The Foreign Policy Decision-Making of Japan and South Korea: Navigating the Rise of China (Rethinking Asia and International Relations)

This book examines why Japan and South Korea have responded so differently to China’s rise, analysing how international pressures and domestic politics together shaped their strategic choices. Drawing on secondary literature, government documents, and interviews in Japan and South Korea, the book combines qualitative comparative case studies with process tracing to uncover the determinants of each state’s China policy.It shows that geography, material capabilities, and different stakes in the Korean Conflict produced more tensions with Japan, while incentivising cooperation for South Korea.Domestic factors - including political polarisation over China policy and the distribution of power between the chief executive and the bureaucracy - explained why South Korea’s approach fluctuated more than Japan’s across administrations.By advancing a neoclassical realist explanation that integrates both international and domestic variables, the author challenges arguments that rely solely on struc