Identity-policy discrepancy: crisis perception, third-order change and the shifting foreign policy trajectories of China and Japan toward Northeast Asia

ABSTRACT

Although common, the identity-policy discrepancy has yet to be systematically theorised in the Identity Constructivist literature. This article bridges this gap, leveraging insights from Historical and Sociological Institutionalism, Norm Constructivism, and Post-structuralism to explore the theoretical and empirical weight of such discrepancies. I argue that discrepancies tied to a nation’s hegemonic narratives can spark crises, engender compelling expectations upon recognition, and drive third-order changes as actors endeavour to address these discrepancies. The article illuminates the significant role that discrepancies played in molding the foreign policies of China and Japan, with a focus on regional institution-building in Northeast Asia. The article emphasises the stark contrast between Hu Jintao’s Peaceful Riser identity and his assertive policy actions, alongside the Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) Pacifist State identity juxtaposed with policies akin to those of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). These discrepancies significantly shaped the policy approaches and identity construction of their successors.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• foreign policy
• institution
• China
• Japan

Introduction

What happens when there is a discrepancy between a state’s identity¹ and its policy practice? Using China and Japan as illustrative cases, this article theorises such a discrepancy and highlights its theoretical relevance and policy implications. In late 2012, both China and Japan underwent changes in their national leadership. China’s Xi Jinping succeeded Hu Jintao as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Shortly thereafter, Japan’s Shinzo Abe led the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a landslide electoral victory over the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and retained the prime ministership (Yuan, 2015, p. 86). The year seemed to mark the beginning of a new era in East Asia, as Hu’s timid administration was succeeded by Xi’s, which immediately began transforming China from a Peaceful Riser to a Uncompromised Great Power. In Japan, the brief period of DPJ rule was replaced by Abe’s LDP, which was determined to turn Japan from a Pacifist State into a Beautiful Nation. After all, China’s Hu had never been seen as a decisive leader. His power base has never been firmly consolidated, partially due to Jiang Zemin’s chairmanship of the Central Military Commission and his patrons in leadership positions (Ghiselli, 2021, p. 34). For its part, Japan’s DPJ stumbled from one problem to the next, with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigning after less than a year in office and being replaced by Naoto Kan. Just over a year later, Kan’s successor Yoshihiko Noda and his faction lost the 2012 general election (Sneider, 2011).

China’s Hu and Japan’s DPJ both had discrepancies between their state identities (Hu’s Peaceful Riser and DPJ’s Pacifist State) and their policies (Hu’s assertive foreign policies and the DPJ’s rather LDP-like policies). While this discrepancy is commonplace in international relations, it has yet to be systematically theorised in the literature despite its significance. I contend that the customary portrayal of the major changes in China and Japan in 2012 overshadows crucial ways in which Xi’s and Abe’s new foreign policies were greatly influenced by those of their immediate predecessors. To broaden our understanding of the issue, I distinguish three layers of identity (from the most segmented to the least): the Hegemonic narrative layer, the Paradigm-setting layer and the Emergent Discourse layer. Based on this categorisation, I therefore define an identity-policy discrepancy as the perceived gap between the representation of the state’s identity at the Paradigm-setting layer and the state’s policies on the ground. I argue that the identity-policy discrepancy matters theoretically and empirically. They may act as an ideational catalyst for crises. Such crises, recognised by both internal and external reference groups, generate powerful expectations that, in turn, provide feedback to decision-makers concerning the nature of the problems and necessary corrective actions. Furthermore, attempts to fix these discrepancies can accentuate the required actions, often leading to unforeseen outcomes.²

In this article, I begin by presenting the literature on the identity-policy discrepancy and explaining the reasons for Identity Constructivists’ (relative) neglect of the topic. Next, I analyse the discrepancy from a broader theoretical perspective and build a theoretical framework. In the following section, I study the identity-policy discrepancy (between the Peaceful Riser identity and assertive foreign policies) left by Hu’s second term in China around 2008–2012 and the rise of the new identity under Xi (Uncompromised Great Power). Then, I turn to Japan’s discrepancy under DPJ rule from 2009 to 2012 (between the Pacifist State identity and the LDP-like foreign policy) and the rise of the new identity under Abe’s LDP (Beautiful Nation). I then use the China–Japan-Korea Trilateral Free Trade Agreement (CJKFTA) as an issue-specific case study. I conclude by discussing these discrepancies in relation to the changing foreign policy trajectories of the Xi and Abe administrations.³

The identity-policy discrepancy: an omitted scenario?

While identity-policy discrepancies are common in international relations, the Identity Constructivist literature has not yet fully highlighted their theoretical and empirical significance for at least three reasons. First, conventional Constructivist frameworks were developed to advance our understanding of how state identities guide, inform or shape state actions. As Wendt (1994, p. 385) argues, a state’s identity ‘informs its interests’ and, in turn, its ‘actions’. As a result, identity and state actions are seen as connected, and the discrepancy between them is seen as temporary. Guided by their identities, all states are expected to act as autonomous, unitary players engaging in practices ranging from secret initiatives to wholesale conflicts (Dittmer & Kim, 1993, p. 14). Jepperson et al. (1996) opine that ‘because actors could not know their interest before discovering what they are representing’, identity can ‘both generate and shape interests’ (1996, p. 60) and, in turn, ‘state policy’ (1996, p. 53).

Moreover, those Constructivists who prioritise the roles of agency and domestic factors also imply that identities emerge from the interplay of competing claims made by identity entrepreneurs as they articulate their preferred identities and policy positions. Consequently, they also posit minimal room for discrepancies between identities and policy implementation. For instance, in explaining the shifts in US identity and policy, Nau (2002) shows how the ambitious internationalists who attempted to impose democracy and the US-led world order competed with the more inward-looking isolationists. While neither identity claim was eliminated entirely, once one was privileged, the other became marginalised. In analysing Russia’s military intervention in Abkhazia, Hopf (2005) argues that after the centralists defeated the conservatives and liberals, great power identity became the only game in town, at the expense of all other Russian identities. In analysing the strategies the Turkish Justice and Development Party used to consolidate their preferred identity claims, Hintz (2016) illustrates how they weakened the republican nationalist identity claim by bringing Ottoman Islamism to the international stage. Similarly, in a comparative study of Russia’s and Turkey’s identity change and regional policies, Köstem (2018) demonstrates that the power consolidations of Putin and Erdogan were decisive in marginalising the two country’s previous dominant identities: Russia’s Yeltsinism and Turkey’s Westernism.

Compared to conventional Constructivism, critical Constructivist and Post-structuralist varieties have been more inclined to identify and explain discrepancies in the identity-policy nexus. Using the US state identity-foreign policy nexus as an example, Campbell (1998, p. 68) illustrates how the US’ identities are constituted by its policy practices as ‘identity can be understood as the outcome of exclusionary practices’. Similarly, Mattern (2001) uses the Suez Crisis of 1956 to demonstrate the constitutive relationship between the UK’s state identity and its foreign policy trajectories. Likewise, Hansen (2006, p. 23) focuses on ‘the discursive construction of identity as both constitutive of and a product of foreign policy’. In Hansen’s analysis, the ‘Balkan discourse’ attributes the war in Bosnia to ‘ancient hatred’, which encourages non-intervention policies from the West. In contrast, the ‘genocide discourse’ demands Western intervention on humanitarian grounds. In both cases, the relationships between identities and policies are not causal but performatively intertwined. Again, in explaining Croatia’s compliance with and Serbia’s aversion to European Union membership, Subotic (2011) points to the importance of the countries’ different historical memories and their past interactions with Europe as the leading causes of either identity convergence or identity divergence.

Using the case of Japan, Hagström and Gustafsson (2015) understand identity in relational terms. According to them, identities and policies are thus produced and reproduced momentarily, based on— ‘the subject positions that emerge through processes of differentiation’ (p.2). Moreover, Bucher and Jasper (2017) introduce a ‘processual-relational approach’ in their studies of Switzerland's identities and policies. Instead of arguing whether identity precedes state action or the latter shapes the former, the authors integrate them into the process of identification that is ‘bundled and temporarily and incompletely privileged (or marginalised) in the act of decision-making’ (p. 396). More recently, Deacon (2022, p. 793) illustrates the ‘mutually constitutive relationship’ between identities and policies in the context of historical problems between Japan and South Korea. All of these studies illustrated the complex nuances and changing dynamics of the identity-policy nexus, thus representing an advancement to conventional Constructivism. Nevertheless, despite their values, they were not suitably tailored to focus on the identity-policy discrepancy.

While acknowledging conventional and critical Constructivists’ different focuses and their efforts in addressing other critical theoretical and empirical problems facing IR, the relatively scant attention to such a discrepancy does raise concerns. For instance, discrepancies could result from institutionally embedded identities or policy practices. In analysing the evolution of French, British and German identities, Marcussen et al. (1999) posit that, identities, once entrenched within political institutions and cultural frameworks, pose significant challenges for political actors to alter or overturn, even when such identities may not optimally serve their own foreign policy agendas. This implies that institutionalised identities and policies may persist long after the original conditions or actors responsible for their creation have faded. Equally important is the recognition that while political actors are subject to socialisation, they also engage in strategic behaviour; thus, they may intentionally adopt measures resulting in a divergence between stated identity and policy, serving various political or strategic objectives. After all, states are entities to which actors can attribute identities, and state identities can only be attributed by actors within the states (Wendt, 1999, p. 224). As Lebow (2016, p. 44) explains, only actors within the states have ‘I’ (leaders and citizens), and unlike human beings, states that as collectives have no ‘I’ but ‘me’ are, thus, unable to accept or reject the attributions made by other actors to them.

This article fills the gap in Constructivist literature by shifting the focus from whether identities and policies will converge to under what conditions the discrepancies between the two are likely to happen and what influences these discrepancies are likely to have. Against the usual portrayal, I argue that such a discrepancy may represent a major factor for change, necessitating a theoretical framework. Thus, a suitably tailored framework is needed to shed light on crucial questions, such as how identity-policy discrepancies may be formed and under what circumstances they can be resolved and what are the implications. In the next section, I present a framework of an identity-policy discrepancy, which takes this marginalised research question as the article’s theoretical and empirical core.

Conceptualising the identity-policy discrepancy

Having identified the gap, this section advances the knowledge of the identity-policy discrepancy by connecting it to literature, demonstrating its influential conditions and showing how this framework could extend the existing cluster of work. While not systematically theorised, there is a substantial body of IR literature to support the framework, especially on various types of Institutionalism, Norm Constructivism, and Post-structuralism. Building on the rich literature, this framework pinpoints three major roles of such a discrepancy: as the resources for a crisis, as the start of a feedback loop, and as the prologue of a third-order change.

The discrepancy as the ideational precondition for change

Most discrepancies between identity and policy practice do not lead to a crisis; however, some are resources for contestation and could prompt a shift in a policy-making paradigm. The existing policymaking paradigm is rarely contested during a ‘period of normal’. Policymakers, in Hall’s (1993, p. 279) words, ‘customarily work within a framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and the kind of instruments that can be used to attain them, but also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing’. Most discrepancies have limited impact on such a framework. Hay (2018) explains that during the ‘period of normal’, the policy shift is usually iterative and cumulative, and policymaking tends to be highly path-dependent. Such a path dependency is like climbing the branches of a tree: ‘although it is possible to turn around or to clamber from one to the other—and essential if the chosen branch dies—the branch on which a climber begins is the one she tends to follow’ (Levi, 1997, p. 28).

Some discrepancies are, however, inherently more likely to cause a crisis. There is a difference in socially constructed ideas among ideational resources that cannot be simply ‘created’ by actors. For instance, literature on socialisation has long argued that the ‘success’ of a new norm is contingent on its message to ‘resonate’ with the receivers (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998, p. 897). Similarly, Hirsch (2014) points out that the expected utility (the logic of consequences) and perceived morality (the logic of appropriateness) are both crucial in the emergence and subsequent institutionalisation of a norm. Following this line of reasoning, certain discrepancies are also more likely to cause crises than others due to their perceived significance in both material and normative terms that are more likely to force policymakers into a high-stakes debate. For instance, in analysing why Kuwait did not ratify the 2012 Gulf Cooperation Council internal security pact, Yom (2020) attributes it to the often-neglected significance of a discrepancy between the Sabah monarchy’s identity as a ‘tolerant protector’ and such an internal security pact.

Once a discrepancy precipitates a crisis, we enter a ‘period of exceptional’, which is most likely to be caused when the discrepancy challenges the core definition of a nation’s collective self (the Hegemonic Narrative). The crisis could be caused by a mismatch between the country’s psychological and physical boundaries.⁴ It happens, as Pye (2015, pp. 110–111) argues, ‘when a community finds that what it had once unquestionably accepted as the physical and psychological definitions of its collective self are no longer acceptable under new historical conditions.’ A crisis may also be caused by the discrepancy between the state’s identity and the country’s fundamental developmental trajectory. Such a crisis ‘may occur at any time in a nation’s development when the consensually agreed-upon national developmental trajectory is thrown open to fundamental question’ (Dittmer & Kim, 1993, p. 29). A crisis could also erupt when a discrepancy coincides with major normative or material challenges facing the country.

Nevertheless, despite the relevance of these varied discrepancy-triggered crises, agents’ intersubjective beliefs about one discrepancy are perceived by, not completely given for, agents. In other words, no discrepancy could be defined by referencing only its ‘significance’ or its ideational resonance to the people; the interpretation of it is likely to involve a social learning process among actors. Such a process occurs, according to Hall (1993, p. 278), ‘when individuals assimilate new information, including that based on past experience, and apply it to their subsequent actions’. Analytically, the policymaking elites are continually involved in a dynamic process of gathering, assessing, and reassessing information pertaining to identity-policy discrepancy-triggered crises. The subsequent section will illuminate how this evaluative process is integral to the feedback mechanisms generated by both internal and external reference groups. This, in turn, influences how the actors perceive and judge the significance of such crises.

The discrepancy as the beginning of a feedback loop

Once a discrepancy triggers a crisis, policymaking enters, in Hall’s (1993) words, a ‘period of exceptional’, during which a crisis will be perceived and evaluated by domestic and international reference groups. Put differently, a crisis precipitated by discrepancies serves not as a conclusion but rather as the inception of a cyclical feedback process; as Widmaier et al. (2007, p. 753) put it, crises ‘provide openings for change where a range of social agents can interpret events to push for policy innovations’. Moreover, in a study of Sweden and the US, Blyth (2002, p. 41) illustrates that the nature of a crisis is not predetermined by the ‘true’ or ‘objective’ fact of that crisis. Instead, it depends on evaluating the questions such as ‘what went wrong’ and ‘what had to be done’. One source such a crisis evaluation relies on is the domestic feedback loop, which often involves the persuasiveness of different claims about ‘the necessity of change’ between elites and masses (Widmaier et al., 2007, p. 754) and of ‘the inter-elite persuasion’ (Blyth, 2007, p. 761).

The perspectives offered by institutionalism are intricately linked with the research across a multitude of IR subfields. As Katzenstein (1996, pp. 20–21) articulates, collectively maintained norms are essentially social practices that emerge from ongoing interactions among actors, whether these norms are developed spontaneously, promoted intentionally, negotiated explicitly, or a combination of these processes. Deitelhoff and Zimmermann (2019) argue that a norm attains robustness when its intended subjects not only discursively acknowledge the norm’s validity, but also consistently act in alignment with its principles. Recent research by Hirsch and Dixon (2021) on the potency of international norms affirms that collective expectations concerning an international norm—conceived as a principled idea—significantly influence its robustness, which is gauged by the extent of international agreement and the level of institutional embedment. In parallel, Harnisch (2012, p. 49) elucidates the concept of role-making within international relations, describing how actors are impacted and restricted by the anticipations of others, as well as by their own assessments of the context. Additionally, in the realm of status signalling, Pu (2019, p. 18) articulates that when a political entity strives for a certain status, it emits signals intended to communicate its claim to a specific position within the international community, a process that is intrinsically relative to other actors.

Notwithstanding the prevalent feedback loops, identity entrepreneurs still possess the capacity to strategically shape social meanings, narratives, and interpretations surrounding discrepancies. Or, in Finnemore and Sikkink (1998, p. 888)’s words, to engage in a ‘strategic social construction’.⁵ Acknowledging the leeway in this evaluation process, Hall (1993, p. 278) emphasises actors’ agency by defining ‘social learning as a deliberate attempt to adjust the goals or techniques of policy in response to past experience and new information.’ Like a norm (Wiener, 2018, p. 43), a discrepancy must also be negotiated and validated, agents could be proactive, and the process could be formal, social and cultural. Indeed, internal and external reference groups’ feedback loop regarding a discrepancy alone could not determine the interpretation of the identity entrepreneurs. Agency matters in the process; for instance, by analysing the US interpretations of the Cold War and the war on terrorism, Widmaier (2007) illustrates the path-shaping role US presidents play in constructing crises and leading to the ‘crusading’ foreign policies as the solutions. Similarly, Cooper’s (1997) study of the German identity debate describes how actors strategically interpret the same event (Germany’s policy on NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia) in different ways by drawing on different historical lessons.

Therefore, instead of debating the relative weight of feedback loops and the agency space for engaging with a ‘strategic social construction’ in interpreting a discrepancy-driven crisis, the evaluation process is better treated as a social process where the identity entrepreneurs attempt to negotiate, compete and persuade internal and external expectations. While the ideational content of the discrepancy, the interpretation of the discrepancy-driven crises, or more precisely, the questions of ‘what went wrong’ and ‘what had to be done’ matter, there are more dynamics related to how actors engage with those solutions.

The discrepancy as the prologue for a third-order change

Once a discrepancy-driven crisis is perceived as a problem, the solutions are expected to be constructed accordingly, while political actors approach the problems in various ways. For instance, if the actors had a positive relationship with the actor or actors who created the discrepancy in the first place, they would likely engage in a process of ‘convergence’. Based on Subotic’s (2011, p. 313) theorisation, I define ‘convergence’ as a process where actors strategically and discursively emphasise their links with the core messages and values associated with the previous actors and intentionally negate the discrepancy between the identities they promoted and the policies they had while attempting to fix the discrepancy. The more positive the relationship among these actors, the more likely they are to go down this path. Conversely, when political actors have a negative relationship with the actors who created the discrepancy, they will likely engage in ‘divergence’, strategically repudiating their connections with the previous actors and intentionally emphasising the discrepancy while fixing it. The more negative the relationship between them, the more likely the new actors will go down this path.

Nevertheless, despite the opposite solutions they take, they will likely lead to third-order changes. This is because ‘it is improbable that any successor paradigm will resolve the contradictions of the old rather than attempt to redefine the very problems that need addressing’ (Hay, 2018, p. 193). In Hall’s (1993, p. 278) ‘Three Orders of Social Learning’, Hay (2018, p. 198) explains that when the first-order change happens, ‘the specific settings of policy instruments are modified while the instruments themselves (and indeed the broad goals of policy) remain unaltered’. In a second-order change, ‘both the settings and instruments are altered (yet still within the context of stable goals). Nevertheless, in a third-order change, ‘the very goals of the policy itself are revised (with knock-on consequences for instruments and settings)’. A new balance between identity and policy is unlikely to be reached, and the existing contradictions are unlikely to be fixed. Since identities and behaviours go hand in hand, shifting the rhetoric regarding one country’s self will simultaneously influence the policy practice, and the practice, in turn, will reinforce the rhetoric. The way out is usually to redefine the meaning of the very crisis that needs attention and, in turn, the entire identity-policy nexus.

For instance, a land power could change some specific policy settings in response to maritime disputes (a first-order change), as increasing military spending on naval development will usually be beneficial in protecting its immediate maritime interests. Nevertheless, spending more on the navy will not likely address deeper issues or patterns contributing to maritime disputes. Therefore, handling maritime disputes sometimes involves both changing settings and policy instruments (a second-order change). For example, the land power may come to understand that simply spending more is not enough; restructuring the naval industry entirely might do the job. However, when there has been a discrepancy-triggered crisis, and when actors attempt to resolve the crisis, the effort to find a new balance between its identity and policy will likely lead to a third-order change. For instance, instead of addressing its original goal of maritime disputes, a land power responding to a discrepancy-triggered crisis between identifying itself as a land power and its maritime power-like policy will attempt to match its rhetoric with its policy practice, therefore, increasingly likely to define itself as a maritime power.

In this article, identities are changeable, simultaneously constituted, layered, and contested, and the term is only analytically meaningful. By drawing on Wæver (2002), Hagström and Gustafsson (2015), Kolmas (2020) and Hanssen (2020), I distinguish three layers of identity. I) The Hegemonic narrative layer refers to the overarching conceptions and the basic constellation of the conceptions of a state deeply rooted in historical construction and almost unquestioned by its people. While it is not impossible to modify these identities, they can withstand much pressure to change and exert considerable constitutive power on institutions and social spheres. II) The Paradigm-setting layer represents a mediating stratum of identity sedimentation, where states codify more specified self-definitions drawn from the Hegemonic-Narrative layer. They are existing identities; these narratives are instrumental in establishing precedents and, thus, occupy a pivotal position between the more deeply ingrained Level I and the newly emerging (or returning) Level III. At this level, hegemonic narratives are interpreted and engaged in generating and perpetuating discursive resources. The identities of the Hegemonic narrative layer, while characterised by their deep-seated and often unchallenged nature, are broad in scope, making the Paradigm-setting layer a target for identity entrepreneurs at level III. Despite their interdependent nature, the identities at this intermediary level exert a profound influence, delineating the boundaries within which new identities emerge and are interpreted. For identity entrepreneurs who aspire to instigate change, it is imperative to engage with these entrenched narratives, navigating and, where possible, reshaping them to facilitate the evolution of identity at layer III.

III) The Emergent Discourse layer is the least sedimented identity formed through the deliberation of diverse, concrete, alternative conceptions of the state. In this layer, identity entrepreneurs craft and champion their favoured visions of identity, setting the stage for the translation of more deeply ingrained, more sedimented identities into tangible, policy-oriented constructs. This translation process often involves defining the Self in opposition to a variety of broadly construed ‘others’, whether spatial (e.g. Germany’s othering of Russia) or temporal (e.g. Germany’s distancing from its Nazi past). These otherings are dynamic processes wherein identity entrepreneurs selectively prioritise some discourses over others. Recognising the relational nature of these three layers of identities is essential as the Hegemonic Narrative and Paradigm-Setting layers only acquire their meaning in the context of identity entrepreneurs’ efforts to promote their preferred identities at the Emergent Discourse layer.

Based on this definition, I therefore define an identity-policy discrepancy as the perceived gap between the representation of state’s identity at the Paradigm-setting layer and the state’s policies on the ground. To conclude, the framework’s first section emphasised the resonance of a discrepancy, as it is easier for some discrepancies than others to trigger a crisis. When one discrepancy sets off a crisis, the interpretations and feedback of that discrepancy are likely to have significant implications. The question of what problem the discrepancy represents shapes what is considered a legitimate, possible, or desirable solution. Moreover, how identity entrepreneurs frame their solutions depends on their relationship with the actors who are responsible for the discrepancy. Nevertheless, regardless of how they frame it, any solutions for a discrepancy-triggered crisis will likely to create a third-order change. The next section will analyse the identity-policy discrepancies by applying this framework to the changes in identity and foreign policy of China and Japan regarding the short-lived regional institution-building programme in Northeast Asia.

China’s identity-policy discrepancy

Hu Jintao’s leadership is often portrayed as weak and passive because of his shaky power base. Among other things, His more influential predecessor Jiang Zemin, chaired the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the CCP during Hu’s first term. Many of Jiang’s patrons also continued to hold leadership positions, such as the vice chairs of the CMC, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, who challenged Hu occasionally (Ghiselli, 2021, p. 34). Nevertheless, the discrepancy between policy and rhetoric during Hu’s second term had a profound influence on China’s later policies. Despite Hu’s continued Peaceful Riser identity⁶ (The Paradigm-setting layer), Shirk (2022, p. 13) states that during China’s economic golden period, especially since the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), Hu and his peers abandoned the restrained foreign policy that had been a proven success. Instead, they encouraged assertiveness and, in Shirk’s words, ‘to act more belligerently in world affairs’. Kausikan added that Hu abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s ‘hide and bide’ approach, a change that ‘led to far too much boasting’. During Hu’s term, Beijing began to internalise these stories, convincing themselves that China was rising while the US and the West had entered an irreversible decline (Nikkei Asia, 2022).

The identity-policy discrepancy left by Hu triggered a crisis because it resonated with the underlying Great Power by Default identity. It is deeply ingrained in Chinese people’s historical consciousness and enjoys widespread acceptance among the society, placing it firmly at the Hegemonic-Narrative layer as Chinese people saw China’s rise to a great power status as a ‘return’ to its natural and rightful place (Yan, 2001). It is based on two seemingly opposite but related pillars of Chinese nationalism: the painful memories of China’s modern history and the proud history of its past glory, both of which point to national rejuvenation (Yuan, 2008). On the one hand, ‘China does not see itself as a rising, but a returning power. It does not view the prospect of a strong China exercising influence in economic, cultural, political, and military affairs as an unnatural challenge to the world order – but rather as a return to a normal state of affairs’ (Kissinger, 2012, p. 546). On the other hand, the Chinese people suffered tremendously when China was striving to become a modern nation-state when the Qing had a semi-colonial status in the international hierarchy and only nominal independence (Fitzgerald, 1995). Among other failures, the Qing’s defeat in the 1840 Opium War and the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) forced China to make huge concessions that marked the beginning of its ‘century of humiliation’ (Yuan, 2008).

Feedback clarified such a discrepancy as the contradiction between Hu’s Peaceful Riser identity and his policy practices. Goldstein (2020) described Hu’s approach to foreign policy, especially in his second term (2008–2012) as the years of ‘strategic incoherence’ between his promotion of China’s identity as a Peaceful Riser and various assertive foreign policies. In 2003, almost a decade before Xi took power, Hu first mentioned China’s ‘Malacca Dilemma’ and announced the necessity for China to have a blue-water navy. In 2009, the aircraft carrier Varyag was approved to be refit into a carrier for the Chinese navy, later becoming the country’s first aircraft carrier Liaoning. After that, China accelerated its production of warships and the plans to build the second and third carriers. Xi’s signature global initiatives, such as the Build and Road Initiative (BRI), is also connected to Hu’s ‘going out’ policy, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was proposed in 2009 under Hu’s administration (Doshi, 2019). During Hu’s second term, PRC officials struggled to balance the widely held perceptions that China had changed its foreign policy approach despite rhetoric that reflected its previous commitments and discourses (Smith, 2021).

To harmonise the perceived discrepancy between Hu’s identities and policies, the new administration began to redefine China’s identity as an Uncompromised Great Power (The Emergent Discourse layer) since Xi emerged as the top leader of the CCP in late 2012 and the president of the PRC the following year. Among many things, In September 2013, on a visit to the Brookings Institute, Foreign Minister Wang Yi (2013) delivered a speech titled ‘Toward a New Model of Major-Country Relations Between China and the United States’, which described a ‘new type of great power relations’ between these two, explicitly promoting a ‘G2’. On October 24-25, 2013, at a conference on China’s regional diplomacy, Xi announced that the PRC needed to embrace ‘a new great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics’ (Smith, 2021). In 2014, at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia held in Shanghai, Xi introduced a new concept of Asian security. The core message is that Asian security should be determined by Asians, which raised speculation that the PRC now wanted to push the US out of the region (Pu, 2019, p. 70).

Moreover, an article on Xi’s Governance of China II, dated November 28, 2014, declared that ‘China’s Diplomacy Must Befit Its Major-Country Status’ (Xi, 2017, p. 479). Similarly, the Propaganda Department (2018, p. 39) insisted that ‘to realise the great dream, one must conduct great struggle, establish great projects and pushing for great initiatives’. Importantly, a convergence effort was made by stressing the continuity between the policies of Hu and Xi and by framing them both in terms of broadly shared views on the great power inspiration. Given the hegemonic narrative that China is a great power by default, these policies could easily be portrayed as part of a long process of national rejuvenation that encompasses Chinese people’s shared and profound memories (Yan, 2014). Such an effort was made most clear in the Propaganda Department’s (2018, p. 32) declaration that ‘achieving the great rejuvenation of Chinese nation condensed the long-cherished wish of generations’. For some, Beijing has abandoned its long-held ‘low-profile approach’ and begun to ‘strive for achievement’ (Yan, 2014). While the ‘low-profile approach’ was the single most significant consensus among the PRC’s elites since the reform, which tremendously benefited the country’s economic and social development, it is losing influence.

Whilst it is an overstatement to attribute Xi’s Uncompromised Great Power identity entirely to Hu, the crisis raised and feedback received by the discrepancies between Hu’s Peaceful Riser identity and assertive policies did contribute to a more assertive China under Xi. Hu triggered a crisis by tapping into a central theme of a Chinese hegemonic narrative —its aspirations to re-establish China as a great power. Due to the general perception that Hu’s China contradicted its identity and policies, such a crisis has left Xi with a discrepancy-trigger crisis. With Xi’s effort to align China’s identity with its policy, the world has now sensed China’s major identity shift. Among them, a widespread Australian Broadcast article on January 30, 2018, captured the identity and policy change in its title: ‘China’s Era of Hide and Bide Is Over’ (Grant, 2018). However, as we shall see, the appropriate paradigm to balance identity and behaviour in a discrepancy-triggered crisis is difficult to achieve. Since identities and policies go together, Xi’s effort to match rhetoric with Hu’s policy led to a third-order change in China’s identity-policy nexus entirely.

Japan’s identity-policy discrepancy

The DPJ’s brief governance since 2009 is often regarded as a temporary disruption in the LDP’s prolonged rule (Glosserman & Snyder, 2015, p. 23; Sneider, 2011). The DPJ’s promotion of a Pacifist State identity stems mainly from Japan’s wartime history and the shortcomings in reconciliation with its neighbours, persisting in ongoing tensions within Asia (Ashizawa, 2013, pp. 149–150). For some, being a Pacifist State offers a new sense of national purpose and a way to normalise Japan’s relations with other nations, especially its Asian neighbours (Hagström, 2015; McVeigh, 2004, p. 207). For instance, the DPJ leader Hatoyama once made explicit that the primary goal of his ruling coalition was to move Japan’s strategic centre of gravity from a more US-focused to a more Asia-centric one (Fackler, 2009).⁷ In essence, the Pacifist State identity engaged with the hegemonic narrative of Japan as a Distinctively Proud Nation, proposing one possible interpretation to uphold and augment Japan’s self-regard and dignity.

Aligned with the Pacifist State identity, the DPJ coalition undertook several ground-breaking initiatives. Before his election, Hatoyama pledged to eschew visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan’s military leaders from wartime and committed to fostering better relations with neighbouring countries, notably the PRC (Terada, 2019, p. 293). In a move continuing the gesture, December 2009 saw a momentous exchange of state visits between Emperor Akihito and then-Vice President Xi Jinping of China (Fackler, 2010). In December 2010, a high-profile Japanese delegation with over a hundred business leaders led by the DPJ Secretary General Ozawa Ichiro went to Beijing, where President Hu greeted them with a lavish reception and posed for individual photos with each one of them. One widely read article in the New York Times even warned that the visit ‘was just one sign of a noticeable warming of Japan’s once icy ties with China. It is an indication that the United States, Japan’s closest ally, may be losing at least some ground in a diplomatic tug-of-war with Beijing’ (Pempel, 2019a, p. 196). Moreover, Hatoyama and his team made several prominent declarations about Japan’s repositioning, notably proposing an extensive Asia-wide free trade zone by 2020, signalling a bold step in regional economic integration (Tabuchi, 2009).

Nevertheless, despite the unprecedented change in gesture and rhetoric, the DPJ’s policy is not meaningfully different from LDP’s; in Lipscy and Scheiner’s (2012, p. 311) words, there is a ‘paradox of political change without policy change’. Despite the high hopes before the DPJ came to power and its ambitious plans to reconcile with and ‘rejoin’ Asia, the party stumbled from one failure to the next. In early June 2010, PM Hatoyama resigned after less than a year in office, mainly over his mishandling of the issues regarding the US bases in Okinawa. His close ally and successor, Naoto Kan, also struggled to resolve the situation after the Japanese arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat due to the incidents regarding the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu island (Sneider, 2011). Structurally, Japan’s foreign policy is limited by its reliance on the US for security. Internally, its electoral system offers limited incentives for the DPJ to actualise their ideals (Lipscy & Scheiner, 2012), leading to a notable discrepancy where the DPJ’s identity conception was misaligned with its policy actions. Consequently, the gap between the state identity the DPJ coalition promoted (an apologetic Pacifist State identity) and their rather LDP-like policy had created an identity-policy discrepancy.

Moreover, the feedback on such a discrepancy affirmed that the DPJ had deviated from the right course, rendering the Pacifist State identity ineffectual. This is best exemplified by Yoshihiko Noda, the final DPJ Prime Minister to succeed Naoto Kan (Hatoyama’s successor). First, Noda’s emergence from the conservative flank of the DPJ illuminated the difficulties in adhering to a Pacifist State approach. Second, while initially striving to sustain the DPJ’s stance on pacifism for various reasons, his administration encountered obstacles and setbacks. The prominent act of nationalising the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, intended to mitigate tensions with China and counter Ishihara’s provocations, ironically invited conservative critique, being perceived as acquiescence to Chinese pressure (Kolmas, 2018). Compounding the issue, Beijing saw the nationalisation of the islands by Japan, which occurred shortly after the Hu-Noda summit, as a significant slight and a violation of the enduring, though unstated, agreement between the two countries, exacerbating Noda’s already complex predicament (Yuan, 2015, p. 85).

Noda’s tenure was cut short, precluding him from addressing these issues. In December 2012, his DPJ succumbed to the LDP, paving the way for Abe’s return as Prime Minister, which was further cemented by the LDP’s triumph in the House of Councillors elections in July 2013. (Glosserman & Snyder, 2015, p. 23). Confronted with an identity-policy discrepancy, Abe and his LDP colleagues sought to play divergence to differentiate themselves from the DPJ’s approach and embarked on a quest for new resolutions (Kolmas, 2018, p. 69).⁸ On February 22, 2013, shortly after his reelection, Abe; (2013a) delivered his notable ‘Japan Is Back’ address at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), advocating for the Beautiful Nation identity. The address had three themes: 1) the introduction of Abenomics; 2) ‘Japan is not, and will never be, a tier-two nation’; and 3) Japan must remain ‘a rule promoter, a commons guardian, and an effective ally and partner to the US and other democracies.’ In pursuit of redefining Japan as a Beautiful Nation, revisions spanned beyond foreign policy to encompass educational reforms and attempted modifications to the post-war pacifist constitution (Kolmas, 2020). These changes reflect an alternative stance within Japan’s hegemonic narrative as a Distinctively Proud Nation, offering a counterpoint to the Pacifist State.

Policies aligned with the Beautiful Nation narrative were implemented, such as the introduction of a ‘new map’ showcasing Japan’s disputed territories, reinforcing its territorial claims (Dudden, 2019, p. 172). The new government also adopted a proactive foreign policy with the watchword ‘Proactive Contribution to Peace’, brought the Japan-US alliance to an unprecedented level of cooperation against perceived threats (Sohn, 2019, p. 5) and strengthened its links with the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam (Pempel, 2019b, p. 310). For Abe and the party, this change proved successful; the LDP has won landslide victories in almost all subsequent elections, with the exception of the July 2017 election to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly (Sohn, 2019, p. 5). By 2019, the LDP coalition held two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Japanese parliament and the opposition parties were fragmented and marginalised (Pempel, 2019a, p. 210); in that year, Abe became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister since the end of World War II (Sohn, 2019, p. 5). The following section will elaborate on how Japan’s shift in identity precipitated a third-order change, leading to a more assertive stance in foreign policies and a comprehensive revision of the objectives within the Japanese regional institutional project.

The identity-policy discrepancy and Northeast Asia’s regional institution-building

The faltering progress of the China–Japan-Korea Free Trade Agreement (CJKFTA) illustrates the fallout from identity-policy discrepancies well. For China, although Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji initially proposed the CJKFTA in 2002, formalisation did not occur until President Hu Jintao’s endorsement in 2007 (Zhang, 2019). In Japan, despite past support for a similar concept by former prime ministers Ichiro Hatoyama (Yukio Hatoyama’s grandfather) and Junichiro Koizumi, Yukio Hatoyama’s vision for the regional framework diverged sharply. Koizumi, for instance, envisioned the institution as a complement to Japan's close ties with the US, proposing a 16-member East Asia Summit that included the ten ASEAN nations, Japan, China, South Korea, along with Australia, New Zealand, and India (Pempel, 2019a, p. 195). In contrast, Yukio Hatoyama’s plan intentionally left little role for the West, especially the US. Soon after becoming prime minister in 2009, he announced Japan’s willingness to promote the East Asia Community (Su, 2017, p. 353).

In 2009, ROK President Lee Myung-bak proposed to establish a Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat among the three Northeast Asian countries. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao soon accepted (Zhang, 2018). Hatoyama followed suit despite internal resistance from bureaucratic and political forces such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) (Shin, 2015, p. 184). In the same year, a semi-governmental study by China, Japan, and the ROK, consisting of business groups, scholars, and government officials, was also established; years of preparation preceded the actual negotiation (Zhang, 2016). In October 2010, the third China–Japan-South Korea summit was held. The leaders of the three countries announced their willingness to accomplish a joint research project among academia, industry, and the government by 2012 (Terada, 2019, p. 293). At the end of 2011, another government-led joint study on the CJKFTA was completed, with its final report recommending the three Northeast Asian countries to build a ‘comprehensive and high-level FTA covering trade in goods, services, investment, and other policy areas’ (MOFA, Japan, originally produced by the Trilateral Joint Research Committee, 2011, pp. 147–148).

For years, both Hu’s China and Japan under the DPJ promoted the CJKFTA, which corresponded to their respective identities even though such an institution was increasingly detached from their later policies. As a legacy of the previous administrations, both the governments of Xi and Abe continued their initial commitment to the CJKFTA, at least rhetorically. On November 1, 2015, Abe met PRC Premier Li Keqiang and the ROK President Park at the Sixth Trilateral meeting, whose official statement claiming ‘steady progress has been made in trilateral cooperation in various areas’ (Pempel, 2019a, pp. 193–94). Nevertheless, both China’s and Japan’s attempts to solve the identity-policy discrepancy has had significant consequences. After all, since identity and policy are constitutive, the rhetorical shift in China and Japan would naturally lead to a change in their foreign policy practice. Focusing on China and Japan’s policy changes regarding this regional institution, the following section will examine this process.⁹

China’s third-order change: from economic cooperation to strategic competition

As previously analysed, Xi’s promotion of an Uncompromised Great Power identity (at the Emergent-Discourse layer) seeks to address the discrepancy between China’s past portrayal as a Peaceful Riser (an identity prevalent during Hu Jintao’s administration at the Paradigm-Setting layer) and its assertive policies. As the nexus of identity and policy intertwines, Xi’s endeavour to reconcile the discrepancies between identity and policy has steered China towards a trajectory distinct from that of his predecessor, Hu. This strategic realignment ultimately led to a third-order change, fundamentally redefining the goals of China's foreign policy, including the perspectives and strategies underpinning regional institution-building. By adopting the Uncompromised Great Power identity, Beijing’s view of these institutions has evolved. They are no longer perceived merely as platforms for economic growth and development; instead, they are increasingly seen as tools for advancing broader geoeconomic objectives. Consequently, the architecture of new institutions is being deliberately crafted to protect and promote China’s extended national interests, particularly in regions that are pivotal from geopolitical and geoeconomic perspectives (Beeson, 2018; Lake, 2017).

First, Beijing has adopted a more assertive and strategic approach to forming new institutions, marking a pivotal shift in its strategy for regional institutional architecture. This shift aims to consolidate greater control and influence, mitigate external pressures, enhance security, and augment its international standing (Yuan, 2018). In this vein, Beijing has championed various major initiatives that represent a departure from, and an extension beyond, economically centred regional endeavours like the CJKFTA. As early as September 2013, while visiting Kazakhstan, Xi proposed the Initiative of Silk Road Economic Belt. A month later, he announced the initiative of the Maritime Silk Road in his speech to the Indonesian parliament. Both initiatives are tied to China’s great power inspiration; the former replicates the memory of the ancient Silk Road that connected China to Eurasia; the latter captures the Maritime Silk Road, which was often associated with Admiral Zheng He’s voyage during the Ming dynasty (Yuan, 2019). On November 12, 2013, during the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CCP (2013), the BRI (the combination of both Silk Roads) was set as the foreign policy priority and included in the party’s document ‘Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform’.

At the 2014 APEC summit, Xi unveiled proposals for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a novel Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. These initiatives, in the spirit of the BRI, were designed to facilitate China’s ascent to a leadership position on the international stage—a feat that has been challenging within the confines of established Western-led financial institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Yuan, 2019). Additionally, the Northeast Asia-centric CJKFTA found its significance diluted by the proposition of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — a more expansive and ambitious free trade agreement poised to amalgamate China, Japan, Korea, and the Southeast Asian nations into a cohesive bloc. The project is particularly cogent given Southeast Asia’s vital role within the proposed framework of the six ‘economic corridors’ outlined by Beijing and the synergistic policy nexus between the RCEP and other initiatives, most notably BRI. Consequently, the RCEP has emerged as a more appealing and attainable target in the eyes of many stakeholders (Zhang, 2019).¹⁰

Second, Beijing’s institutional strategy is evolving into a sophisticated blend of economic and security frameworks, forming hybrid institutional complexes. While ostensibly this reflects China’s burgeoning economic clout, at its core, it signifies a far more calculated and profound change with long-term implications. This multifaceted approach is indicative of China’s strategic foresight, marrying immediate economic interests with broader security ambitions (Beeson & Li, 2014, p. 48; Feng & He, 2018). In March 2015, with the State Council’s authorisation, the PRC’s National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Commerce issued a white paper, ‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and twenty-first-Century Maritime Silk Road’ (Yuan, 2019). Wang Zhen (2015) elucidates that China’s current institutional strategy requires an interpretation that synthesises both geopolitical and geoeconomic perspectives, signalling a significant shift from its historical approach. As Yuan (2018) explains, Beijing previously supported its own security institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), yet it predominantly navigated within the parameters set by Western economic institutions. Amidst the ascendance of an uncompromised great power identity under Xi, China has moved beyond its historical binary approach, now seeking to integrate its formerly distinct institutional strategies into a unified geoeconomic paradigm. In harmony with its redefined identity, this strategy is designed to tackle a wide spectrum of objectives and initiatives, drawing in a myriad of stakeholders into a visionary and unified strategic framework.

Third, in alignment with its new identity, China’s institutional strategies are progressively more overt in serving Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions. A salient indicator of this is the exclusion of the US from nearly all of China’s new initiatives. Some analysts posit that Beijing is now positioning itself as a peer competitor to Washington, aiming for a leadership role or, at the very least, seeking parity with the US (Khong, 2019; Yu, 2017). This marks a departure from China’s previous more accommodating stance towards the US since the reform era, during which Beijing meticulously avoided any confrontation with Washington. Now, China exhibits a readiness to dissent on matters it perceives as vital to its national interests. Additionally, Beijing is becoming more explicit in its efforts to forge a cohesive regional bloc, transforming its neighbourhood into a collective entity with tightly interwoven destinies, with China as an irreplaceable leader in this ‘community of shared interests and common destiny’ (Zhang, 2016). This intent is evident as the BRI seeks to interlink South Asia, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean region—areas that are of significant national interest to China (Yuan, 2019). These changes in strategy may represent a move from Paul’s (2005) concept of ‘soft balancing’ towards a more forthright ‘hard balancing.’

Nevertheless, this third-order shift in regional policy by the PRC has escalated tensions with other nations, irrespective of the concerns being tangible or speculative. Various countries have expressed trepidation that such initiatives could cultivate an environment conducive to corruption. Additionally, there is apprehension about potential overreach by Beijing into domestic politics, as these projects are frequently spearheaded or financed by state-linked entities. Concerns also linger those frameworks, particularly the BRI, may lead to unsustainable debt burdens (Yuan, 2018). Key players such as Japan, India, and the ASEAN states are instrumental for the fruition of these expansive institutional endeavours. Yet, the PRC is still at a juncture where it needs to cultivate trust with these nations (Yu, 2017). For instance, the maritime component of the BRI has encountered India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, inaugurated by the Modi administration in 2014, prompting India to perceive this as a direct affront to its authority and regional influence, which has, in turn, soured Sino-Indian relations (Yuan, 2019). Furthermore, even nations geographically distant from China, such as those in Europe, have approached China’s new institutional strategy with caution, as highlighted by Beeson (2018), despite the lack of a unified response.

In the face of significant hurdles to realising the geopolitical and geoeconomic advantages of its regional initiatives, Beijing’s commitment remains unwavering. Under Xi's leadership, the promotion of an Uncompromised Great Power identity not only projects China’s stature as a dominant global force but also implies that decisive and potentially confrontational tactics may be integral to its preservation. Although past policies contributed to China’s peaceful rise, there is now a clear shift in Beijing's strategy, signalling a departure from its historical trajectory. This shift is a strategic response to the identity-policy discrepancy observed from past governance, positioning these assertive foreign policy approaches as natural progressions in the PRC’s ongoing efforts to bridge this divide.

Japan’s third-order change: from Northeast Asia to Indo-Pacific

Similar to China under Xi, Abe’s LDP has made significant efforts to reconcile discrepancies between Japan’s identity and policy. Abe’s cultivation of a Beautiful Nation identity at the Emergent-Discourse layer aims to rectify the contrast between the DPJ espousal of a Pacifist State identity at the Paradigm-Setting layer and their implementation of policies that resonated more with LDP principles. As previously analysed, during the DPJ era, the strategy of ‘reverting to Asia’ was heralded as a cornerstone of Japan’s regional policy (Pempel, 2019a, p. 195), which was further bolstered by domestic criticisms over Japan’s over-dependence on the US and Western alliances (Sneider, 2011). The CJKFTA was a testament to the DPJ’s articulation of its Pacifist State identity. PM Hatoyama displayed a significant inclination to advance the CJKFTA, with his DPJ successors like Katsuya Okada and Kan Naoto continuing the effort (Sneider, 2011). Nevertheless, with the ascendancy of the Beautiful Nation narrative, Japan’s policy has experienced a profound shift, undergoing a third-order change that has significantly recast its regional strategies.¹¹

First, with the embrace of the Beautiful Nation identity, the Abe-led government has resolutely pursued the strengthening of the US-Japan alliance, a strategy deeply rooted in the US-led institutional frameworks. This strategic realignment predated Abe’s administration and was initiated to establish a more US-aligned policy. Under DPJ leadership, PM Noda endeavoured to bring Japan’s policies into closer harmony with the US, notably with respect to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (Sneider, 2011). His government regarded the TPP as a key facilitator for America’s renewed strategic involvement in the region. This approach marked a significant departure from a narrow focus on Northeast Asian regionalism, instead signalling a broader, more inclusive geopolitical stance (Khong, 2019). This recalibration of Japan’s foreign policy, with a pronounced emphasis on the indispensable US-Japan security alliance, became increasingly marked against the backdrop of deteriorating Sino-Japanese relations around 2010 (Reuters, 2011).

Advancing Noda’s initiatives, Abe’s LDP has emphatically reinforced Japan’s alliance with US-led institutions, pursuing a comprehensive strategy that weaves together economic goals, shared values, policy synchronisation. Among other initiatives, the TPP, exceeding its economic function within ‘Abenomics’ and Japan’s structural economic reforms, emerged as a critical element for reinforcing the existing and future US-Japan alliance (Yoshimatsu, 2018). Ironically, a divergence effort was made by stressing the difference between the policies of the DPJ and LDP despite their similarities. According to Abe (2013b), ‘The significance of the TPP is not limited to the economic impact on our country. Japan is creating a new economic zone with our ally, the United States. Other countries who share the universal value of freedom, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law are joining. I believe that creating new rules in the Asia-Pacific region with these countries is not only in Japan’s national interests, but also certain to bring prosperity to the world’. In the context of the burgeoning Beautiful Nation ethos, the Abe administration has identified the revitalisation of the US’s role in the region as an essential instrument for affirming and preserving Japan’s identity and prestige.

Second, building upon the US-Japan alliance, Tokyo has adeptly interwoven its regional institutional strategies with the broader Indo-Pacific region. Tokyo’s commitment to the TPP is complemented by concerted efforts to forge stronger relations with key nations such as Australia, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines, thus reinforcing its strategic presence in the Indo-Pacific (Akaha & Hirata, 2021, p. 38). Economically, Japan has shifted its focus from the Northeast Asia-centric CJKFTA to actively promote the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which not only integrates ASEAN members but also aligns with other Indo-Pacific democracies like Australia and India (Zhang, 2019). In the security realm, Japan has strategically positioned Australia and India as pivotal members of significant regional initiatives, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, alongside the US. The FOIP, in particular, an Abe-led idea, represents Japan’s ambition to expand its institutional reach across the Indo-Pacific, advocating for a US-aligned regional order anchored on principles such as the rule of law, peaceful dispute resolution, and freedom of navigation (Akaha & Hirata, 2021, p. 40).

Thirdly, Japan has demonstrated an increasing eagerness to embrace a leadership position, moving away from its historically ‘reactive’ foreign policy stance. This proactive engagement in the TPP is viewed by some as a critical juncture, heralding Japan’s re-emergence as a formidable regional entity after its ‘lost decades’ marked by economic stagnation and political turbulence (Sohn, 2019, p. 6). A defining moment came in early 2017 when the TPP grappled with reduced economies of scale and dwindling support after the US, under the Trump administration, withdrew from the agreement. Confronting various uncertainties and obstacles, Japan took the lead in navigating the agreement to a successful resolution, culminating in the TPP11 (Akaha & Hirata, 2021, p. 24). In 2018, the TPP11 was enacted with 11 participating countries, notably without the US, the PRC, and the ROK. This milestone underscored the effectiveness of Japan’s burgeoning regional strategies in filling the leadership vacuum within the region (Terada, 2018). Additionally, Japan has emerged as the principal advocate of the consequential pact, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) (Sohn, 2019, p. 6). In the sphere of regional security institutions, Japan's commitment to rejuvenating the Quad reflects its growing influence in formulating Asia’s security order. This new-found assertiveness signifies Japan’s confidence in its role, actively promoting joint defence partnerships in response to the intricate geopolitical challenges of the region (He, 2018).

Nonetheless, Japan’s more assertive policy has increasingly estranged it from neighbouring countries. In a notable instance in 2014, shortly after South Korean President Park Geun-Hye proposed the idea, China and the ROK established a memorial hall and erected a statue at Harbin railway station to commemorate the Korean nationalist An Jung-Geun, where Ito Hirobumi was assassinated in 1909. This act of remembrance came at a time when diplomatic tensions were already sensitive. The situation was further compounded not long after the 2015 trilateral summit when China conducted a ‘Victory over Fascism’ military parade, which President Park attended (Pempel, 2019a, p. 195). Japan-ROK Relations deteriorated significantly with the election of the more progressive Moon Jae-in as South Korean President in 2017. Japan’s bolder foreign policy initiatives, alongside longstanding historical grievances, were significant contributors to this decline. In 2019, a stark manifestation of these tensions was President Moon’s threat to terminate the South Korea-Japan military intelligence-sharing agreement, a decision that was retracted only following the US intervention (Akaha & Hirata, 2021, pp. 35–36). Consequently, there is a perception that the CJKFTA and the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat in Seoul—once considered pivotal Northeast Asian institutions—have reduced their prominence, signalling a troubling pause in the only extant trilateral collaborative framework between Japan, South Korea, and China. (Zhang, 2018).¹²

Despite mounting tensions with its Northeast Asian neighbours, Tokyo has shown a resolute commitment to asserting its influence and bolstering its alliances. Observers note that, in contrast to their DPJ predecessors, Prime Minister Abe’s government appears less inclined to use regional institutions as a platform to showcase goodwill towards neighbouring nations. The emphasis once placed on the development of Northeast Asian regional institutions, previously seen as economically advantageous and politically favourable, seems to have waned under Abe’s leadership. Japanese officials now seldom reference these institutions in public discourse (Su, 2017, p. 353). It is thus reasonable to assert that Abe’s strategic pivot represents a departure from prior LDP policies, marking a transformative shift in Japan’s identity from a Pacifist State to one that embodies a Beautiful Nation.¹³

Conclusion

This article sought to elucidate the often-overlooked discrenpancy between state identity and foreign policy—a phenomenon of considerable theoretical significance and empirical consequence within international relations. Current identity constructivist scholarship often suggests a transient misalignment between a state’s professed identity and its policy. Contrary to this view, the article posits that such discrepancies could be impactful. Integrating perspectives from Historical and Constructivist Institutionalism, Norm Constructivism, and Poststructuralist theory, the article debunks the notion of an inevitable alignment between identity and policy. It posits that the impact of identity-policy discrepancies partly mirrors their centrality to the state’s foundational definitions. An identity-policy discrepancy-triggered crisis is not merely an endpoint; rather, the essence of the crisis is subject to negotiation among diverse domestic and international feedback groups. Furthermore, the anticipated resolutions are shaped accordingly once these discrepancies are broadly acknowledged as problematic. Although stakeholders may differ in their approaches, such recognition often precipitates profound, third-order changes. This is attributed to the improbability of attaining a new equilibrium between identity and policy without fundamentally addressing the prevailing discrepancies. Typically, the resolution involves redefining the country’s identity, thereby transforming the interpretation of the crisis at hand.

This article probes the dynamics of identity transformation and foreign policy realignment in China and Japan, particularly in the context of Northeast Asia’s ephemeral regional institution-building efforts. Through case studies of these nations—one an autocracy challenging the US-led global order and the other a democracy aligning with it; one with modest GDP per capita and the other boasting a high economic status—the study substantiates its theoretical premise. Despite their differing political systems and economic statuses, both countries have seen their current foreign policy directions significantly shaped by the legacy of identity-policy discrepancies left by their antecedent administrations. The policy approaches adopted by China under Xi and by Japan under the Abe-led LDP were both formulated in response to the discrepancy created by their forerunners. The discrepancy between Hu’s Peaceful Riser identity with assertive policies and the DPJ Pacifist State identity juxtaposed with their LDP-esque policies, exerted a profound influence on the policy pathways chosen by Xi and Abe respectively.

Acknowledgment

Earlier versions of this article were presented and refined thanks to insights from the 10th Oceanic Conference on International Studies 2023's Pre-Conference Workshop for ECR/Global South Publication. I sincerely appreciate the constructive feedback and comments received during this event. Special thanks are extended to Jingdong Yuan, Susan Park, Ye Xue, and Edward Sing Yue Chan for their invaluable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of the paper. Also, I'd like to express my gratitude towards the anonymous reviewers of Contemporary Politics, whose insights have greatly enhanced the article. I acknowledge that any remaining errors and shortcomings are my sole responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Minran Liu

Dr. Minran Liu is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is concurrently a lecturer in International Political Studies at UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney. He received his PhD at the University of Sydney. Dr Liu’s research interests span Chinese defence and foreign policy, Asia-Pacific security, the interplay between domestic and international spheres, Australia-China relations, and International Relations theory.

Notes

1 A state has various identities, and they are layered, and identities need to be treated in a more dynamic manner. It is analytically problematic and ontologically essentialist when we try to argue that there is only one identity.

2 The identity-policy discrepancy framework is supposed to be a way to advance our understanding of existing knowledge. I did not attempt to explain the issue or claim that there has been a causal relation between an identity-policy discrepancy and the overall evolvement of Sino-Japanese relations or Northeast Asia’s institution-building process. Instead, it broadens our understanding of the issue, an aim widely shared by non-positivist research in IR. Many have described the difference between explaining and understanding; Hollis and Smith’s seminal work, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (1990) discerns two primary approaches in creating IR scholarship: the ‘explaining approach’, often aligned with positivism and empiricism, and the ‘understanding approach’ often used by non-positivist scholars. The former emphasises the establishment of causal links, pattern identification, and formulating generalisable principles within IR. In contrast, the ‘understanding approach’ focuses on the salience of other elements that often escape the confines of empirical quantification and positivist causality, such as actors’ beliefs, intentions, and perceptions and strives to delve into the context and subjective experiences. These two approaches are different lenses that together offer a nuanced perspective on IR’s intricate nature.

3 This case selection follows a typical research design principle widely used in political science and IR. The case selection is based on the strategic selection of cases, which depends upon the theory the researcher is interested in testing or illustrating. Ideally, we should compare two cases that are either identical or completely different in every respect. However, it is almost impossible to find such cases. Therefore, I chose to compare cases that are similar in some respects and different in others. In this paper, one case is an autocracy, and the other is a democracy; one challenges the status quo, and the other accepts it; one has a relatively low GDP per capita, and the other has one of the highest. In both countries, however, the identity-policy discrepancies left by the previous administrations influenced the subsequent policy practice and identity development.

4 In this article, a country's psychological and physical boundaries refer to its physical and psychological definitions of its collective self. See Pye (2015).

5 'Strategic social construction’, according to Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) refers to a process in which actors strategise rationally to reconfigure preferences, identities, or social context.

6 The Peaceful Riser identity has facilitated China’s rise to great power status through non-confrontational means. This paradigm has been the bedrock of China’s foreign policy since Deng Xiaoping’s reform era. Conversely, Xi’s championing of an Unpromised Great Power narrative not only projects China’s current position on the global stage as an already-established great power but also intimates that confrontational measures may be an inherent aspect of sustaining this status. The newly emerged identity promoted by Xi is thus positioned in opposition to the previous paradigm.

7 It is essential to clarify that PM Hatoyama and the DPJ did not ‘create’ the Pacifist State identity, nor did they ‘create’ the discrepancy-triggered crisis. Given Hatoyama’s brief tenure as PM, it would be difficult for him to have single-handedly engendered such a crisis. In alignment with the theoretical framework delineated in the article and substantiated by the empirical evidence presented, I believe no individual political actor possesses the unilateral ‘power’ to ‘create’ a profound crisis. While identity entrepreneurs’ intentions and their social and political capital are certainly important, other facilitating conditions, such as the identity’s closeness to the country’s hegemonic narrative and the feedback outlined in the article’s theoretical framework, are crucial. In other words, the article posits that certain identities are inherently more likely to generate a crisis than others. Conversely, identity entrepreneurs, whether political strongmen or not, do not hold absolute authority to ‘create’ crises. Overall, the article suggests a multifaceted interaction of historical, cultural, and political forces that contribute to the construction of identity and, consequently, to the emergence of an identity-policy discrepancy-triggered crisis.

8 While the author maintains that the crisis ignited by this identity-policy discrepancy was significant and robust enough to be recognised as a contributing factor, it does not solely account for Abe’s policies. For instance, the interpretation of the Yoshida doctrine (in contrast to the LDP position) made by Hatoyama Yukio and his DPJ colleagues broadened the identity-policy discrepancy before the DPJ returned to power. Nevertheless, PM Abe’s leadership in advocating for a Beautiful Nation identity was only partially in response to the earlier discrepancy-triggered crisis. Yes, this response was influenced and amplified by the discrepancy between the DPJ’s endorsement of a Pacifist State identity and their adoption of policies reminiscent of the LDP’s stance. It is indeed important to recognise other factors. For instance, the idea of a Beautiful Japan has historical roots within the LDP, notably referenced in the title of Abe’s 2006 book. Kolmas (2020), for instance, has posited that since Abe’s re-election in 2012, there has been a deliberate push to return to such an identity. This aligns with the article’s main purpose to expand our understanding of the complexities involved rather than pinpointing a singular explanation or establishing causality.

9 Due to the article’s focus and limited length, it did not cover the interests and policy stances of the South Korean side. For discussion on the South Korean perspective, see Zhang (2016)’ article – Growing Activism as Cooperation Facilitator: China-Japan-Korea Trilateralism and Korea’s Middle Power Diplomacy.

10 There are different views on this issue. The relation between CJKFTA and RCEP is by no means always competitive and exclusive, and some would argue that RCEP has paved way for the future negotiations of CJKFTA. For instance, see Li (2022, p. 28 January)’s article – What’s Next for the Long-Awaited China-Japan-South Korea FTA? Will RCEP be able to accelerate the negotiation process for the China-Japan-South Korea free trade agreement?

11 It is crucial to clarify that the ‘third-order change’ was not ‘caused’ by the DPJ. The discrepancy between the DPJ’s advocated Pacifist State identity and its policies that echoed traditional LDP stances created a crisis that amplified the LDP policies (far from the only contributing factor to LDP’s policies). Under PM Abe, the LDP embarked on an extensive campaign to reposition Japan’s identity from a Pacifist State to a Beautiful Nation. These concerted efforts to recast Japan as a Beautiful Nation have been documented by Kolmas (2020), demonstrating this initiative’s widespread influence across virtually every sector of Japan. As delineated in the article’s theoretical section, resolving a crisis spawned by such discrepancies often precipitates a transformative shift in a nation’s identity, consequently influencing its policy framework as achieving a harmonious balance between identity and policy is difficult.

12 For the sharp policy transition from President Moon to current President Yoon in South Korea, see Jo (2023, p. 6 April)’s article Will Yoon’s risky wager on Japan pay off? However, I have to admit that due to the article’s focus and limited length, its discussion on the policy transition from President Moon to Yoon is limited.

13 In the waning period of his tenure, PM Abe has signalled an intent to mend Sino-Japanese relations, as evidenced by the China-Japan-Korea (CJK) summit in May 2018 and a subsequent state visit to Beijing later that year (MOFA, 2018). Some believe that the NEA-based regional institution-building has made certain achievements and breakthroughs in non-traditional security fields, such as environmental issues. Recent news has also shown a possibility of convening a new Trilateral Summit in the second half of 2023.