The China-Japan Relationship Continues in the Spirit of Abe Shinzo

The relationship between China and Japan goes back to antiquity, not surprisingly given the geographical proximity of the two countries. Abe’s genius was to recognize early on – even during his first stint in office, well before such views had become the mainstream – that China had started down a path of intense “competition.” Beijing is striving to achieve dominance in both civilian and defense technologies that would make China immune and impermeable to the efforts of other nations to repress it. In the United States, the former Trump administration also embraced Abe’s emphasis on maintaining freedom of the seas in the international waters of the Indo-Pacific, a vast area of the globe that includes all of China, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the South Pacific, much of India, and for some also includes the Indian Ocean waters and land masses that go right up to the east coast of Africa. When he took office, some expected Kishida to break from Abe’s relentless focus on the threats posed by China’s rise – even if Japanese officials were always careful to speak of the general principles at stake instead of “naming and shaming” Beijing. In that sense, the pragmatic but unequivocal vision of Abe Shinzo continues to be imbued in Japan’s positions on China today.