América Latina: ¿clase media de las naciones?

THE EMERGING ROLE OF JAPAN IN THE FRAMEWORK OF A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH LATIN AMERICA Chihiro Hosoya (1) EMERGING ROLE OF JAPAN IN ASIA Last August witnessed a most fateful choice Japan's diplomacy had made in the postwar period, name1y, the eondusion of the ]apan-Chine Peace and Friendship Treaty. It is most signifkant not on1y in terrns of its historiea! meaning foc having finally confirmed a normal neigh. borIy re1ationship between the two nations after a century of accu– mulated trials and vidssitude and for marking the new start of a re1ationship as equal partners, but also in terms of expressing the preparedness, howcver implicitly, on the part of Japan to participate .as a pIayer in the power game in East Asia which had been in large part played by three big powers, the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and China. In the past, during last 30 years after the war, Japan had cautiously es. chewed the course of getting involved in the power game in East Asia, giving the foremost priority to the attainment of economic goals, first economic recovery from the war devastation and then economk growth and e~pansion. Charaterized by its heavy emphasis upon the pursuit of economk valuc, Japanese postwar aiplomacy has been conductea depending on close collaboration and alliance with the United States, in both political ana mi.Jitary terroso It was the so-called "Nixon Shock" in 1971 that gave stimulus to Japan for taking the diplomatic stance somewhat aloof from the allian(;e system as i:llustrated in the .case oí recognizing Outer Mongolia and Bangladesh, and of establishillg fiúenaly relations with North Vietnam in 1972. The Japan.China Trea– ty signed this year can be assessed within the framework of Japan's further move towara establishing its self-assertive position in Asían poHtics. What 1S more important is that Japan ha~ chosen to give relations with China preceaence over those with the Soviet Union by signing a pact eontaining an antihegernony clause in a situation where two grcat poHtical powers, China and the Soviet Union, are in confrou– tatiou. In other words, Japan, which has long aaopted a stance of "cquidistant aiplomacy" via-á.vis China ana the Soviet Union, taking 56