"Tokyo-Cambridge Gazette: Politico-Economic Commentaries" No.9 (December 15, 2011)

　A sea change in relative power between the United States and China has bewildered policy makers and strategists on the globe. While heavily dependent on China as an unparalleled and irreplaceable engine of economic growth, Japan has become more vigilant against China's power projection capability. In the meantime, the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are now perturbed by an agonizing question of how to court Washington without offending Beijing. Therefore there have emerged not a small number of policy makers and strategists who are inclined to cogitate over a Sinocentric system in the Asia-Pacific region by breaking decades-long ties with a doddering America and adopting bandwagon policies toward a rising China. Thus the combination of America's waning influence and China's assertive posture has made a prominent scholar to suggest an Asiatic "Quadruple Alliance" comprising the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, to better balance against China. Based upon the above observations, this material tries to capture the gist of the argument developed in a newly published book titled A Contest for Supremacy, and argue its implications for Japan's global strategies....