Japan’s “Pragmatic” Diplomacy Towards the PRC: Lessons from the Cold-War?

The chapter analyzes Japan's historical posture toward the People's Republic of China, focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, during Japanese Prime Minister Satō's tenure. The chapter discusses the sustainability of the long-standing principle of separating politics and economics (seikei bunri) while dealing with Beijing. The case presented in it focuses on one of the earliest emergences of Japan’s ontological insecurity vis-à-vis the US and the PRC at a critical time characterised by bilateral efforts to normalise ties, and, concomitantly, by the beginning of Beijing’s rise as a nuclear power. This chapter will show that seikei bunri was hardly sustainable already in the 1960s due to factors such as the internal workings of foreign policy making in Japan since the early postwar period, (e.g. the influence of non-government actors, such as opposition parties, or factions within the majority on the government’s decisions), the agency of individual leaders on the narratives and implementation of foreign policy, US diplomatic pressures and processes of legitimation within the international order based on adherence to a certain set of shared rules and institutions.