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In this paper, I demonstrate how long-term multigenerational minorities and Japanese residents engage in the current socio-political discourse of "multicultural coexistence" society (tabunkakyōsei shakai), which had not previously been integral to the vocabulary of national rhetoric in Japan until the 2000s. I argue that the lack of clear definition and goals of multicultural coexistence by the current Japanese government generates obstacles in the attempt to build a multicultural society. While local municipalities' programs, such as multilingual services and lifestyle support, are certainly needed, long-term foreign residents with linguistic and cultural competence are suspicious of the concept of multicultural coexistence due to their own embodied marginalized positions. Taking a local municipality's intercultural event as a point of reference, this paper explores how long-term minority residents perceive their positions at the crossroads of seemingly paradoxical forces of multicultural trends and an ongoing national identity founded upon ethnic homogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the modern Japanese state employed overseas cultural promotion as a way to maximise its interests and image not only in international contexts but also at home. By juxtaposing the Takarazuka Revue’s performances in the United States and Japan during the postwar period, this paper argues that the overseas promotion of this Japanese theatre troupe both depended upon and reinforced the Japanese populace’s nationalistic pride in its culture. The paper also addresses the ways in which the Japanese government used Takarazuka’s theatrical presentations as a means of pursuing its domestic and diplomatic agendas: improving Japan’s international position by proposing shared aspects of popular culture with the US and increasing its sense of nationalism by propagating cultural pride. In doing so, the paper explicates the ways in which Japanese popular cultural considerations interfaced with political concerns in the shaping of postwar Japan’s national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper joins the debate on Japan's territorial dispute with South Korea over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets. Informed by the ontological security framework of analysis, this paper seeks to explain the decision to adopt the ‘Takeshima Day’ ordinance by the Shimane Prefectural Assembly and the subsequent ascendance of ‘Takeshima’ to the fore of Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. In this paper, I distinguish between two processes: one that led to the adoption of the ordinance and another that resulted in the entrenchment of ‘Takeshima’ in Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. The paper argues that the former process should be understood within the context of Shimane Prefecture's distinct identity construction vis-à-vis Tokyo, while the latter can be attributed to recent changes in Japan–Korea relations unrelated to the territorial dispute per se. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholars tend to overlook the overseas Chinese press as a communicative tool for Chinese nationalism. This paper takes media history as its focal point to demonstrate the contextual influences that shaped the operations of Chinese print media and gave rise to the manifestation of the overseas Chinese (huaqiao) identity in Japan. In particular, it emphasises that the mobilisation of the modern Chinese nationalism movement of the time was not the sole determinant of Chinese identity. It was also influenced by the way in which Chinese ethnic boundaries came to be shaped and reshaped in different historical periods through the dynamics between overseas Chinese communities and Japanese society. I use two overseas Chinese publications from different periods to illustrate the impacts of modern Chinese nationalism and the changing social and political context of Japan on the Chinese press. Finally, I present a synthetic narrative to account for the history of the overseas Chinese press in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Cool Japan' is an instance of Japanese government's nation branding exercise as part of its soft power projection in which the unique selling point is identified as Japanese national identity. In this paper, I examine the relationship between Cool Japan and Japanese national identity and highlight a tension in the construction. Cool Japan is about emphasizing Japan's attractiveness for public diplomacy, while the top-down nature of the branding undermines the imagery that the branding is designed to convey. I show that policy elites resolve this tension by invoking the traditional Japanese identity narratives that construct Japan into both a non-Western and an un-Asian entity, reproducing the myth of Japanese uniqueness. I argue that the elite narratives surrounding Cool Japan readily replicate the language reminiscent of prewar identity construction. Despite the contemporary popularity of manga and anime, the purported 'coolness' of these products are framed within older constructions of Japanese Self that can trace their pedigree back to the nineteenth century. Using the minutes of committee meetings, policy documents, as well as media interviews given by policy- and business elites, I show that Cool Japan is effectively a twenty first century rendition of the familiar Japanese identity construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should we understand the relationship between nationalism and discourses of national decline, and more specifically the discourses of a shrinking nation? Driven by this question, this article highlights how bleak imaginings of the future also work to construct the relationship of the individual to the putative national community, creating forms of sentimental national belonging. This article analyses an emerging genre of best-selling books in Japan, Mirai no nenpyō [The chronology of the future] series, that present a dismal vision of Japan's national demographic future. Their goal is to provoke a sense of national urgency by encouraging Japanese nationals to feel personally the shrinking nation through imagining its coming consequences for everyday life. Such narrations of an imagined shrinking community act to create a timeless sense of national belonging, with daily lived experience in the imagined future interpreted through the lens of the contracting nation. Importantly, the future that these discourses present is nationalized within boundaries separating it from global developments and intercourse. Ultimately, this form of nationalism is constituted not by dying for the nation, but instead by people seeing the continued stability of everyday life as intricately tied to the fate of the national community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the strategy adopted by the MNE Nestlé in Japan between the establishment of a branch at Yokohama in 1913 and the end of World War II. It highlights the difficulties encountered by the firm in its attempts to open up and operate production facilities due to strong opposition from local condensed milk makers, supported by the state. Eventually, in 1934, Nestlé opened a factory by founding an incorporated company, ARKK, all of whose shareholders were Japanese working for Nestlé. Although the war drastically curtailed the activities of both Nestlé Japan and ARKK, the organisational facilities set up during the inter-war period provided a springboard for Nestlé's post-war success in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of Migration Studies, understandings of national attachment and nationalism are often located at the individual and collective boundaries of difference between migrant groups and a host, national Other. Such studies deny the extent to which the existence of differences within migrant groups may reflect the cultural complexity and specificity of particular nationalisms. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with Brazilian nationals living in Japan, this paper explores these differences through the lenses of personhood, national ideology and social relationships. Through their engagement with the Brazilian ideals of 'person' and 'individual', I demonstrate the extent to which such people embody a nationally constituted 'double code' of being open and yet closed to the values, relations and substances of Other Brazilians. By considering the significance of calor humano (human warmth) and saudades (yearning, homesickness) in people's lives in Japan, this article sheds fresh light on the links that exist between ideals of personhood, national ideology and contemporary processes of movement and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a reinterpretation of Japan's responses toward China's pressure over the Yasukuni issue. It is generally taken for granted that Japan's official responses to China's pressure over the issue are determined by the personality of individual leaders, the emergence of Japanese conservative nationalism and the calculations of Japan's national interests with regard to China's strategic role. With the examination of two cases during the Koizumi and Abe administrations between 2001 and 2007, this paper offers an alternative interpretation by highlighting the rationality of individual political actors and the primacy of domestic political survival. The article suggests domestic political legitimacy of individual leaders is a vital factor that affects Japan's official responses to China's pressure over the Yasukuni issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to draw implications of neoliberalism for intercultural communication by critically analyzing a Japanese neoliberal nationalism discourse. In January 2000, a governmental report proposed adopting English as an official language of Japan. Utilizing the notion of representation as a methodological lens for the analysis, this essay first examines how Japanese culture and communication, which have played key roles in asserting Japanese “uniqueness” along with the Japanese language, are redefined in the report. This essay then investigates how Japan's relations with Asia and the West—two significant discursive “Others” for constructing Japan's identity—are depicted in the text and situate the representation of Japanese culture and communication in the discursive triad for further contextualizing the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines the goals of 13 Japanese graduate students who studied abroad, and situates those goals in the larger context of Japanese society. The study abroad objectives of the Japanese government and some Japanese universities are compared and problematised. The authors conducted three interviews of each study abroad participant separately in English and Japanese, once before and twice after they studied abroad for one to four months. The purpose of the interviews was to determine, in detail, the students' goals and expectations before going abroad and what they could accomplish after their short-term studies abroad. It was found that 7 out 13 students indicated that they could accomplish their research goals, and many students felt a greater sense of confidence and worldliness and said they improved their English language skills. All but one student felt that the study abroad experience had changed them in positive ways. Except for learning English and being globally minded, the goals of the government, universities and students did not seem to match and there were no formal evaluation systems set up for comprehensively measuring and determining if students are actually achieving any goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culinary nationalism is not unique to Japan, although its performance by the Japanese government has received significant attention and criticism as exemplified in its so-called "sushi police" program. This and other counterpart programs were explicit attempts to "authenticate" Japanese food abroad, which the government eventually rescinded in response to backlash from within and outside Japan. However, new, diversified, and intensified forms of "authentication" and "certification" systems for Japanese food have been created by the government in recent years, apparently reinvigorated by the inscription of Japanese food, that is, washoku, as Intangible Heritage under the UNESCO in 2013. This article investigates culinary nationalism among the proponents of Japanese food in the context of the heritagization of washoku, with particular reference to the accreditation and certification systems for Japanese food. A number of quasi-official recognition schemes for Japanese restaurants abroad were already in place before heritage inscription, but current systems have taken on a renewed vigor in light of UNESCO recognition. Government-sponsored culinary competitions have also emerged in the period around the inscription; the performance of nationalism in such contexts are also examined, especially through the case of sushi, perhaps the most representative of Japanese food. Subsequently, the social and cultural contexts as well as the consequences of culinary nationalism in Japan are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares and discusses the third series of kokugo tokuhon (national language readers) used in Japan between 1918 and 1932, and the first series of kokumin tokuhon (national readers), used in Taiwan between 1913 and 1923. The study points out that the materials introducing the world (including geography and history lessons, adaptations of foreign literary texts, episodes from the life of great men of science, etc) are considerably more numerous in the Japanese readers than in their Taiwanese counterparts. Following the two different processes of (intended) national identity formation via a detailed analysis of the materials and illustrations in the two sets of textbooks, the article also sheds light on the way the Taiwanese tokuhon attempt to replicate successful methods of earlier Japanese textbooks, while at the same time anticipating some of the trends visible in subsequent readers from Japan proper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1945, the United States (US) has served as a focal point of both Left-wing and Right-wing Japanese nationalism. Both sides argued that the US was an arrogant hegemon that unjustly robbed Japan of its autonomy, and prevented Japan from achieving its own ideal national identity. Both sides frequently demanded that Japan should be more ‘resolute’ and resist unfair demands emanating from the US. In recent years, however, both camps are increasingly using the same rhetoric to criticise the Japanese government's China policy. China is also being depicted as an overbearing state that unfairly browbeats Japan into making diplomatic concessions. Given the similarities between the portrayal of China and the US, has China now become a nationalist focal point forboththe Japanese Left and Right? Utilising constructivist insights, this article seeks to shed light on this question, by examining how the Japanese Right and Left portray China, and explores the implications for Japan's China policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has also grossly overshadowed the atrocities for which Imperial Japan was responsible in the 20th century. Why has there been such strong emphasis on an issue that could be disregarded as comparatively ‘less important’? This article understands the ascendency of the abduction issue as the epitome of an identity shift under way in Japan – from the identity of a curiously ‘peaceful’ and inherently ‘abnormal’ state, to that of a more ‘normal’ one. The differentiation of North Korea as ‘abnormal’ emphasises Japan's own (claim to) ‘normality’. Indeed, by incarnating the perils of Japan's own ‘pacifist’ ‘abnormality’, which has been so central to the collective sense of Japanese ‘Self’ in the post-war period, the abduction issue has become a very emotional argument for Japan's ‘normalisation’ in security and defence terms. The transformation from ‘abnormal’ to ‘normal’ is further enabled by Japan trading places with North Korea in the discourse, so that Japan is defined as ‘victim’ (rather than former aggressor) and North Korea as ‘aggressor’ (rather than former victim). What is at stake here is the question whether Japan is ‘normalising’ or ‘remilitarising’, and the role of the abduction issue discourse in enabling such foreign and security policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Asia is narrated in Japanese foreign policy pronouncements as an opportunity as well as a threat. Despite the purported transformation from militarism to pacifism since August 1945, the reified images of Asia as an ‘entity out there’ remain resilient. The image of a dangerous Asia prompted Japan to engage in its programme of colonialism before the War and compels policy makers to address territorial disputes with Asian neighbours today. Simultaneously, Asia persistently symbolises an opportunity for Tokyo to exploit. Hence, despite the psychological rupture of August 1945, reified Asia remains a reality in Japanese foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two approaches to identity have been employed to explore issues in Japan's international relations. One views identity as constituted by domestic norms and culture, and as constitutive of interests, which in turn cause behaviour. Proponents view Japan's ‘pacifist’ and ‘antimilitarist’ identity as inherently stable and likely to change only as a result of material factors. In the other approach, ‘Japan’ emerges and changes through processes of differentiation vis-à-vis ‘Others’. Neither ‘domestic’ nor ‘material’ factors can exist outside of such identity constructions. We argue that the second, relational, approach is more theoretically sound, but begs three questions. First, how can different identity constructions in relation to numerous Others be synthesised and understood comprehensively? Second, how can continuity and change be handled in the same relational framework? Third, what is the point of analysing identity in relational terms? This article addresses the first two questions by introducing an analytical framework consisting of three mutually interacting layers of identity construction. Based on the articles in this special issue, we argue that identity entrepreneurs and emotions are particularly likely to contribute to change within this model. We address the third question by stressing common ground with the first approach: identity enables and constrains behaviour. In the case of Japan, changes in identity construction highlighted by the articles in this special issue forebode a political agenda centred on strengthening Japan militarily. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the emergence of an increasingly vociferous public debate in China over the true contribution made by the KMT in the war against Japan. Following years of rigid adherence to the traditional Maoist line that the CCP won the war almost single-handedly, the party has finally moved towards a more realistic and honest assessment that recognises the pivotal role played by the KMT in defeating the Japanese. The rationale for conceding this point is ultimately linked to the question of nationalist legitimacy. At a time of increasing socio-economic uncertainty and in an effort to fill the ideological void left by the demise of Chinese Marxism, the party is trying hard to bolster its nationalist credentials. One way that it is doing this is by presenting a united patriotic front on the war against Japan, with itself at the helm. However, things have not materialised in the way the party had anticipated. Along with strong expressions of national pride in China's war effort, some members of the public have responded with sympathy towards the KMT veterans who fought the Japanese. With this sympathy has come antipathy towards the CCP who are accused of persecuting KMT soldiers after 1949, of re-writing the history of the war for its own propaganda purposes and of betraying the nation by, amongst other things, avoiding armed conflict with Japan and leaving the KMT to fight the war on its own. In light of this growing (although not necessarily majority) public reaction, we argue that instead of fortifying the party's nationalist legitimacy, the official reappraisal of the KMT's role in the war runs the risk of eroding that legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on the Fourth Asian Games (Jakarta 1962) and the influence the Cold War, decolonisation and the Non-Aligned Movement had on international sports events. Caught between Indonesian nationalism under President Sukarno's ‘guided democracy’, pan-Asian responsibilities and the ‘Olympic ideal’, including not to mix sport and politics, a way had to be found to deal with Indonesia's decision to bar the participation of two member countries inthe Asian Games. Since the Games had been planned as a prestige project by the Indonesian government, foreign delegates faced the risk of serious political repercussions if Indonesia's behaviour was criticised or even challenged. Nevertheless, at the same time, international sports organisations put pressure on the delegates to uphold the ‘Olympic ideal’ of non-discrimination for political reasons. This article discusses how the Japanese and the Indian delegates responded to these incompatible demands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a critical engagement with multiculturalism and pluralisation in Japan. While recent efforts to introduce multicultural policies such as ‘domestic internationalisation’ policies and the textbook reform movement are encouraging, I suggest that they are limited as they fail to address notions of exclusivity—those founded on the ideology of nihonjinron—that shape Japanese identity. Moreover, mere recognition of minority populations works to entrench rather than undermine ethno-cultural hierarchies. That is, if official engagements with the ethno-cultural ‘Other’ simply reinscribe notions of exclusivity, exceptionality and even superiority, the hierarchalised distinctions drawn between inside/outside and ‘Japanese’/foreigner will continue to persist and minority populations will be relegated permanently to a second-class citizenry. Therefore, this contribution turns to the recently opened Kyushu National Museum as a means of addressing multiculturalism and pluralisation in Japan. Themed ‘Ocean Ways, Asian Paths’, the Kyushu National Museum is actually a transnational museum as it focuses not on artefacts specific to Japanese identity, but instead on the variegated ways in which Japan is inextricably connected with and indebted to its Asian neighbours. Thus, by exhibiting the miscegenated character of Japan's national origins, the Kyushu National Museum stands as a concrete example whereby notions of exclusivity are refashioned into a more accommodating, and perhaps ethical, engagement with alterity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study looks at how education policies in colonial Korea changed over time in order to accommodate the needs of the colonial authorities during the period of Japanese colonial rule in Korea (1910-1945). The colonial experience can be divided into four different periods according to the four Educational Ordinances issued in 1911, 1922, 1938, and 1943 by the colonial government with each period corresponding to a historic event or context. The constitutive relevance of colonial discourse for an understanding of education can be found in the gradual transformation of the education sector in Korea under colonial rule. It is evident that Japanese colonial policy was inherently contradictory in principle and in practice. On the one hand it sought the assimilation of the Koreans, while on the other it maintained its discriminatory and exploitative practices. Such contradiction was obvious within the colonial education system. As the principal instrument of assimilation, education was regarded as the primary means to subordinate the ethnic identity of the colonised and to transform them into loyal imperial subjects. An overview of the four different periods relevant to the changing circumstances to which the education sector responded reveals the social-historical implications of the instrumentality of colonial education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether support for multiculturalism is compatible with an ethno-national identity in Japan. Multiculturalism discourses have centred on the issue of how to treat cultural diversity within a society. In Japan, the concept of multiculturalism has become popular over the past decade. However, some researchers think that the Japanese maintain their privileged position by essentialising cultural differences in the name of multiculturalism. My study therefore investigates the relationship between ethno-national identity, the endorsement of multiculturalism and supportive attitudes toward the equal rights of ethnic minorities by employing Japanese data from an international public-opinion survey. It was found that ethno-national identity has positive effects on the endorsement of multiculturalism, while having negative effects on the endorsement of equal rights between ethnic majorities and ethnic minorities. This means that the Japanese do not regard multiculturalism as antithetical to the maintenance of ethnic homogeneity within a 'nation'; rather, the endorsement of multiculturalism stems from belief in the uniqueness of 'Japaneseness'. The theoretical and political implications of this study's results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the Japanese media's response to Chinese poison pot-stickers (gyoza) in Japan's food system as they debate and guide consumer-citizens' feelings of increasing vulnerability as individuals in the global market, the nation, and families. Global food becomes a key metaphor for threats to national borders and the need for national food, yet simultaneously for inevitable risk to globally attuned stomachs that can be controlled only by alert housewives and education of the young. Food terror effectively signals citizens' lack of protection in risk society, but leaves unsaid important differences among consumer-citizens to save themselves with scarce Japanese-made food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent naval ship visits and exchanges of goodwill between China and Japan suggest an improvement in the two countries' bilateral relationship, which had been steadily deteriorating since the late 1990s. In the longer term, however, Sino-Japanese relations will likely be tested or constrained by five key sets of issues: (1) territorial and resource disputes, (2) nationalism and issues of mutual antipathy, (3) Taiwan's political status, (4) the rapid rise of China's military power, and (5) the U.S.-Japan security alliance. The manner in which these issues are managed or resolved will likely play a major role in shaping the Sino-Japanese relationship and thus the overall geopolitical environment in East Asia. A key complicating factor in the relationship, however, is the persistence of divergent worldviews: Chinese leaders appear to be more consistently persuaded by realist notions of international politics, whereas Japanese leaders tend to favor liberal-institutionalist values. The two countries may use these different lenses to view the same incident or issue, potentially creating misunderstanding and miscalculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With East Asian international relations in flux since the end of the Cold War, Japan's security role is critical in influencing the region's future. In this article, the author examines Japanese opinion leaders' attitudes toward relations with Asian countries, the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the role of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and Japan's culpability for the Fifteen-Year War of 1931-45. The four major contemporary security strands in Japan—pacifism, mercantilism, normalism, and nationalism—are analyzed. The author argues that normalism continues to rise in the post-Cold War era as the rightist conservatives (normalists) gradually gain predominance over the moderate conservatives (mercantilists). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation has accelerated the spread of English internationally, challenged nationalisms and put nation states in a dilemma in which they have to promote English, a foreign language, in addition to their national languages. Focusing on the proposal in January 2000 to establish English as an official language of Japan, this study attempts to understand and critique how English is represented in relation to Japanese nationalism in government and popular discourses and thereby explores implications for teaching English as a foreign language and intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]