Marking the Boat to Find the Sword — The Path Dependence of Japan's Diplomacy and the "1941 View of History"

Dispelling a Misunderstanding: Japan Is Not Going Mad

Since 2026, Sanae Takaichi has kept an extraordinarily high diplomatic profile. She has visited ASEAN, attended the APEC summit in Korea, met Trump, gone to the G7 in Europe, traveled to Australia and India. At every stop she pushes the same pitch: "Let's build supply chains without China." It looks like casting nets everywhere, running into walls everywhere, and cheering herself on everywhere.

Many people blurt out the obvious verdict: Japan has gone mad again.

In a livestream on July 5, 2026, the commentator Pan Nini offered a different judgment: Japan is not mad — it is ke zhou qiu jian (刻舟求剑), "marking the boat to find the sword." Meaning: Japan's foreign-policy decision-makers are not deranged; they are sincerely operating on a logic they consider entirely correct. All the seemingly manic behavior is, behind the scenes, internally coherent.

That logic has three locks.

Lock One: "Not Even Thinkable" — Datsu-A Nyū-Ō and the Exclusion of the China-Centered Order

From the Meiji Restoration onward, as Japan built its modern national identity, it made one foundational choice: to ground its national self-respect in separating itself from China.

Datsu-A Nyū-Ō (脱亜入欧) — "leaving Asia, joining Europe" — was more than a declaration of diplomatic direction. Its substance was this: Japan would be a country different from the Asian mainland, and the "Asian mainland" of the time operated within a China-centered order. So the Meiji project carried a premise from the very start: we do not accept a Sinocentric East Asian order.

More than a century later, that premise has been written into the DNA of Japan's foreign-policy establishment — it is no longer the conclusion of reasoned deliberation but a visceral aversion. The Japanese Sinologist Yūzō Mizoguchi (溝口雄三) pointed out long ago in China's Impact (《中国的冲击》): Japan must confront the possibility of a China-led Asia-Pacific system, and unless it overcomes the "leave Asia" obsession, it will never read the shifts in the international system correctly.

It made no difference.

The consequence is straightforward: Japan has voluntarily eliminated the single most viable option in its diplomacy. The menu of choices was never large to begin with; strike one more item from it, and the room for maneuver shrinks further still.

Lock Two: "Security Only Comes from a Distant Great Power" — The Shadow of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance

Since the Meiji era, the same pattern has recurred in Japanese diplomacy: find a distant maritime great power to serve as a patron.

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902–1923) is the perfect template for this pattern, because it served a double function for Japan:

Externally: by helping Britain contain Russia, Japan won the tacit acquiescence of the Western powers for its expansion in Asia.

Domestically: civilian politicians could use "the relationship with Britain" as a shield against the extremists at home. "Our ties with the West are good and useful to us, so we cannot afford a rupture — which means aggression must not be pushed too far."

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance did two things at once: it helped Japan expand its interests abroad while holding the extremists in check at home.

But after the First World War, Britain faded and withdrew. The moment the alliance snapped, domestic Japan came unmoored. Without the external constraint of "we cannot afford a rupture," the right wing declared at once: "See? We told you the Europeans could not be trusted. Now they even want to control our armaments — bullying us Asians." The result was Japan's road to total aggression.

Today's Japanese elite carry a deep-rooted fear: the loss of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance sent Japan down the wrong road, so the US-Japan alliance must never be shaken. Whether that fear is healthy is a separate question — but it is certainly at work. Japanese diplomacy is locked tight by it, convinced that losing the US-Japan alliance would mean reliving the old disaster.

Lock Three: "They Did This to Us Back Then" — The 1941 View of History and the Encirclement Playbook

This is the most dangerous of the three locks.

A narrative known as the "1941 view of history" circulates widely in Japan: the Second World War did not begin in 1931 (with the invasion of China) but in 1941 (with the war against the United States). On this reading, the question Japan should reflect on is "why did we go to war with America?" — and the answer is that America relentlessly compressed Japan's room to survive: trade blockade, resource embargo, diplomatic isolation. Without firing a shot, America pushed Japan to the point where it "had no choice but to fight."

Hawkish Japanese elites then flipped that reflection on its head: if America could use this playbook against us back then, why can't we use it against China now?

This is the underlying script of the encirclement network Japan is assembling today:

1. Build the TPP: exclude China from the trade system. It nearly succeeded — twelve countries signed on, and only the US Congress failed to ratify.
2. After the TPP failed, take up the Indo-Pacific Strategy: with a matching conceptual retrofit. "Asia-Pacific" still has to revolve around China; "Indo-Pacific" does not — everyone in it is a maritime state, and Japan is among the most consequential of them.
3. Probe everywhere for a breakthrough: push arbitration in the South China Sea, court energy cooperation with Russia, compete with India on high-speed rail, sign agreements with Mongolia — beat every tree three times, whether or not it bears fruit.
4. Now fixate on Taiwan: trip the Anti-Secession Law and force China into a war. This camp believes that once the Taiwan fuse is lit, China will walk straight into the trap Japan has carefully laid.

Every step is internally coherent in the eyes of Japanese decision-makers. There is historical warrant — America did exactly this to Japan. There is a precedent of success — the TPP nearly passed. Put the two together, and the conclusion follows: "This strategy is right."

Why This Is "Marking the Boat to Find the Sword"

The diagnosis fits because all three premises are wrong:

• China is not the Japan of 1941. Japan collapsed under encirclement back then because it was a resource-poor island nation, overwhelmingly dependent on overseas imports. China is a country with a complete industrial system — it cannot be locked in.
• Japan is not the America of 1941. America could pressure Japan back then because it was the world's largest industrial power and its paramount naval power. Today, Japan proposes to encircle China on China's own doorstep? The balance of national power is no longer what it was.
• The world of 2026 is not the world of 1941. Europe does enormous business with China and will not confront China on Japan's behalf. India, likewise, will not pull Japan's chestnuts out of the fire. Takaichi made the rounds at the G7 — and Europe barely bothered to look up.

None of this registers with Japan's elites. What they see is a perfect closed loop of reasoning: historical warrant plus a precedent of success equals strategic correctness. The boat keeps moving forward; they stare at the mark carved on the gunwale and say: "Here we are — this is where we jump."

"Turning Funerals into Celebrations" — Why Nobody Calls a Halt Despite Zero Results

One more cultural factor keeps this logic running: Japanese diplomacy excels at sang shi xi ban (丧事喜办) — "holding a funeral as a celebration" — converting unfavorable conditions into a narrative of "look, we can manage perfectly well on our own."

Takaichi's substantive diplomatic harvest has been zero. In India, it was not Modi who spontaneously "claimed a little sister" (Pan Nini specifically set this record straight: it was Takaichi who first said Abe had been like a brother to her, and Modi merely went along with the flow). At the G7, of two guest commentators, one scored her 90 (a triumphalist strategist), the other 75 — and the 75, coming from the old professor, is the polite translation of "nothing was achieved." Yet domestic Japan still treats the tour as a triumphant homecoming.

The reason lies in the state of Japanese politics: those who firmly believe in this logic are few; those who firmly oppose it are fewer; the overwhelming majority are fence-sitters — "let's see how it goes first." Takaichi survives not because she is popular but because no one can put forward a convincing alternative. Shigeru Ishiba tried the steady line — and fell from office.

And so Japan remains stuck inside its three logic-locks, its course growing ever more rigid.