What Trump’s reelection means for relations between regional rivals China and Japan

Donald Trump was declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election on November 6, sealing a historic and improbable return to the White House. His reelection has triggered speculation as to the state of world affairs once he assumes office in January.

One of the relationships most speculated on is between the U.S. and China. Trump waged a trade war against China during his first term as president and has now promised higher tariffs on Chinese goods – of 60% or more – at a time when China’s economy is struggling.

But much less discussed is the potential effect of Trump’s policies on relationships between other countries. In the absence of U.S. trade and security guarantees during Trump’s first term, regional rivals China and Japan entered a detente, a period of thawing relations. With Trump’s second term on the horizon, will relations between China and Japan thaw once again?

The Chinese-Japanese relationship is an example of “hot economics, cold politics.” This term, which originated in the early 2000s to describe the distinctive relationship between these two countries, still holds true to today.

Over the next decade, China and Japan have agreed to cooperate on an estimated $26 trillion worth of regional infrastructure projects. And, in 2021, trade between China and Japan edged above $372 billion. Japan now serves as China’s second-largest trade partner, behind only the U.S., with China serving as the largest trading partner of Japan.

Yet political animosity is a source of continuing tension. Japan’s invasion of China during the second world war, in which over 20 million Chinese people died, has left an enduring legacy. Anti-Japanese sentiment is a core characteristic of contemporary Chinese nationalism, which routinely calls for vigilance against what it considers to be an inherently militaristic Japanese culture.

Meanwhile, Japan is anxious about a rising China. Japan has been a pacifist nation since the second world war, with Article 9 of its post-war constitution outlawing war as a means to settle international disputes. But the right wing of Japanese politics has long called for constitutional reforms that would allow for Japan’s rearmament to counter China’s rise.

The Article 9 debate is a concern for China, which considers the calls for reform a potential indication of a newly militaristic Japan and, thus, a renewed threat. So, although China and Japan are willing to cooperate extensively on economic matters, unsettled historical issues make political cooperation difficult for the two nations to achieve.

Thawing relations

Revenue from China’s exports to the U.S. fell by $53 billion in the first nine months of 2019, after the start of Trump’s trade war. Anticipating further reductions in trade with the U.S., China turned to Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and an established economic partner of China. This led to a 7.3% increase in trade between the two countries.

Japan, on the other hand, relies on the U.S. to guarantee its security through a defense pact signed after the second world war. During Trump’s first term, he questioned the fairness of the agreement. So, with Article 9 reform unlikely due to domestic political opposition and with the U.S. appearing unreliable, the Japanese government sought to secure itself through further economic engagement with China.

This included the reestablishment of high-level economic forums between the two countries, which had been suspended in the early 2010s following anti-Japanese protests in China and a surge of anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan. Japan’s government also consented to Japanese businesses engaging with the belt and road initiative, China’s flagship economic infrastructure and development programme.

The economic relationship between China and Japan became so fundamental to the core interests of both countries that they were willing to temporarily overlook their political animosity. Japan’s prime minister at the time, Shinzo Abe, even visited China in 2018 in what was the first such visit in years.

The detente ended in 2020, when the US and China signed a preliminary trade deal that lessened China’s economic reliance on Japan. And less than a year later, tensions between China and Japan renewed over the Senkaku Islands, an island chain in the East China Sea that is administered by Japan and claimed by China (where they are known as the Diaoyu Islands).

Will we see another detente?

We can expect China and Japan to again look for alternatives to the U.S. for economic stability and security following Trump’s reelection. Trump has already promised to impose high tariffs on goods from China, and has named China hawks such as Michael Waltz and Marco Rubio for key security and foreign policy roles in his cabinet.

He has been less vocal about his plans for the alliance with Japan, but Trump has been critical of Nato countries for falling short of his expectations. It therefore seems likely that he will again take a poor view of Japan’s constitutional pacifism. However, while Trump’s presidency might again push China and Japan closer together, there has been a key change in Japan’s political leadership.

China and Japan were led by Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe respectively during Trump’s first term. Both were long-term leaders of their country and, despite their mutual dislike, there was by the late 2010s a degree of familiarity between Xi, Abe, and their administrations. This familiarity served as a foundation to build the heightened economic cooperation that temporarily overcame political concerns during the first detente.

While Xi remains the president of China, Abe resigned from his post in 2020 and was assassinated in 2022. Japan has had three prime ministers since Abe’s resignation, each with their own cabinet, advisers and opinions of China. This has lessened the familiarity between the Chinese and Japanese governments.

Trump’s foreign policies will probably recreate the conditions that caused China’s relations with Japan to thaw during his first term. So, a second detente is by all means possible. But the lack of familiarity between China and Japan’s political leadership could certainly prove a stumbling block.

Lewis Eves is a lecturer in Government and International Relations, University of Essex.

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