Japan’s role conception in multilateral initiatives: the evolution from Hatoyama to Abe

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines Japan’s role conception in its multilateral commitments to the Asia-Pacific after the global financial crisis in 2008. The Hatoyama government launched an East Asian Community initiative, which aimed to assume a kingmaker role in creating a new order in East Asia. However, the East Asian Community initiative did not develop due to stress on self-reliance and distance from partnership with the USA. The Abe government sought to play a dual role in its major multilateral commitments. On the one hand, the government sought to play a follower role in enhancing the position of the East Asia Summit with an eye to consolidating the US-based institutional framework. On the other, Abe’s new multilateral initiative of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific represented Japan’s kingmaker role in maintaining a free and open maritime regime, and to keep a liberal and open economic regime under the emergence of the Trump administration.