Contested Memories In Chinese And Japanese Foreign Policy

Contested Memories in Chinese and Japanese Foreign Policy explores the issue of memory and lack of reconciliation in East Asia. As main East Asian nations have never achieved a common memory of their pasts, in particular, the events of the Second World War and Sino-Japanese War, this book locates the issue of memory within International Relations theory, exploring the theoretical and practical link between the construction of a country’s identity and the formation and contestation of its historical memory and foreign policy. Provides an innovative theoretical framework Draws connections between the role of memory and foreign policy Uses the interpretative theory of international relations Gives comparative perspective using the cases of China and Japan Presents in-depth analysis of the construction and contestation of national memory in China and Japan

Japan's Contested War Memories is an important and significant book that explores the struggles within contemporary Japanese society to come to terms with Second World War history. Focusing particularly on 1972 onwards, the period starts with the normalization of relations with China and the return of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, and ends with the sixtieth anniversary commemorations. Analyzing the variety of ways in which the Japanese people narrate, contest and interpret the past, the book is also a major critique of the way the subject has been treated in much of the English-language. Philip Seaton concludes that war history in Japan today is more divisive and widely argued over than in any of the other major Second World War combatant nations. Providing a sharp contrast to the many orthodox statements about Japanese 'ignorance', amnesia' and 'denial' about the war, this is an engaging and illuminating study that will appeal to scholars and students of Japanese history, politics, cultural studies, society and memory theory.

Memories can be shared-or contested. Japan and Korea, just one case in point, share centuries of intertwined history, the nature of which continues to be disputed, particularly with regard to World War II. The authors of History, Memory, and Politics in Postwar Japan explore Japan's historical narratives, and their impact on both domestic politics and diplomatic relations, as they have evolved from 1946 to the present. Presenting the results of more than a decade of collaborative research, their book is a rich contribution to our understanding not only of Japanese politics, but also of how the historical narratives that we embrace have far-reaching consequences.

Bitterly contested memories of war, colonisation, and empire among Japan, China, and Korea have increasingly threatened regional order and security over the past three decades. In Sino-Japanese relations, identity, territory, and power pull together in a particularly lethal direction, generating dangerous tensions in both geopolitical and memory rivalries. Buzan and Goh explore a new approach to dealing with this history problem. First, they construct a more balanced and global view of China and Japan in modern world history. Second, building on this, they sketch out the possibilities for a 21st century great power bargain between them. Buzan puts Northeast Asia's history since 1840 into both a world historical and a systematic normative context, exposing the parochial nature of the China-Japan history debate in relation to what is a bigger shared story about their encounter with modernity and the West, within which their modern encounter with each other took place. Arguing that regional order will ultimately depend substantially on the relationship between these two East Asian great powers, Goh explores the conditions under which China and Japan have been able to reach strategic bargains in the course of their long historical relationship, and uses this to sketch out the main modes of agreement that might underpin a new contemporary great power bargain between them in a variety of future scenarios for the region. The frameworks adopted here consciously blend historical contextualisation, enduring concerns with wealth, power and interest, and the complex relationship between Northeast Asian states' evolving encounters with each other and with global international society.

The book establishes a linkage between perceptions and foreign policy by exploring, how China’s behavior towards Japan is driven by mental shortcuts. The study is focused on the aspect of historical memories and how it factors in China’s Japan Policy. It explores the linkage between perceptions born from the past, their interpretations in the present and thereby, the shaping of policy behavior of China towards Japan. The author delves beyond the realist and liberal interpretations of international politics, which assume that states’ interests and material capabilities are a ‘given’ in the international system- thus, offering a conceptual understanding of Sino-Japanese relations in the twenty-first century.

This book offers a theoretically informed study of recent Chinese initiatives to provide forms of regional economic governance; or as it is often termed in Chinese discourses, regional “public goods”. It does so by considering the evolution of Chinese thinking on international relations and the global order, and by considering how the development of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the putative Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership reflect this change in thinking – and the change in both Chinese objectives and tactics.

Seventy years after the end of World War II, the ghost of conflict still haunts international relationships in East Asia. The lack of real postwar reconciliation and effective peacebuilding within the general public between China and Japan is the true cause of the current animosity. As the oftentimes all too emotional discussions over historical guilt continues to rage on in East Asia, this publication is a call for thoughtful analysis of why relations are reaching a boiling point today, and how tensions could be cooled. This publication is, in short, an articulation of deep passion and high hopes from all participants for the four countries to reach a lasting resolution to the ongoing conflict over history in one of the world's most populous and dynamic regions.

"This volume brings to English-language readers the results of an important long-term project of historians from China and Japan addressing contentious issues in their shared modern histories. Originally published simultaneously in Chinese and Japanese in 2006, the thirteen essays in this collection focus renewed attention on a set of political and historiographical controversies that have steered and stymied Sino-Japanese relations from the mid-nineteenth century through World War II to the present. These in-depth contributions explore a range of themes, from prewar diplomatic relations and conflicts, to wartime collaboration and atrocity, to postwar commemorations and textbook debates—all while grappling with the core issue of how history has been researched, written, taught, and understood in both countries. In the context of a wider trend toward cross-national dialogues over historical issues, this volume can be read as both a progress report and a case study of the effort to overcome contentious problems of history in East Asia."