Talk:Foreign policy of Japan

Article needs some help

I created this article as part of the Library of Congress Country Studies Japan Integration Project (LOCCSJIP). But I am unhappy with it. Two problems:

1. US centrism: there is some 170 independent states and nations in the world, but this text is 50% about Japan-United States relations. While the US is of course the most important ally and trade partner / competitor, there should be much more to be said.
2. The text ends in 1993, the last 10 years of foreign policy have to be added.

So, what has to be added is:

• Policy on the European union
• Policy on Australia / New Zealand
• Policy on the emergence of the PRC as an economic power and its alliance (?) with Russia
• Policy on the People's Republic of China / Taiwan issue
• Discussion that led to the deployment of troops to Iraq
• Current policy on Russia
• Position in the Six party talks
• The Campaign for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council
• participation in the ASEAN plus Three
• Policy on Immigration issues

... -- Mkill 01:46, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggested merge

The difference between these two topics is very ambiguous. Even the lead sentence of the "Relations" article has the word "policy" in bold. Does anyone have any other thoughts? johnpseudo 20:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Both articles are fairly long, so a merge should IMO not be carried out. Both articles should provide a summary of the other though. Taemyr (talk) 00:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• I see the topics as different, although the content in both articles may need clean-up to reflect the topics. "Relations" should describe the past and present reality of recognition, treaties, missions, economic links and so on - what was and is. "Policy" should describe goals and objectives, tactics and strategy - what is wanted and what steps are being taken. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

These are two different subjects, oppose. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 20:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I get the impression that the "Foreign relations" series of articles focuses on listing bilateral situations with other individual countries, whereas the "Foreign policy" series focuses on overall decisionmaking and objectives. This distinction is already made, for example, between Foreign relations of the United States and Foreign policy of the United States, so I oppose the merge.

Being that this discussion has been open for over two and a half years with a consensus opposing the merge, I will remove the tags. Antony–22 (^talk/_contribs) 04:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)