Securitizing Beijing through the maritime commons: the ‘China threat’ and Japan’s security discourse in the Abe era

Abstract

The ‘China threat’ has been identified as an important driver of Japan’s security agenda and discourse. The threat posed by China has been discussed either as a given factor determining the trajectory of Tokyo’s security approach, as a product of identity construction, or as an expression of securitizing processes that facilitate institutional and policy change. This paper contributes to this debate by offering an alternative explanation of the process through which the Abe government constructed China as a threat. Building on securitization theory, the paper examines the modes and strategies employed by the Abe Administration to successfully securitize China. The paper argues that, while Beijing was labeled a ‘concern’ rather than an ‘existential threat,’ it was still securitized through a process of securitization that involves an association with those domains in which China engages assertively, namely the maritime commons. The paper suggests calling this type of securitizing pattern ‘transversal securitization’ and explores how this indirect strategy allowed the Abe government to pragmatically pursue its objectives both domestically and at the international level.

Keywords:

• Securitization theory
• Japan
• China
• security discourse
• China threat

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Thomas A. Breslin, Dr. Felix E. Martín, anonymous reviewers, and the editors for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 The quality of existential danger/threat permeates the typology of securitizing speech acts advanced by Vuori (2008) as well as Stritzel (2014).

2 For a more detailed discussion on the limitations of the theory, please refer to Stritzel (2014) and Nyman (2018).

3 The concept of ‘transversal securitization’ borrows from Oren and Brummer (2020b112)’s typology of threat perception intensity.

4 For example, discussing China’s interests near the Senkaku Islands, House of Representative member Imamura Hirofumi (Japan Restoration Party) made a reference to China’s ‘thirst and hunger,’ a choice of terminology meant to point to the dangers posed by a menacing ambitious neighbor (NDL, 2014b). Similarly, House of Representative member Shiina Tsuyoshi (Unity Party) declared in 2014 that the most imminent threat to Japan was represented by China (NDL, 2014e)

5 Abe’s close advisor, Kanehara Nobukatsu, did acknowledge a potential scenario of an enemy land invasion from the coasts of mainland China without, however, mentioning China directly as the enemy carrying out such an invasion (Kanehara, 2015112).

6 One of the reasons for this was the increasing need to secure energy supply routes, a need which has exponentially intensified in urgency following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, the government idled all of its operational reactors and, since then, it has been able to gradually restart only a few of them. As Ishiguro (2014) points out, given the risks of restarting nuclear power generation, Japan’s dependence on thermal power generation is likely to grow over the next 10 years. This increasing dependence has crucially heightened the significance of protecting the security of the sea lanes through which Japan’s energy imports transit (p. 233).

7 Abe’s principles (2014a) of the rule of law at sea are as follows: ‘1. States shall make and clarify their claims based on international law; 2. States shall not use force or coercion in trying to drive their claims; 3. States shall seek to settle disputes by peaceful means.’

8 Notable examples are the export restrictions of rare earth materials against Tokyo in 2010, as well as the economic coercive measures implemented against South Korea and Australia between 2019 and 2021.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alice Dell'Era

Alice Dell'Era is a Ph.D. Candidate in International Relations at Florida International University. Her research interests include Japan’s foreign and security policy, and security discourses, and the US alliance structure in the Indo-Pacific region. In her dissertation, she is currently focusing on the US-Japan Security Alliance, examining Japan’s contributions to the security partnership at the normative level.