Japan, China, Russia, and the American “Pivot”: A Triangular Analysis

Abstract

Japan, China, Russia, and the United States, four of the most powerful nations in the world, positioned cheek by jowl in Northeast Asia with some of the world’s most extensive trade and mutually interlocking investments binding them together, have long had “complicated” political-strategic relations. They form two duos, each of which is or was formally bound by a mutual security alliance. In focus here is the Japan-US security alliance (JUSA). Though the JUSA is “the most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none” (according to former ambassador Mike Mansfield), forming the northern tier of the pentagonal US “hub-and-spokes” Asian-Pacific alliance network, it is a bilateral alliance from which China is excluded. The JUSA has never been explicitly directed against China but against the former Soviet Union, wherein it enjoyed full Chinese support. Since the end of the Cold War eliminated the Soviet Union as a target of the alliance and both Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations began for a number of reasons to fray, China’s view of the alliance has grown increasingly skeptical, however.

Financial support from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership and the Murata Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.