Japan's diplomatic difficulties deepen on all sides

Subject

Japanese foreign policy.

Significance

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s energetic effort to raise Japan’s global diplomatic profile and cultivate new foreign partners has little to show for it besides a limited improvement in relations with China.

Impacts

• China-Japan rapprochement may prove an axis of convenience that is short-lived; substantive cooperation will probably be minimal.
• No resolution is in sight for the worsening confrontation with South Korea in which both sides have imposed export controls.
• Declarations of any imminent breakthrough in Japan-Russia relations should be treated sceptically.