Both have fundamentally constrained Japan’s freedom of action in international security and limited Japan’s foreign policy options to those of a middle power. This diplomatic style allowed Japan to focus on post-war economic recovery, which eventually proved to be the key to the nation’s rise as an economic power. But even as Japan achieved economic strength it maintained a restrained posture in dealing with political and security issues, and concentrated instead on cultivating economic and cultural relations with Asia and the world.

Japan’s economic input to the modernisation programs of the Park Chung-hee regime from the mid-1960s was significant in South Korea’s eventual economic success. Japan’s official development assistance and foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia helped to accelerate the economic integration of the region. And Japan’s full-scale support for the ambitious open-door and reform policies of Deng Xiaoping from the end of the 1970s was not insignificant in the eventual rise of China. In short, Japan played a critical role in constructing the foundations of the Asian century.

But these good old days for Japan are now clearly over. South Korea has caught up with or even passed Japan in some economic and cultural dimensions, and Southeast Asia is forming its own political, economic and cultural communities. The impact of the rise of China now goes beyond the region and extends into various corners of the globe. As a result, Japan is searching for a new mission and a new role in Asian diplomacy.

Some say that value-oriented diplomacy is the answer. In recent years, however, this has lacked a coherent theme that resonates across Asia. This was the product of a unique combination of two different considerations.

The first aspect dates back to the end of the Cold War, when the Japanese government started searching for a new rationale for the US-Japan alliance in the absence of the Soviet Union as a major threat. Protecting and promoting universal values was the answer. The main focus of this new foreign-policy orientation was global rather than regional. This has been sustained by central policymakers and bureaucrats who believe that Japan is or should be a global actor.

The second thread of value diplomacy originates from the mid-1990s when Taiwan embarked upon democratisation under the strong leadership of Lee Deng-hui, whom China attempted to intimidate with a series of military exercises. From this time on, anti-China conservative politicians and opinion-makers in Japan began emphasising democracy in their foreign policies. Their perspective is informed by somewhat naïve pro-Taipei and anti-Beijing sentiments.

Universal values like democracy and respect for human rights are, of course, very important in and perhaps even central to promoting peace and stability in the Asian century. But, while Japan might have been right during the Cold War to assert that economic development should precede political democratisation in Asia, the critical question in the Asian century is how universal values will fit into the new Asian context.

The concept of middle-power cooperation might provide a clue. Japan must recognise that it will be a truly equal partner with other Asian countries in the Asian century. Equality in its partnership with ASEAN, for instance, was a key component of Japanese–Southeast Asian diplomacy even in the 1970s. Today, it should be even more obvious that Japan is on an equal footing with many of its Asian neighbours.

More importantly for Japan’s middle-power, value-oriented diplomacy, it must maintain and cultivate various channels of communication with Chinese civil society. But the current administration of Japan, led by Shinzō Abe, inclines toward containing China by means of ‘alliances of democracies’, which in essence could be called the ‘geopolitical use of values’. This encourages an unhealthy preoccupation with China and breeds regressive attitudes towards the history problem among some important members of the government, while anti-Japan sentiments in China run deep. Thus, China and Japan seem trapped in an emotionally charged vicious cycle.

Asia and Japan will continue to need the United States as the ultimate guarantor of security in the region. But middle-power cooperation has other advantages. If Japan adopts a middle-power attitude one of its main objectives will be to co-exist with China. The key to this middle-power approach is, therefore, to balance and integrate the hedging and engaging policies toward China as a coherent and shared strategy among middle powers in the region. The first step towards this goal is forming an epistemic community among Asian civil societies. To open up this new dimension of middle-power cooperation, there is no more natural partner than Japan and Australia.

Yoshihide Soeya is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Law, and Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, Keio University.

This article appeared in the most recent edition of the East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Coming to terms with Asia’.