A Realist Approach to Japan's Free and Open Indo- Pacific Strategy vs. China's Belt and Road Initiative: A Propaganda Rivalry

In the shadow of China's rise involving relative US hegemonic decline, Japan is considered to have played supplementary and complementary roles to buttress the international status quo and to have been engaged in a geoeconomic competition with China. Yet, in October 2018, Japan and China announced an about-face on their respective bilateral policy lines from competition to cooperation. This change begs the question of if the two in fact followed a competitive game at the grand-strategic levels. The study will cast a doubt about the assumed link of the two countries' declared policy lines and actual policy actions and argue for the case of a propaganda rivalry. This study will examine Japan's "Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy" against China's "Belt and Road Initiative" Strategy, with focus on their status within the respective national strategy systems, financial resources and funds, and project feasibility/viability. Then the study will identify some crucial factors of the two countries' setbacks and analyze their transitory reconciliation. This paper is intended to exemplify a realist approach to systematic and critical examination of "strategy", a most abused term, that often misguides foreign and security policy analysis.