ABSTRACT
Japanese administrations maintain that they pursue a policy line in the South China Sea in strong contradistinction to China and marked above all by the rejection of power politics. For Prime Minister Abe Shinzo this is manifested in essentially liberal policies of respect for the rule of international law, promotion of universal liberal values, and support for multilateralism. This chapter analyzes Japan’s policy relating to the SCS and systematically demonstrates that it has been predicated on typically realist interests, often flouted the rule of international law, ignored liberal values, used multilateralism as an extension of power politics, and practiced classic balance of power “soft” and “hard balancing”. Hence, the paper concludes that Japan’s approach toward the SCS is typically realist in nature and represents “fake liberalism”.
