as declining investment in China by Japanese businesses. Perhaps there is no more potent symbol of the post-2020 decline of double hedging than the indefinite postponement of a state visit by Xi, which had originally been expected to occur in spring 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic prompted its cancellation.
But perhaps reports of the death of double hedging were exaggerated. To be sure, some of the recent diplomatic activity appears to be driven by Beijing, not Tokyo. Xi may well see the confluence of Ishiba’s ascent to the premiership – after all, Ishiba has written that the US-Japan relationship means that the Japan is not truly independent – and Trump’s return to the US presidency as an opportunity to drive a wedge in the alliance.
Notwithstanding concerns about Xi’s opportunism, Ishiba, while frank about both broad issues in the relationship – China’s growing military power, for example – and narrower issues like China’s boycott of Japanese fisheries and the safety of Japanese nationals in China, has expressed his determination to improve the bilateral relationship. In his policy speech to the Diet in November, for example, Ishiba said, referring to his first meeting with Xi earlier that month:
We will stress what needs to be stressed on various issues. However, beyond that, we will cooperate in areas in which we can cooperate. This, in my view, is realistic diplomacy based on national interests. In order to ensure that China’s stable development benefits the entire region – and with President Xi’s confirmation – we will continue to communicate with China at all levels, including at the leadership level, based on the broad aim of building a ‘constructive and stable relationship’ and a ‘mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests.’
Meanwhile, in a television appearance on 29 December, Ishiba expressed his desire to visit China, stating, “A relationship of trust between leaders cannot be established superficially, so it is necessary to [meet] repeatedly.”
Despite his recognition of Japan’s challenging security environment and his _expression_ of the need to further strengthen the US-Japan alliance, Ishiba appears committed to reviving a double hedge. “Even in such a challenging and complex international environment,” he told the Diet in November, “the fundamentals of national leadership remain unchanged. Namely, while maintaining and strengthening our own and allied deterrent and retaliatory capabilities, we must create a favorable security environment for Japan through repeated dialogue with other countries.”
First, it is unclear whether he has the wherewithal to engineer a meaningful strategic shift. When Abe pursued his own diplomacy with China, he was strong at home, secure in his relationship with Trump, and confident in his support within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Ishiba, by contrast, is the unpopular head of a minority government, has not even been able to meet with Trump, and is highly distrusted by the LDP’s right wing. Right-wing LDP lawmakers and the conservative press are closely scrutinizing everything that Ishiba and his government do in the triangular relationship between Japan, the US, and China, and LDP lawmakers have vocally criticized Foreign Minister Iwaya’s decision to relax visa rules for Chinese tourists when he was in Beijing in December.¹ Conservative lawmaker Hagiuda Kōichi, effectively making his return to active political life, criticized Iwaya for disregarding the LDP’s policy committees in making this concession. China expert (and former Asahi Shimbun correspondent) Minemura Kenji, writing in the Shūkan Fuji, warned of the Ishiba government’s “diluted sense of crisis,” quoting Iwaya as saying in Beijing, “I personally do not like to speak of a Taiwan crisis.” The significance of this agitation on the right is that it suggests that whatever his preferences, Ishiba has limited room for maneuver in his foreign policymaking. In these circumstances, it is difficult to see, for example, how Ishiba could engineer a state visit for Xi without inviting significant domestic backlash and presumably also criticism from Washington.²
But it may not be only the LDP’s right wing that could threaten an Ishiba shift to double hedging. It is unclear whether Japan’s foreign policy establishment more broadly has the same appetite for engagement with China that it once had. The right wing’s voice on China is important not necessarily just because its weight is particularly pronounced – at least outside of the LDP – but because more conciliatory voices in the bureaucracy, politics, and the business community are more muted than they once were. Even as many recognize the need for better communication with Beijing as a practical matter, Xi Jinping’s personalistic rule, China’s military activities around Japan, and its economic coercion make it difficult for members of the foreign policy establishment to advocate for engagement with any particular enthusiasm.
Third, while Tokyo is anxious about the relationship with the United States – and not just because of Trump, as Biden’s decision to reject Nippon Steel’s bid for US Steel signaled – Tokyo still sees the relationship with the United States as Japan’s top strategic priority. Whatever misgivings the Japanese establishment has about the direction of the United States, there is still no alternative to US military power when it comes to deterring threats to Japan’s security. Unless and until there are more concrete signs that the US will abandon Japan – or simply cannot be relied upon to fulfill its security guarantee – keeping Washington committed to Japan’s defense and engaged in regional security will be the first priority, and there will likely be a significant political price to be paid by Ishiba and any other leader who fails to achieve this goal, particularly if outreach to China undermines the relationship with the United States.
Finally, while Xi may be directing a charm offensive at Ishiba, it seems unlikely that he will take a genuinely more reconciliatory approach to Japan – extending its activities in the East and South China Sea, for example – that would make it harder for Tokyo to resist Beijing’s overtures. Japan may welcome concessions on entry visas and the fisheries trade, but these are thin reeds upon which to pursue broader strategic change.None of this is to say that Ishiba should not try to breathe new life into a dual hedge. China is a geographic fact of life, the bilateral economic relationship (including tourist flows) is still important, and confidence-building measures that reduce the risk of conflict are worth pursuing for their own sake. Meanwhile, the prospect that Trump will pursue a foreign policy based on great power spheres of influence – which could be detrimental to Japan’s interests – suggests that there could be value in strengthening ties with China to avoid being caught off guard by a Trump deal with Xi (i.e., a repeat of the 1971 Nixon shock).
Nevertheless, it is difficult to see Tokyo’s turning back the clock to earlier efforts to balance between superpowers; neither the US nor China may be prepared to tolerate Japan’s taking the steps needed to placate both. Without significant change in how the US approaches Japan, how China approaches Japan, and how Japanese elites and the public view China – not to mention an improvement in Ishiba’s (or a successor’s) domestic political clout – the pursuit of a genuine double hedge strategy could be too costly for any prime minister.
However, if the world shifts to a more multipolar order, big changes in great power behavior that seem unthinkable now could enter the realm of possibility, in which case the time for a double hedge could arrive again. In this case, Ishiba, with his long-articulated interest in a more autonomous, Ishibashi-esque “small Japan,” may be more mentally ready than many of his political rivals for the demands of a more multipolar world.
It is easy to imagine that the right wing might welcome – and even facilitate – some gaiatsu in this case.