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Recent colonial compensation lawsuits reflect the metamorphosis of historical grievances in collective public memory into tort claims in private law. This article provides a synthetic view of the nexus of colonial law and history in South Korea–Japan relations, focusing on cross-border litigation brought by former forced laborers and victims of sexual servitude known as "comfort women" during World War II. The concept of public policy (ordre public) in Korea, which has colonial origins, has long served law courts as the standard for deciding the validity of a juristic act. But of late heavy reliance on the general clauses of law in legal proceedings has risked turning history and law into handmaids of national spirit, muddling historical accountability and legal liability. Improvement of South Korea–Japan ties should start from a more accurate understanding of colonial laws and a rounded appreciation of their shared legal history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Japanese colonial period, Korea's reading public paid close attention to Chinese revolutions against Japanese and Western empires. Korean nationalists viewed China's revolutionary struggles as important for liberating Korea from Japan, a stance that reveals a transnational basis of Korean nationalism in the colonial era. One such nationalist was Sin Ŏnjun (1904–38), Tong'a Ilbo 's Shanghai-based correspondent, who played a critical role in conveying the momentous events in contemporary China to colonized Koreans. Drawing on Sin's example, this article shows how Sino-Korean transnationalism constituted Korea's left-wing, progressive nationalism in the 1930s. Although Sin Ŏnjun was a nationalist rather than a communist, he highlighted the communist struggles in China in his dispatches. He saw communism as the only viable way of solving China's internal and external problems, although he, at the same time, disapproved of Chinese communists' "terrorist methods." This article argues that this position also reflected his stance in favor of a broad communist-nationalist alliance in the Korean independence movement. He saw Korea's liberation agenda as closely related to the revolutionary events in China, thus accomplishing a synthesis between Korean nationalistic and social aspirations and an East Asia–wide transnational paradigm of a universal emancipatory struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs the history of Confucianism in modern Japan to critique current scholarship on the resurgence of Confucianism in contemporary China. It argues that current scholarship employs modernist formulations of Confucianism that originated in Japan's twentieth-century confrontation with Republican China, without understanding the inherent nationalist applications of these formulations. Current scholarly approaches to Confucianism trace a history through Japanese-influenced U.S. scholars of the mid-twentieth century like Robert Bellah to Japanese imperialist and Chinese Republican nationalist scholarship of the early twentieth century. This scholarship employed new individualistic and modernist visions of religion and philosophy to isolate fields of “Confucian values” or “Confucian philosophy” apart from the realities of social practice and tradition, transforming Confucianism into a purely intellectualized “empty box” ripe to be filled with cultural nationalist content. This article contends that current scholarship, by continuing this modernist approach, may unwittingly facilitate similar nationalist exploitations of Confucianism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the early years of Ch'oe Nam-sŏn (1890-1957), a leading intellectual in twentieth-century Korea, and the publication of his pioneering magazines, Sonyŏn (1908-1911) and Ch'ŏngch'un (1914-1918), with a special emphasis on his message of nationalism expressed in a global framework. Raised in a prosperous and progressive chungin family with exposure to new knowledge of the world through domestic and foreign publications, Ch'oe pioneered modern Korean magazines in vernacular Korean to help equip Korean youth with both global knowledge and patriotism. While much of the magazines' information originated from Japanese print media, his writings on Korean and Western subjects posed a silent challenge to Japanese dominance. Despite Korea's fall into colonial status in 1910 and the prevalence of Social Darwinism, which viewed the world as a battlefield for survival, he regarded the world as a network of interconnected countries, where Korea was to play a prominent role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the postwar phase of the integration of repatriates into Japanese society, thereby shedding new light on the nationalism of postwar Japan. To this end, it reviews the discourses surrounding the repatriation project and examines the existential consciousness of repatriates in postwar Japanese society. In particular, it examines the novels of Abe Kobo, who suffered from a confused identity after he returned to Japan from Manchuria. After its defeat in World War II, Japan endeavored to build a "New Japan" through re-education and repatriation. The repatriation project became the basis for the national solidarity required for this restructuring. The personal tales of repatriation, which record the experiences of those evacuated from the former colonies, constitute a history of the ordeals suffered by the Japanese victims of the war. However, repatriates felt both bitterness and discrimination directed against them by postwar Japanese society, as though they were strangers in their own country. Furthermore, they sensed the disjunction between the identity of the colonial Japanese and that of the "pure" mainland Japanese, which caused them to experience existential confusion. However, the cause of this sense of incompatibility was the ideology of postwar Japan, which aimed at reintegrating the nationstate. As the public memory of the Japanese as eternal victims spread, the truth was buried. A review of the postwar fate of the repatriates reveals the "crack" inherent in the nationalism of postwar Japan; it thus contributes to the deconstruction of the myth of the "great achievement" of Japanese homogeneity and reveals its illusory nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the disputes between Northeast Asian countries, particularly South Korea, China and Japan as seen in the changes in descriptions of history in Japanese textbooks, among others. It cites that the publication of the second report of the Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) Joint History Research Committee showed the animosity between the two parties. It also presents the studies on the historical perceptions in each country, and the rise of Japanese nationalism.

This article examines the divergent approaches pursued by Japan and South Korea in their attempts to resolve an issue that is related to a fundamental responsibility of sovereign states: the protection of citizens. The case considered here is North Korea's abduction of Japanese and South Korean nationals. In Japan, the abduction issue has taken center stage in the country's North Korea policy, whereas in South Korea, recent administrations have downplayed the issue—despite the fact that nearly 500 South Korean citizens remain detained in North Korea, compared to fewer than 20 known Japanese abductions. The authors find that the key to understanding the divergent responses lies in the politicization of specific, ostensibly apolitical demands for the state to fulfill its duty to protect citizens. In particular, the proximity of the abductions issue to key nationalist themes, which politicians in each country use to mobilize support, prevents the matter from being addressed in a neutral way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the transnational appeal of the Korean folk song "Arirang" in the cultural and political strains of the colonial encounter between Korea and Japan. The author believes the status of the song as an emblem of Korean national identity depended on Japanese imperialism and mass culture. Koreans believe the song expressed sorrow, indignation and resistance in the face of subjugation. However, for the Japanese, the song revealed truths about the abandonment of traditional lifeways in Japan.

Examines the policing of young male factory workers in the cities of Japan during the wartime years 1937 to 1945. Impact of the wartime juvenile delinquency on the social order and norms in Japan; Initiatives and programs launched to guide and discipline youth workers; Efforts made by professionals to improve nationalism among the youth.

Focuses on the issue of national identity in the field of architecture in Japan in the late 1930s. Factors attributed to the formation of architectural profession in Japan; Analysis of the proposed paradigms of Japanese self-conception in the prewar years; Discussion on development in Japanese architecture.

Examines Shimazaki Toson's novel 'Broken Commandment,' which reproduces the symptoms of Japan's triumph, the textual markings of the diseases of nationalism and imperialism. Background on the novel; Information on infectious diseases; Explanation on quarantine.

Explores the international education movement episode in the history of modern Japanese education that was not discussed in the literature on the country's nationalism. Correlation between education and nationalism; Period in the history of Japan in which this movement took place; How the principal supporters of the movement saw themselves.

A literary criticism of the fiction manga "World Apartment Horror," by Kon Satoshi is presented. It summarizes the struggle of illegal immigrants in Japan through the oppression they experienced from Japanese gangsters, which were depicted by the Black Dragon Society and its main character Itta. The story focuses on the efforts of Itta in driving illegal immigrants out of Japan per orders of his boss Kokubu, where Japanese nationalism and identity were referenced.