Japan’s Central Asia Policy Revisited: National Identity, Interests, and Foreign Policy Discourses

Abstract

This article focuses on the nature of Japan’s foreign policy formulation and legitimization through a study of its interaction with Central Asian countries. The article examines foreign policy discourse that constructs Japan’s “self” vis-à-vis Central Asian “other.” It reveals the textual mechanism through which reality, objects, and subjects are constructed, and it interprets the official statements contained in several foreign policy initiatives, in particular, the “Eurasian (Silk Road) Diplomacy,” the “Central Asia plus Japan,” and the “Arc of Freedom and Prosperity,” as an attempt to understand the intersubjective knowledge and analytical lens through which Japanese foreign policy makers conceive and interpret the constructed “reality,” produce foreign policy choices, and choose among identified alternatives.

Japan’s Normative Power in Central Asia: Norms, Development Cooperation, and the Long-lasting Partnership

“…I argue, however, that the choice was guided partly by the vision of becoming “a bridge between East and West” in Eurasia. Japan, whose national identity is defined by its “in-betweenness” between the West and Asia, serves as a perfect role model in this sense (Insebayeva, 2019).…”

The role of development models in Japan’s and Korea’s relations with Central Asia: Discourses and practices

“…There has been a robust emerging body of scholarship examining Japan’s and Korea’s bilateral and multilateral relations with CA states per se (to name a few: Dadabaev, 2019a, 2019b; Fumagalli, 2016; Insebayeva, 2019; (Len et al, 2008); Murashkin, 2015; Rakhimov & Ki, 2016; Murashkin, 2020; Varpahovskis, 2020; Yoneda, 2012 and others). However, extant scholarship did not often cover the topic of development models and their roles in the relationship, and when it did, it was synthetically, tangentially, with some exceptions, often focussing rather on Japan and China, than Japan and Korea or not taking account of the latest regional developments in CA, such as the power transits, leadership changes and re-elections in 2019–2022.…”