Inventing the Indo–Pacific Grand Strategy

Abstract The Indo–Pacific grand strategy emerged in the 2010s, when all the moving parts of Japan’s emerging grand strategy since the end of the Cold War converged. This chapter covers the tumultuous decade of the 1990s, as external events—ranging from the first Gulf War to the Asian financial crisis—and a changing security environment shook the core of the Yoshida Doctrine. The chapter examines the post-Cold War struggle that the Japanese government experienced in formulating a new grand strategy. Outlining the rise of Japan’s Indo-Pacific strategy in the 2010s, which crystalizes the country’s 21st-century grand strategy configuration, the chapter argues that the strategy utilizes Japan’s liminal power between the East and the West. In addition, the Japanese government uses economic and security foreign policy instruments interchangeably with the aim of maintaining rules and standards in regional and global governance. With the evident decline of the US presence in the Asia–Pacific and China’s rising dominance as a global power, Japan now sits in a critical position where it could engage China constructively. In such a context, Tokyo has been able to advance its rule-setting grand strategy. This chapter also discusses the reasons behind the choice of themes in the following three chapters.