The concept of China’s ecosystem with a limited carrying capacity is relevant to understand
the China’s present governance structures. Disorganized activities in individual sectors based on
their imperatives produce unwanted repercussions to other sectors and create excessive labor,
energy demand, or food demand, which can result in global issues if they are not fitted in the
limited capacity of the Chinese ecosystem. China’s behaviors related to the Japanese-Chinese
relationship should be interpreted as efforts to fit these excessive demands from sectors into the
Chinese system.
The sectoral interlinkage in China shows the inadequacy of viewing China as either enemy or
friend, which is a common way of looking at China in Japan. The anti-China school tends to
think about the Japanese-Chinese relationship in terms of competition or struggle because of
China’s military buildup, possible financial control, Japanese-Chinese energy competition, and
trade disputes. However, Japan has been encouraging all of such developments for its own
benefits. The pro-China school wishes to gain from economic cooperation with China. Yet, the
negative effects of cooperation undermine the basis of such cooperation, and the pro-China
school does not pay much attention to these issues. The perspective of governance in China is
missing from both schools of thought. Energy, food, and environmental sectors are not directly
related to the concern of the pro- as anti-China schools and therefore their intersections with
military and economic sectors are not seriously considered. To avoid unnecessary confrontation
with China or to promote cooperation, Japan needs to manage the complex repercussions of its
involvement with China.
Convention