The role of cultural factors in Japan’s foreign policy in Asia Pacific - case study of the Abe administration 2012-2020

In recent years, studies on Japan's foreign policy have been conducted mostly from a political, economic, and military perspective, however, the cultural factors tend to be overlooked. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of cultural factors in shaping Japan’s foreign policy in the Asia Pacific region. This study will provide a cultural perspective to understand the motives and objectives of the Abe administration’s foreign policy. This paper analyses the case of the Abe administration’s foreign policy from 2012 to 2020. The Abe administration proposed “value-oriented diplomacy” in 2006 and further promoted it when the Abe government was re-elected while expanding the objectives from countries such as India and Australia to more countries including the United States, South Korea, and ASEAN. However, in his second term, a notable shift occurred towards a pragmatic and inclusive diplomacy, primarily influenced by economic considerations. The motivation and purpose behind such a policy turn need to be further explored. It is likely to make coordination with the United States easier and allow Japan to focus its efforts to compete with China for influence in areas such as Southeast Asia. Main questions are why tradition and history are important in shaping Japan’s foreign policy and how Japanese cultural factors have influenced Abe’s foreign policy towards neighbour states and great powers. The answers to these questions are aimed to verify the hypothesis: No-material factors such as collectivism characterized by pursuing alliances with great powers in international relations, had impact in maintaining Japan’s strong relation with U.S., while influenced by the Shintoism and the sense of Shame and Honour in Japanese culture, different views on historical issues such as Yasukuni Shrine and historical textbooks strained the further development of Sino-Japanese political relations despite their strong relations in economic sphere. This study is approached from a constructivist point of view. Different from the realism and liberal theories, constructivism examines a country’s foreign policy from the perspective of non-material factors such as collective identity and cultural norms which is the most suitable to understand the role of cultural factors in Japan’s foreign policy. The qualitative research method and the discourse analysis method are mainly used in this paper. The relation between culture and IR and the cultural factors embodied in Japanese history and tradition, and post-war foreign policy are firstly clarified. Furthermore, this paper focuses on the analysis of cultural factors in the foreign policy of the Abe administration.