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Japan has long been regarded by mainstream International Relations theories as a status quo power intent on pursuing an immobilist international strategy towards China characterized by hedging rather than any move to active balancing. The article argues that the conditions that are thought to encourage hedging behaviour-the predictability of other states' intentions, the malleability of intentions through engagement, domestic preferences that obviate balancing, and a favourable offence-defence balance-are now deteriorating in the case of Japan's strategy towards China. The consequence is that evidence is mounting of Japan's shift towards active 'soft' and incipient 'hard' balancing of China through a policy of active 'encirclement' of China diplomatically, the build-up of Japanese national military capabilities aimed to counter China's access denial and power projection, and the strengthening of the US-Japan alliance. This shift has become particularly evident since the 2010 trawler incident, and the return to power in 2012 of Prime Minister Abe Shinz o. The consequences of Japan's shifting strategy are not yet clear. Japan may be moving towards a form of 'Resentful Realism' that does not add new equilibrium to regional security but is actually more destabilizing and poses risks for China and the USA, especially as Japan's own security intentions become more opaque. These conclusions, in turn, invite a reconsideration of the comfortable theoretical consensus on Japan as an eternal status quo power. Japan an Incipient Balancer vis-a-vis China's Rise?Might Japan's international strategy shift radically, or indeed is it already beginning a radical shift in response to China's rise? How might such a shift exert impact, long-term, on Sino-Japanese security relations, and US-led attempts to 'rebalance' the regional security order? Might Japanese 'Revisionist' governments even actively and overtly balance against China? Japan clearly maintains a fundamental interest in the rise of China, possible associated disturbances in the overall international system and East Asian regional order and,

Introduction: Japan struggles to maintain engagement options Japan is presented with multidimensional challenges-political, economic, security and environmental-by China's rise. Japan's ability as an individual state actor or in cooperation with other collective state actors to respond to these challenges, or as some Japanese policy-makers might daresay 'threats', and to influence the course of China's rise in East Asia is perhaps second only to that of the US. Japanese engagement with China in the past, at the government and private business levels, has been crucial in assisting the latter's reinsertion into the East Asian regional political economy. Similarly, Japan's future choices about pursuing cooperation and competition with China will continue to impact on the latter's regional rise. Indeed, Japan and China's ability to manage their relations is often seen as a crucial test of China's future position in the region, with scenarios for Sino-Japanese relations ranging from peaceful coexistence to downward spirals of confrontation and even military conflict. 1 Finally, Japan's response to the rise of China is set to impact not 1 Bill Emmott, Rivals: how the power struggle between China, India and Japan will shape our next decade (London: Allen Lane, 2008); Denny Roy, 'The sources and limits of Sino-Japanese tensions',

Abstract, keyword, and affiliation count: 83 AbstractJapan's reemergence as a "normal" military power has been accelerated by the "super-sizing" of North Korea: a product of the North's military threat multiplied exponentially by its threat to US-Japan alliance solidarity; views of the North as a domestic "peril"; and the North's utilization as a catch-all proxy for remilitarization.