When US President Donald Trump visited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for a two-day summit in mid-May, perhaps no country followed more closely than Japan. Since at least the end of the Cold War, a fundamental principle of Tokyo’s geostrategic posture has been “double hedge,» the implicit strategy of anchoring security in the Japan-US alliance while simultaneously developing strong economic relations, and sometimes interdependence, with China.
Over the years, the two sides of the coverage have faced distinct competing pressures that Tokyo has had to continually balance. When it comes to the security alliance with the United States, Japan fears both abandonment, the idea that Washington would renege on its security commitments in East Asia, and a lock-in in which Japan would be pushed to join military action in U.S.-led operations around the world. On the other hand, Japan has had to protect the development of strong economic ties with China against the fallout of a politically tense relationship, punctuated by historical grievances, territorial conflict and the Taiwan question.
Recent events have shown all of these dynamics simultaneously. In March, the issue of entanglement resurfaced when Trump suggested that Japan should send naval assets to the Strait of Hormuz – a suggestion rejected by Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae, citing the pacifist constitution. At the Trump-Xi summit, concern then turned to abandonment. Trump’s glowing assessment of Xi is reminiscent of past China-dependent relations, and some of his comments underscore growing doubt about his commitment to maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. However, the summit did not result in a real agreement between the superpowers. Furthermore, Trump seems defended Takaichi during his conversations with Xi, allaying Tokyo’s fears – at least in the short term.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have been even more dramatic. In November 2025, Takaichi made his now (in)famous remarks in which she referred to a naval blockade of Taiwan as a “survival-threatening situation” that could require the mobilization of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. China, which treats Taiwan as an internal affair and rejects external interference, launched a furious response that evoked the height of its so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy” at the Chinese consul general in Osaka. advocate violence against Takaichi in a social media post. Since then, Beijing has also repeatedly warned of the threat of Japanese remilitarization, citing Japan’s imperialist past.
It should be noted that the recent political dispute in Sino-Japanese relations has had economic consequences. A call from Beijing to limit travel to Japan has led to a spectacular fall of Chinese tourism, with visits plunging 56.8 percent year-on-year in April, following similar declines in previous months. China also reimposed a import ban on Japanese seafood and limited rare earth exports in Japan. While previous diplomatic incidents between the two countries have sometimes been accompanied by widespread boycott movements driven by Chinese consumers, the current approach is more state-led and targeted. As a result, important sectors like high-tech manufacturing have been spared for now.
Takaichi, a renowned Chinese hawk, refused to back down. Interpreting China’s response as an overreaction, she turned what was initially seen as a political misstep into a show of force, a stance that contributed to her coalition’s landslide victory in February’s elections. More importantly, his posture resulted in a efficient decommissioning bilateral relations between the two countries as part of this year’s version of the country’s Diplomatic Blue Book.
However, these developments place Japan in a delicate position to maintain the stability of its dual coverage. The security alliance with the United States is increasingly dependent on Trump’s personal dispositions, while Washington’s “pivot to Asia” has been replaced by the rhetoric of “spheres of influence” and a new entanglement in the Middle East. At the same time, recent economic pressure from the Chinese state – downstream of its forceful political rhetoric – calls into question whether economic interests and diplomacy can be reliably disentangled in the future.
Of course, neither the Japan-US alliance nor Sino-Japanese economic relations will completely collapse overnight. However, global trends have led Tokyo to seek more coverage. On the security front, Washington’s old “hub and spoke” model, referring to a set of U.S. bilateral alliances that underpin security in East Asia, was already fading under the push for multilateralism of the former Biden administration. Biden improved the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and launched two new trilateral frameworks including Japan: one with the Philippines, the other with South Korea. However, Trump’s political instincts are not favorable to multilateralism, prompting Japan to embark on an unprecedented move toward bilateralism.
The clearest example of this is the most recent, with Takaichi and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. raising their country relations to a “Global Strategic Partnership” on May 28. They also agreed to move forward on a wide range of security initiatives, including intelligence sharing, defense transfers and global interoperability.
When Takaichi visited Australia earlier in May, Japan and Australia – which had already signed a defense pact in 2022 – also committed to further cooperation on security, in particular by signing a new pact on cybersecurity. Although Takaichi maintained Japan’s commitment to already established multilateral frameworks, these bilateral efforts, which also include official security assistance (OSA) to South and Southeast Asian countries, underscore Tokyo’s growing proactivity in maintaining its security.
This also happened against the backdrop of strengthening national defense. Takaichi pledged to accelerate Japan’s goal of increasing defense spending to 2 percent of GDP. Amidst the concerns of slowdown in delivery times On the American side, Japan is also moving towards diversifying its purchases, in particular by strengthening its long-neglected national arms industry. Tokyo is becoming a major exporter in its own right, recently easing rules on arms exports and signing its deal the biggest ever seen defense export deal, including 11 stealth frigates, with Australia in April. He is also co-developing a new generation fighter jet with the United Kingdom and Italy.
On the economic side, the situation is similar. All bilateral summits mentioned so far also included an economic component. Takaichi has also increasingly linked the economic and security domains, against the backdrop of not only China’s apparent desire to militarize economic measures but also supply chain disruptions resulting from the conflict in Iran. She has thus begun to explicitly put economic security at the forefront during her recent summits.
One bilateral relationship where this is increasingly evident is with South Korea. Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung are unlikely partnersboth being seen as ideologues and Japan-South Korea relations generally suffer under administrations led by the Democratic Party of Korea. However, the current geopolitical environment has led to pragmatism and warm relations. At their May meeting, the fourth since Takaichi came to power, the countries announced an exchange line for crucial energy assets with the aim of strengthening economic security.
Japan has also taken the lead in new forms of multilateral engagement, while notably excluding the United States and China. For example, Tokyo launched the POWERR Asia initiative in April, seeking to strengthen energy resilience at the regional level, undoubtedly with a view to diluting Beijing’s dominance in Asian energy infrastructure. Takaichi has also sought to further diversify his trade and is close to doing so. start negotiations on a trade agreement with the South American bloc MERCOSUR.
Taken together, all these measures suggest a broader rebalancing of Japan’s foreign policy, away from dual hedging. Although this has happened gradually and has often only accelerated engagements already underway, Tokyo clearly aims to diversify its security and economic relations while securing its place in the world between two great powers. The most profound change may be a question of role rather than alignment: particularly in security matters, Japan is moving from being a beneficiary of US-organized security to being an organizer of its own regional networks. This could result in a mini star frame with Tokyo at its center. Economically, Japan’s renewed focus on resilience and security aims to further protect it from geopolitical shocks, with global diversification through trade deals with new partners also underway.
Japan cannot – and will not – completely abandon its security partnership with the United States and its economic ties with China. Rather, Tokyo is acting – proactively and on its own terms – to mitigate possible negative aspects arising from the growing instability of the two relations.