Japan’s Identity Crisis and Sino-Japanese Relations

Shibata, Ria

doi:10.1057/9781137521323_5

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This presents an obstacle to resolving disputes over collective memory (e.g. Rose 2005;Zarakol 2010;Gustafsson 2014;Shibata 2016;Saito 2016). This article is sympathetic to and overlaps in part with this approach, but seeks to contribute to it by highlighting the key role played by forgetting in constructing and maintaining a coherent sense of self.…”

Section: Collective Memory In International Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the persistence of history-related issues in Sino–Japanese relations: from memory to forgetting

Gustafsson

2020

Int Polit

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Disputes over collective memory are a common source of bilateral friction in international politics. For example, differences over war memory have negatively impacted Sino-Japanese relations for many decades, despite apologies and other attempts to deal with the problems. Why are history-related issues so persistent? Existing explanations suggest, for example, that efforts to improve relations have been insufficient, or that collective memory is used instrumentally for political expediency. This article contributes to this discussion by shifting the conceptual focus from memory to forgetting. It argues that dominant notions of forgetting as fading away and denial often facilitate an understanding of collective memory in terms of security. It suggests that a conceptualization of forgetting that sees it as inherent to all remembering could ameliorate tension over collective memory by making those involved in international memory politics recognize that not only others forget, but that they themselves also do so as they remember.

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Section: Collective Memory In International Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the persistence of history-related issues in Sino–Japanese relations: from memory to forgetting

Gustafsson

2020

Int Polit

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“…In this way, both perpetrator and victim groups can construct and perpetuate competing narratives of their own victimisation. The wounds of past trauma are thus maintained and transmitted through the way in which victim narratives are commemorated, the way history is taught, and passed on through various channels, including popular cultural products (Volkan 2001;Shibata 2016). Competitive narratives of victimhood therefore can protract a conflict between perpetrators and victims and become a significant impediment to the process of reconciliation.…”

Section: Identity and Collective Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Popular Culture and the Transformation of Japan–Korea Relations

Sakamoto

Epstein

2020

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This book presents essays exploring the ways in which popular culture reflects and engenders ongoing changes in Japan-Korea relations.Through a broad temporal coverage from the colonial period to the contemporary, the book's chapters analyse the often contradictory roles that popular culture has played in either promoting or impeding nationalisms, regional conflict and reconciliations between Japan and Korea. Its contributors link several key areas of interest in East Asian Studies, including conflicts over historical memories and cultural production, grassroots challenges to state ideology, and the consequences of digital technology in Japan and South Korea.Taking recent discourse on Japan and South Korea as popular cultural superpowers further, this book expands its focus from mainstream entertainment media to the lived experience of daily life, in which sentiments and perceptions of the "popular" are formed. It will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese and Korean studies, as well as film studies, media studies and cultural studies more widely.Rumi Sakamoto is Senior Lecturer in Japanese at the School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, the University of Auckland, and is convenor of Asian Studies, Chinese, Japanese and Korean programmes. She has published widely on Japanese popular culture, nationalism and war memory. She is a co-editor of Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan (Routledge, 2006) and Japanese Popular Culture (Routledge, 2014). Her current research looks at cultural representations of kamikaze pilots and self-defence forces in post-war Japan.

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“…Abe and the nationalists are therefore on a mission to revise the 'masochist' narrative of war history that defines Japan as a shameful nation that engaged in immoral and illegitimate wars of aggression against its neighbours and deserved the punishment it received based on the verdicts of the Tokyo Trial (Akaha 2008, 157). Nationalist narratives aim to denounce the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trial and the postwar regime imposed by the United States which they claim have destroyed Japanese people's national pride and independence (Shibata 2016). For Japan's Asian neighbours, Abe and other conservative politicians' regular visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 convicted war criminals are honoured, are the most blatant expression of their refusal to accept responsibility for Japan's history of aggression.…”

Section: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Nationalist Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity, Nationalism and Threats to Northeast Asia Peace

Shibata

2018

Journal of Peacebuilding & Development

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The escalating public debate over amendment of the Japanese constitution centres on the war-renouncing principles of Article 9 — the symbol of Japan's pacifist identity. Since elected to power, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his supporters have been steadfastly pushing to revise the constitution to remove pacifist constraints on the nation's Self-Defense Forces. In the face of growing insecurities generated by long economic stagnation, regional threats posed by North Korean missiles and rising Chinese hegemony, Japanese conservative politicians feel it is time to overhaul Japan's humiliating postwar regime represented by the pacifist constitution and restore Japan's pride and independence. This article examines the resurgence of nationalist discourse in Japan as a response to Japan's threatened identity and esteem. As the Japanese people become increasingly exposed to nationalist narratives and realistic threats, how have these affected their desire to maintain a pacifist identity? This paper further examines the pacifist attitudes of today's Japanese youth and to what extent they are in favour of changing the constitution to adopt a stronger military defence.

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Japan’s Identity Crisis and Sino-Japanese Relations

Cited by 4 publications

References 22 publications

Understanding the persistence of history-related issues in Sino–Japanese relations: from memory to forgetting

Understanding the persistence of history-related issues in Sino–Japanese relations: from memory to forgetting

Popular Culture and the Transformation of Japan–Korea Relations

Identity, Nationalism and Threats to Northeast Asia Peace

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