ABSTRACT
Japan's foreign policy in recent years, cautious lest a rising China should close in on Japan's strategic space, has sought to take safeguards against this by uniting with maritime democratic powers. By tracing historically the Japanese people's view of China, this chapter explains the attributes of the incentives that ultimately necessitated relationships of strategic alliances with democratic countries. The chapter explains how China as seen by Japan could become a coercive power and likened Japan's attempts to emerge from this situation to building alternate exits to a cul-de-sac. It also traces the circumstances under which Japan made efforts to create an Arc of Freedom and Prosperity, attempted over several years from roughly 2005, and to establish quasi-alliances with India and Australia, and reviews the series of developments that took place towards those ends. The strategic space surrounding Japan is becoming increasingly narrow in relative terms along with the rise of China.
