ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines the domestic credibility of Japan’s national security in relation to a rising China from the 1990s to the 2010s. It shows that the policy of domestic credibility was a confrontational type in the sense that the Japanese government attempted to justify an enhanced capability by identifying China as a targeted state and using nationalistic postures to persuade the public to support the policy. The polarization of public opinion over Japan’s new capability became salient over 2010–2016 when a hard-line posture was adopted and in the 2015 security-related legislation in which China was explicitly and implicitly defined as a security object. Diplomatic moderation was realized in the form of mutual visits by political elites and the declaration of new statements, but it is difficult to call this a new period of amelioration of security tensions.
