Japan’s Kissinger? Yachi Shōtarō: The State Behind the Curtain

This article reassesses the 2006 and, tentatively, the 2014 reset in Sino-Japanese relations to argue in favour of an increasingly state-centric understanding of Japanese diplomacy. By making use of a narrative account and a variety of primary sources—including personal memoirs, elite interviews, participatory observation, and leaked State Department cables—this article finds that Abe Shinzō’s foreign policy confidante, Yachi Shōtarō, embodied the unmatched influence of government actors in Japan’s political landscape. The article provides a close-up portrait of Yachi, with an emphasis on his preference for geopolitics, strategy, and secret diplomacy. Yachi and the institutional apparatus he represented sought détente with Japan’s main strategic adversary, while pushing for geopolitical initiatives that targeted China. The article concludes by arguing that the Abe administration’s insistence on, and institutionalized practice of, conducting public affairs in secret will likely further strengthen the role of the nation-state and of government actors in Japan, also in light of growing geopolitical tensions in East Asia.

日本的基辛格—谷内正太郎： 幕后的国家

关键词：日中关系；谷内正太郎；日本外交政策的制定；秘密外交；战略。

本文对中日关系在2006年的重置、并尝试性地对2014年的关系重置进行了重新评估，提出对日本外交政策应该采取越来越国家中心化的理解。通过一个叙事性的解释，并利用一系列一手资料，包括个人的回忆录、精英访谈、参与性观察以及外泄的外交部电文等，本文发现安倍晋三外交政策上的知己密友——谷内正太郎身上体现出日本政坛中政府成员无与伦比的巨大影响。本文对谷内正太郎做了特写式的描述，突出了他对地缘政治、战略及秘密外交的偏好。谷内和他代表的制度性机构寻求缓解与日本的主要战略对手的紧张关系，并推动与中国的地缘政治关系的序曲。本文得出结论认为，安倍政府坚持用秘密的方式处理公共事务，并将这种做法进行制度化，尤其在日益加剧的东亚地缘政治紧张的情况下，很有可能会强化民族国家及政府成员在日本的作用。

Translated from English by Li Guo