Il Giappone ed il nuovo ordine in Asia orientale. L'altra faccia dell'ascesa della Cina

An extensive reflection on Japan’s decline has dominated the recent social science literature on Japan. The diffusion of such declinist discourses –which often identified a cause-effect relationship between Japan’s decline and China’s rise-has legitimated a sort of “crisis narrative” based on the acknowledgment of a persistent Japanese impasse resulting in economic recession, political stalemate and ineffective diplomacy. Yet, the formula “Japan’s decline-China’s rise” is as much fascinating as misleading, especially when applied to the scope of international relations. Many reasons indicate that China’s return to the global forefront of economy and politics has not only been responsible for a relativization of Japan’s role within the regional as well as the global chessboard. Indeed, it has also catalyzed a process of re-orientation of the Japanese diplomacy which had begun in the aftermath of the Cold War’s end. Japan has responded to the post-bipolar systemic changes and to the rise of China, resorting to a successful adaptive strategy. This enabled Tokyo to maximize its resources of power and to minimize the new constraints. Focusing on the case of North-east Asia, the book investigates how Japan has adapted to the changed regional and global context, exploring how the principles of the so-called Yoshida doctrine -which had inspired Japanese diplomacy during the Cold war years- have been incrementally revised.