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China’s Friendly Offensive Toward Japan in the 1950s: The Theory of Wedge Strategies and International Relations
- Asian Perspective
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 39, Number 1, January-March 2015
- pp. 1-26
- 10.1353/apr.2015.0007
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This article explores why the People’s Republic of China employed a surprisingly soft and lenient policy toward Japan in the 1950s despite their historical and political animosities. Relying on a relatively new concept in the study of international relations, I argue that China’s conciliatory policy toward Japan represented a wedge strategy that was designed to detach Japan from the United States and weaken the US-Japan alliance. The logic of the theory also reveals that China’s policy was in line with its “united front” against the United States during the Cold War.