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This article examines Japan's resource diplomacy in the Middle East by focusing on the activities and ideologies of business leaders before the First Oil Crisis in 1973. By analysing the roles played by four prominent leaders in the oil industry (Idemitsu Sazō, Yamashita Tarō, Tanaka Seigen, and Sugimoto Shigeru), the article illustrates how the beliefs of these leaders intersected with those of the political class in Japan's oil diplomacy towards Middle East. The approach they took to oil diplomacy reflected the notion of Kōdōshugi (Imperial Way principles and ethics). This form of nationalism had some continuity with the prewar Greater Asianism insofar as it was infused with the religious ethics and doctrines of the 'Japanese Imperial Way' and the avoidance of dependence on the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failure to deal with the issue of collective and social loss increases the risk of extreme nationalism. When taken too far, a repetition of manic defence can arise that manifests itself in the form of war. In this paper, the notion of the "inability to mourn" by the German Psychoanalysts A. and M. Mitshcerlich (1967) is discussed in relation to the problem of Japan's post World War II nationalism, and its silence on social matters. The process of confronting past atrocities committed by the state is then discussed from the perspective of structural theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on Chinese football fans' reactions to the Japanese national team and their fans' behaviour during the World Cup 2022. Despite the historical and contemporary problems that make friendly relations with Japan difficult to achieve, football fans in China largely welcomed the good performance of the Japanese national team. This attitude may be described as 'thin cosmopolitanism' because Chinese fans' major frame of reference was still nationalistic. For them, the impressive performance of the Japanese national team means that Asians and the 'yellow race people' can also play good football. However, the Japanese fans, whose cleaning up of stadia received wide coverage during the World Cup, were criticized by the Chinese fans who interpreted the Japanese fans' action as reinforcing the existing global racial order. The findings of this paper help reveal the limits regarding football's role in contributing to a more cosmopolitan worldview. [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]

Existing theories of international relations have failed to interpret the hostile relations between Korea and Japan due to their Cartesian assumptions about the nature of national sovereignty and identity. Such theories view the hostilities between the two states as the result of incorrect policies or unhealthy interactions between domestic norms and foreign policies, because they believe that there are few negative structural elements between Japan and Korea. This study suggests an alternative explanation by utilising the worldview of East Asian medicine. By interpreting the formation of the Japanese and Korean national identities from the late nineteenth century and by viewing the hostility between the two states not as evidence of 'malfunctioning' inter-state relations but as a core element of their national identities, this study proposes an alternative understanding of 'problem-solving' with respect to Korea–Japan relations that is directed towards healing their relations with a long-term perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"'Us' and 'Others': The Chinese Diaspora in Japan and the Negotiation of Their Membership in the Sphere of Chineseness" examines the way first-generation Chinese diaspora in Japan make sense of their relationships with the Chinese nation. With empirical evidence collected from both the in-depth interview with 69 informants and the media ethnographic observation with 26 research participants, this thesis contributes to conceptualize the diasporic experiences as well as the identity politics of the Chinese diaspora who live in a crucial era – while we have witnessed China's rise and its transition from a diminishing to a returning power, as a response to this Japan has continuously articulated a "China threat" discourse, which not only further promotes its ethno-nationalistic ideology, but also directing the ethnicity-based marginality toward the Chinese diaspora in Japan. In this context, this thesis contributes to present that while these events create complex Sino-Japanese power dynamics, the presence of digital media means that the Chinese diaspora in Japan are influenced by them in a new way – "new" in the sense that the digital mediation fills those power and forces into every dimension of their lives, making their daily reality a constant identity negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth literature of the Meiji period (1868–1912) has been portrayed as moralistic and unable to overcome premodern literary styles and tropes. However, in this article I show how this literature was transformative and functioned as an arena within which literary writers and the government contended for the minds of young Japanese citizens. I reexamine the early development of the genre of youth literature in Japan through the lens of Juri Lotman's theory of cultural memory. In Lotman's spatial model of culture, or semiosphere, foreign concepts travel from the periphery to the centre of a given cultural (sub)sphere through an amalgamation with established texts, in a process of 'creative memory'. This process, I argue, is reflected in the serialized adaptations of premodern warrior legends by the pioneering author Iwaya Sazanami (1870–1933), in which he explores the conventions of nineteenth-century youth literature from the West. Recognizing the new genre's deep connection to citizenship, he shaped his protagonists into exemplary boys who display wanpaku (spirited) dispositions, in opposition to the moralism and 'narrow-minded nationalism' imparted at home and in schools. As a mediator between premodern and modern concepts and modes of text production, Meiji youth literature thus offered adults a way to develop modern identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Inner Mongolian nationalism, which was promoted by Japan in Inner Mongolia during the Sino-Japanese War through the intermediary of Mongolian Buddhist Lamaism. It reveals the competition for the religious support of Lamaism among the nationalist political parties in Inner Mongolia, the reformation of Lamaism carried out by the Japanese under the slogan of Mongolian national awakening, and how the Japanese integrated this work into their larger Asian goals, specifically the Japanese army's promotion of its own Pan-Asianism among other Asian peoples as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines cross-national, geographical analogizing through the under-theorized example of an artist colony in Japan nicknamed the "Ikebukuro Montparnasse" (a title coined by the poet Hideo Oguma, 1901–40). Located in the Toshima Ward of Ikebukuro district, Tokyo, this community flourished in the 1930s and housed mostly young, impoverished painters and sculptors, evoking the Montparnasse area of Paris. The analogy with Montparnasse is significant for several reasons. First, the concept of an "artist's village" was just being introduced to Japan during this time, and the Ikebukuro quarter exemplified this trend. Second, at the height of Japanese nationalism, the Ikebukuro Montparnasse had an anti-establishment reputation, partly linked to the ideal of Parisian bohemianism. Artworld analogies can be sharply political. Many of the artists and poets in this community were criticized as hikokumin, "those who failed to support the country," during wartime. This study also elucidates what I see as a partial turn from Sinophilism to Francophilism in the modern Japanese art world. Overall, I demonstrate how becoming involved in a community seen as Tokyo's answer to Montparnasse was a way for Japanese modernists to forge a new collective identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, against the backdrop of multiple anti-Japanese protests in China, the rise of Chinese nationalism has been much debated. By taking the 2010 and 2012 Sino–Japanese crises over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands as a case study, the article applies discourse analysis to media articles and interviews to ascertain the Chinese government's propaganda toolbox in shaping the nationalist discourse, as well as to substantiate the defining features of anti-Japanese nationalism. The findings reveal a combination of strategies and techniques that the propaganda apparatus uses, such as the creation of an 'us-versus-them' dichotomy, galvanised inclusiveness, censorship, and 'card-stacking' to mould nationalism. The article substantiates empirically both top-down and bottom-up strains of nationalism, and their interaction through the four key themes of sovereignty, history, mistrust and reactivity. It finds that Japan bridges these strands of Chinese nationalism, but in its absence alternative views of nationalism are articulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Kazuo Ishiguro's characters, institutions endure as ghosts long after their original functions have ceased. Though such institutions appear in Ishiguro's work from Japan to Shanghai to central Europe, this essay argues that Ishiguro's English institutions register his subtle yet deeply-rooted critique of the British state's particular modern crises, exposing its attempts to replace political plurality and historical contingency with an essentialist ideal. Ishiguro's institutions are themselves repeatedly complicit in such attempts, whether oriented towards racial nationalism in The Remains of the Day or the 'Originality' that governs Never Let Me Go - ideologies that ultimately destroy these institutions. The circumstances of that destruction nevertheless expose, ironically and elegiacally, the institution's lost potential. This essay argues that despite their compromised status, these institutions have a real ethical value and even subtle radicalism in haunting Ishiguro's Britain from the pre-state landscape of The Buried Giant to the late modernity of Never Let Me Go. Beginning by identifying this ethical and political potential, proceeding to describe how it registers through the institutional access enjoyed by Ishiguro's protagonists, and finally exploring Ishiguro's provocative response to Britain's recent history, this essay offers a revised interpretation of Ishiguro's English institutions and of their collective significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to clarify the form and development of the imagination of Japan as a Buddhist country in Japan's medieval period. Recent studies on the rise of nativism in the early modern period have tended to consider the privileging of Japan over other countries to be a uniquely early modern phenomenon. This article, by contrast, argues that a Japan-centric view of the world can be traced as far back as the early Heian period. Special attention is given to the formation of a soteriologically oriented Buddhist discourse on Japan's place in the Buddhist world, particularly in relation to the countries from which Buddhism was understood to have been transmitted—India and China. The articulation of this discourse in the fields of classical Japanese poetry (waka) and poetics from the late Heian through Muromachi periods is also considered. Whereas the nativist imagination of Japan in the early modern period valorizes that which is perceived to be native to the Japanese archipelago—its poetry, its deities, and its emperor—and hence may be considered 'cosmogonic' in orientation, the soteriologically grounded Japan-centrism of the medieval period articulates a framework that valorizes that which leads to the Buddhist end of salvation, or enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has been criticised internationally for its reluctance to accept refugees. In the late 1970s, however, the Japanese government decided to implement special measures to accept refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Between 1978 and 2005, 11,319 Indo-Chinese refugees were resettled in Japan. In this article, I analyse newspaper discourses on the acceptance of Indo-Chinese refugees and the subsequent arrivals of Chinese asylum seekers in Japan. While opening Japan's borders and accepting Indo-Chinese refugees was perceived favourably as a process Japan should experience from the 1970s to the late 1980s, asylum seekers arriving by sea in Japan were perceived as a threat in 1989, when many Chinese were found to be included among them. I explore these changing newspaper discourses with reference to the concepts of national identity, kokusaika and governmental belonging. Any discussion of the acceptance of others into a nation becomes inextricably bound up with the notion of national identity. In the case of Japan in the 1970 and 1980s, the concept of kokusaika (internationalisation) was pertinent because it intersected with such discussions. A theoretical perspective is offered by Ghassan Hage's notion of 'governmental belonging', whereby those in a dominant position claim the power to position others in the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

Since the 1990s the "comfort women" system has received much attention in Japanese academic research, media, and society. This article first introduces the foundation built by historians such as Yoshimi Yoshiaki (吉見義明) who have combed through historical data, and their debates with right-wing nationalists on critical issues such as coercion in the "comfort women" system and "comfort women" becoming "sex slaves." Then it summarizes how gender studies scholars like Ueno Chizuko (上野千鹤子) use oral histories and memory studies methods to explore the position of survivors and analyze the foundation of empirical histories, rethinking and critiquing the patriarchal legacies, gender oppression, and nationalistic mindset manifested in the issue of "comfort women." Finally the article will zoom in on the discussion in Japan sparked by the Park Yu-ha (朴裕河) book Comfort Women of the Empire (Korean: Cheguk ŭi wianbu, Japanese: Teikoku no ianfu, Chinese: Diguo de weianfu) to reveal how Japanese scholars used the opportunity to further the focus on "comfort women's" subjectivity and the rich and varied nature of the original history and thus more deeply rethink issues of imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about family, community, and war memory. It is based on oral histories from Kin Town in Okinawa, Japan, an agricultural community and the site of Camp Hansen, a military base for U.S. Marines. Before World War II, emigrants from Kin migrated to Hawai'i, the Americas, and the Philippines. This article describes their experiences during World War II in the Philippines and it also discusses why memories of Davao and the Philippines continue to be a source of conflicting emotions for members of this community, several of whom were repatriates, and their extended families. [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]

In popular narratives, intellectual and media analysts believe the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute between China and Japan is a contestation for potential hydrocarbon reserves and other maritime rights which are per se divisible, but nationalism – particularly on China side – and relative power change between the two competing claimants make these territories increasingly indivisible and the dispute war-prone. Based on a review over People's Daily's coverage of the disputes and other secondary information, this article reveals a different scenario by highlighting the political meanings of disputed territories for national cohesion and regime self-preservation. It finds, Beijing's strategic moves in the disputes are influenced by its efforts at different occasions to de-legitimate Republic of China at Taiwan and defend its core interests – namely Taiwan and the "One-China" principle, to appease the patriotism in Hong Kong and facilitate the latter's stable reversion to China in 1990s, and what is more, to rally popular support at home. In addition, Beijing's Diaoyu/Senkaku strategy did not follow a carefully calculated path, but was mostly reactive to the contingencies and ultimately took shape through the incremental accumulation of previous policies and behaviours. [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]

This study explores how a zainichi (residing in Japan) Korean athlete reveals often-concealed postcolonial and post-Cold War tensions revolving around ethnic essentialism and nationalism in East Asia. The focus of the study is Jong Tae-se, a third generation zainichi Korean football player who has become a star in Japan, North Korea and South Korea. By examining media representations and online responses to Jong in South Korea as well as his autobiographies written in both Korean and Japanese, it is explained how Jong, as a zainichi Korean sport celebrity, both represents the arbitrariness of nation-ness and reproduces unresolved geopolitical and historical issues of postcolonial East Asia. Whereas his mobility, multilingual capability and fluid belongingness may signal changing dynamics of national-ness in East Asia, this analysis also reveals that his media discourses keep him tethered to anti-Japan and anti-communist sentiments. Such vicissitudes of the discourses around him attest that colonial and Cold War memories and historical wounds continue to be conjured in contemporary East Asia. Ultimately, this study discusses both the possibilities and the limits of a zainichi Korean subjectivity as a de-colonial tool for destabilizing national, colonial, and Cold War ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the strength of national identification and intergroup attitudes of Chinese youth (n = 591, aged 12-15) toward the Chinese, the Americans, the Japanese, and the South Koreans. The participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire and write down reasons why they 'like' or 'dislike' the four groups. The results showed a consistency in in-group favoritism. Gender and age were both related to Chinese youths' national identifications and their national intergroup attitudes. Confucian ethics, media influence and historical complex were identified as main factors that may contribute to their attitudes toward the four groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1968, the conservative Japanese government of Prime Minister Satō Eisaku mounted a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 1868 'Meiji Restoration' that had launched Japan's modern era. Although the government took pains to make the commemoration seem non-political, the centennial aroused fierce opposition among those on the left, who feared it represented an effort to revive aspects of pre-World War II militarism. The resistance was led by Japanese historians, who felt the view of the previous 100 years promoted by the government clashed with an alternative understanding of Japan's history indicated by their professional research and training. This article examines the nature and scope of the 1968 Meiji centennial, elucidates why historians in particular were so opposed to it, and investigates the real aims for the celebration on the part of the conservative Satō government, as revealed in the private minutes of the government's planning committee. Ultimately, the historians' fears were partially justified: the government did intend the centennial to revive Japanese nationalism and patriotism along pre-war lines, as shown by their close modeling of the main ceremony on an earlier fascist ceremony - the 1940 celebration of the 2600th anniversary of Imperial rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critical appraisal of the Abe Cabinet's plans to orchestrate a national celebration of the 150th anniversary of Meiji in 2018, following the example of the Meiji Centennial celebrations of 1968. The article begins by introducing some of the criticisms voiced at the time of the 1968 Centennial by prominent Japanese historians such as Tōyama Shigeki and Yamaguchi Keiji, who saw clear links between the post-war celebration of Meiji and broader efforts to revive Japanese nationalism and promote the long-term goal of re-militarization. It goes on to consider some of the public statements that have been made by Prime Minister Abe regarding 'Meiji 150ʹ and explores the significant gap between the government's vision of the significance of Meiji and the perspectives that emerge from scholarship on the Restoration period produced in recent decades by historians in both Japan and the English-speaking world. It concludes with a brief consideration of the divide that separated Japan's post-war historians from some of their American colleagues in the 1960s, and the role that scholars today have to play in combating the manipulation of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction provides a brief overview of some of the ways the Meiji Restoration is being commemorated at home and around the world in this sesquicentennial year. Doing so demonstrates the complexity of this history and current remembrances of the event and the new era it launched. It also serves to introduce the six essays in this volume, and the ways they problematize the Meiji national paradigm to reveal inherent tensions between the development of Japanese nation-building and nationalism and the country's engagement with globalizing forces. Focusing on the idea of "Global Meiji" highlights the era as both national and global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's new treaties with the Western powers came into force in the summer of 1899. These signified Japan's recognition as a modern state, but also opened the whole of Japan to residence and commerce for the nationals of the Western powers. This article examines Japan's legislative response to this new era of both political equality and expanded foreign intercourse and exchange. This comprised two new laws, Japan's first nationality law and new entry restrictions, both of which defined the boundaries of Japanese identity. The West played a paramount role in the crafting of these laws, but often forgotten is the role played by China. By examining the international contexts and the debates that attended the passage of these laws, this article shows that each law enacted a form of exclusion: the former sought to mitigate Western influence, while the latter sought to minimize Chinese immigration. Together, they reflected Japan's international position between two others: China and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do conservative nationalists in Japan continuously seek to revise the constitution despite the past failures, and what is the likelihood of successful revision and its impact on Japan's norm of pacifism and its use of force? The article offers an analytical framework for the issue based on national pride and national security, and argues that the ‘revisionists’ seek to create a new national identity, one that infuses a greater sense of national pride among the public and enables the exercise of collective self-defense, thereby removing Japan's postwar psychological and institutional limitations on nationalism and military activities. The LDP's 2012 draft is most explicit and ambitious in this regard, with the current revision attempt under Abe having the highest chance of success since the 1950s. Successful revision would significantly expand Japan's security activities, particularly within the framework of the US-Japan Security Alliance, and entail the end of Japan's unique postwar institutionalized pacifism, although the norm of pacifism will linger on as a constitutional principle. For a smoother return to the international military scene, the Japanese government must distance itself from historical revisionism and utilize its enhanced military role to promote regional public goods rather than merely protecting its narrow national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, many critical Japanese Studies scholars have problematized nihonjinron discourses, which overemphasize Japanese uniqueness and its exclusive nature, as a manifestation of cultural nationalism for establishing ethnonational identity. Similarly, Japanese journalists and online writers have also begun to criticize the recent rampant praise of Japan in mass media as cultural nationalism. The present study explores this issue through a close analysis of a television variety show entitled Bukkomi Japanīzu 3 [Sneaking in a Japanese Expert 3] aired in 2014. Recent years have witnessed increasing nationalistic tendencies in Japan, expressed in both overt hate speech and political activities and in covert cultural nationalism. This article focuses on the latter, offering a textual and discursive analysis of a television show that features non-Japanese people engaging in Japanese cultural practices outside of Japan. It examines the structure, narrations, and interactions of one episode of the show as an ‘encoding’ process, which is followed by a ‘decoding’ of the show through the analysis of online viewer comments. Thus, the present study discusses how the show constructs the essentialist view that Japanese culture belongs exclusively to Japanese people and how audience members respond in diverse ways in online commentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan’s early modern Tokugawa government (1603−1868) sponsored a series of projects of national mapping. The Matsumae family, ruling what is now Hokkaido, were loosely incorporated into these projects. It was only during the last of these, in the Tenpō era (1830−1848), that their lands were represented in the same manner as the rest of Japan because the central government made the final Matsumae-no-shima map. This article examines the production of this final official map of Japan’s north to argue that the Tokugawa’s institutional mapping made this region part of the nation through its own mapping framework, distinct from the cartographic forms with which national or imperial states are usually associated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwanese film KANO recounts the passage of a mixed-race baseball team to Japan’s Koshien Tournament during the colonial era of the 1930s. Its release evoked in both Taiwan and Japan critical responses in view of its rosy depiction of colonial modernity. Through analysing the film’s text and reviews in both Taiwan and Japan, we identify KANO as a “post-national” cinematic event. Its inviting nostalgic invocation of Japanese colonialism at the civilian level has launched divergent discourses on colonial legacies in the contemporary re/making of national identities, reflecting on the post-colonial socio-cultural conditions facing both Taiwan and Japan. We found that KANO in Taiwan instigated a re-examination of the state’s role in crafting the foundational myth of baseball as a “national” sport. Furthermore, the film brought on schemes of othering in which two national others were distinguished to manifest Taiwan subjectivity: Japanese colonialism versus Chinese nationalism. On the other hand, KANO in Japan was stripped of its colonial connotation. Its honouring of juvenile devotion to baseball was employed as a psychic introjection of Japanese-ness, which many considered losing in the globalizing social milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In 1914, approximately 4500–4800 German men were transported to Prisoner of War (POW) camps in Japan following the occupation of the German colony in China. They were the only European POWs held captive by an Asian Great Power, making this a unique colonial case study. This is the first essay to analyse how German POWs in Japan perceived of and narrated their experiences in their letters, with particular focus on the recurring themes of patriotism, nationalism, and cultural-racial constructs. I will analyse the ways in which the POWs used these socio-cultural concepts to make sense of their circumstances and maintain a link to the German diaspora and metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the midst of rising tension between China and Japan, two powerful countries in Asia, the favorable attitudes of each country's citizens toward the other country have dropped to a historical low. The Taiwan issue, historical legacy, island disputes, and maritime resource competition are major obstacles in Sino-Japanese relations, but the most fundamental issue is a deep-seated mutual distrust and suspicion between the two countries, which result in rising threat perceptions. Beyond the structural and political elite-centered approaches, this study examines the evidence related to the three approaches (face-to-face contact, cross-cultural exposure, and social identity) to reduce mutual distrust and antipathy in the two countries. With a careful analysis of the survey data, this study sheds light on the conditions under which contact (a) results in improved attitudes toward outgroup, (b) has little or no effect on intergroup relations, and (c) yields more prejudice and hostility toward the outgroup. The findings of this study not only identify factors that could facilitate mutual understanding between Chinese and Japanese people and more favorable impressions of one another, but are also relevant to planning interventions to reduce prejudice and distrust among people from different races, religions, and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After 60 years maintaining Self-Defense Forces rather than a normal military, Japan is moving towards exercising collective self-defence, long restricted by interpretations of its 1945 Peace Constitution. The merits of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's 'proactive pacifism' are intensely debated by those welcoming greater international contributions from Japan and others suspicious of Japanese 'remilitarisation'. A nation's defence posture can theoretically be hijacked by aggressive nationalists, shift to pacifist isolationism, or rely on non-military internationalism or multilateral security cooperation. This article assesses competing explanations about the post-war trajectory of Japan's defence posture by charting variation in military doctrine and capabilities. The analysis finds that Tokyo has made incremental policy adjustments under domestic and international constraints, and is not aggressively remilitarising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article condemns the Persian Gulf war as an example of American militarism, parallels such policies with Japan of the 1930's, and offers recommendations for Japan's place in the new world order. Viewed from Japan, America's euphoria about the war against Iraq and the so-called new world order is both ironic and a cause for deep pessimism. Japan was indisputably a naked aggressor against China, but it is questionable--more so now than ever--whether the Japanese were peculiarly war-loving, ultranationalistic, conformist, and intolerant of dissent. Part of the explanation lies in the quick-fix military ardor of contemporary America (and Britain), coupled with fear and envy of Japan's economic capabilities. At the same time, the image of the United States as a war-loving, sloganeering, extremist country (all World War II Western images of Japan) has been strengthened. Japan should establish all feasible controls on such technology, link economic assistance to arms control, and make its technology available for the surveillance and verification tasks essential to international arms control.

At the end of the Allied occupation in 1952, the Japanese press reported that two hundred thousand ‘mixed-blood’ children had been fathered and abandoned by foreign (mostly American) soldiers in Japan. Japanese commentators often converged on a single solution: the expulsion of all foreign troops and all ‘mixed’ children from Japan. Although most scholars treat the 1950s sense of ‘crisis’ surrounding ‘mixed’ children as a product of concern for their welfare, the ‘crisis’ is better understood as a complexly co-authored moral panic. Opposition politicians deployed wrath and fear over ‘blood mixing’ to discredit the dominant Liberal Party and its alliance with the United States. Meanwhile, ideological activists and mass media circulated false facts to present ‘mixed’ families as doomed and dangerous. Moral panic over ‘mixed-blood children’ fostered a ‘pure-blood’ identity in Japan after World War II and helped reconstruct Japanese nationalism on a new basis: that of the ‘pure’ race rather than the failed state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study adds to the research on the education of Asian immigrant adolescents by situating how generation, language, nationality, and race complexly impacted how a group of 1.5-generation Japanese youth have made sense of their multiple “non-dominant” identities as immigrant Americans and transnational students within an urban high school setting that publicly promoted a mission of inclusivity but, in practice, devalued “non-dominant” cultural and linguistic expressions. The findings highlight how the youth have contested the English-only ideologies and racialized expectations at their school through alternative literacies and other diverse enactments of their identities, such as by speaking Japanese or Japanglish (a mix of Japanese and English) and expressing their “Made in Japan” pride through the public display of nationalistic symbols and various bilingual or Japanese-language textual representations. New directions are offered for theorizing 1.5-generation Asian immigrant youth linguistic expressions with implications for practice and theory. [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]

This essay analyzes Japan's otaku subculture using Hirokazu Miyazaki's (2006) definition of hope as a 'reorientation of knowledge.' Erosion of postwar social systems has tended to instill a sense of hopelessness among many Japanese youth. Hopelessness manifests as two analogous kinds of refusal: individual social withdrawal and recourse to solipsistic neonationalist ideology. Previous analyses of otaku have demonstrated its connections with these two reactions. Here, I interrogate otaku culture's relationship to neonationalism by investigating its interaction with the xenophobic online subculture known as the netto uyoku. Characterizing both subcultures as discursive practices, I argue that the similarity between netto uyoku and otaku is not one of identity but one of method. Netto uyoku discourse serves to perform an imagined nationalist persona. While otaku elements can be incorporated into netto uyoku performance, other net users invoke the otaku faculty of parody to highlight the constructed nature of netto uyoku identity through ironic recontextualization. This application of otaku principles enables a description of otaku culture as a form of social knowledge, reoriented here to defuse the climate of hopelessness purveyed by the netto uyoku. In the final section, I offer examples of subcultural knowledge being applied to national and international issues in order to indicate its further potential as a source of enabling hope for Japanese youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextualizing Japanese artists’ writings, performances, and media, the present work illuminates the logics among a conservative right-wing faction within Japanese hip-hop, which, ironically, takes United States Black sociopolitical freedom movement as a model. Unlike other studies of ‘respectful politics of cultural affiliation’ between Black and Japanese artists, the present study locates a complicated dynamic in mainstream Japan, wherein Blacks are admired, yet held at a distance. Japanese hip-hop artists and fans close this distance by likening themselves to Blacks as encapsulated in their analogy of ‘Jap’ to ‘nigger.’ They appropriate Black cultural symbols to signify their victimization, while using these to rationalize the xenophobic, nationalistic and racist ‘Othering’ of minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses some common narratives found in discourses on national identity in Russia and Japan, and their temporal transformations reflecting the needs of a nation as it becomes a colonial empire. National identity discourse is examined from the viewpoint of national antagonism arising from an external threat. Russian and Japanese intellectuals, with their vastly different historical and cultural heritage, have dwelled upon similar issues pertaining to modernization of the state and adoption or rejection of foreign ideas and ways of life. There are several themes in Russian and Japanese discourses on national identity that share a significant overlap, particularly themes of national uniqueness and a ‘special path’, deterministic worldviews, imperial cosmopolitanism/messianism and criticism of ‘Western’ philosophical systems and concepts. This article elucidates the shared aspects of these narratives and philosophical inquiries in Russia and Japan and puts them into a historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

Japan today is widely portrayed as on the verge of a significant identity shift that could lead to dramatic new security policies. Yet, Japan's first formal national security strategy, adopted in December 2013, proclaims repeatedly Japan's long-standing ‘peace-loving’ policies and principles. Why does a conservative government with high levels of popular support not pursue policies more in line with views widely reported to be central to its values and outlook? The answer lies in Japan's long-standing security identity of domestic antimilitarism, an identity under siege to a degree not seen since its creation over 50 years ago, but – as evidenced in Japan's new national strategy document – one that continues to shape both the framing of Japan's national security debates and the institutions of Japan's postwar security policy-making process. Relational approaches to identity construction illuminate challenges to Japan's dominant security identity, but a focus on domestic institutions and electoral politics offers the best course for modeling identity construction and predicting its future resilience. [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]

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]

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 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]

The Japanese word kogei, which has been translated as “craft” in English by art historians and museum curators, is a term that developed in Japan during the process of modernization in the early years of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Under this name, Japanese handicrafts were exported to the West in the second half of the nineteenth century, to satiate the demand among artists, scholars, and metropolitan middle-class audiences for all things Japanese (commonly known as Japonisme). Exported handicrafts boosted national prestige and brought in foreign money, in line with the Meiji government’s policy of bolstering the export industry. Since then, the meaning of kogei has changed in accordance with government ideology. This article examines the current “kogei campaign” and exposes the business logic found in its rhetoric, which emphasizes the economic value of the object above all else. The champions of the campaign use terms like “international” and “future” as key words, and ensnare famous figures and artists to broaden their audience. By delineating Japanese “uniqueness,” their activities reveal nationalistic overtones. I refer to this as the kogei tragedy, a situation in which kogei campaigns exploit the same framework of handicraft production and promotion established in the Meiji period, without reexamining its true artistic value from the perspective of kogei itself. In conclusion, this article suggests ways to move beyond this tragedy by discussing exhibitions that emphasize the notion of an object’s intrinsic, rather than economic, value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Liang Qichao viewed the Italian Risorgimento, with the focus on his reflections on its meanings in the historical contexts of Chinese politics and tradition. It will identify and analyze the many forces and ideas that influenced Liang as he formulated his reflections, especially the timing around the turn of the twentieth century and the discourses of nascent nationalism in Japan where Liang lived in exile. The way Liang created - or recreated - the Italian story demonstrated that the Chinese had finally begun to realize a crucial point about the building of a modern nation. While Britain, the United States, and France were able to build a modern nation by starting from the grass roots and more closely observing Enlightenment ideals, China did not have the luxury or the time to follow the same path. In the age of high imperialism, the weak would simply be weeded out quickly. Without national salvation, there could be no modern nation. National salvation, as exemplified by the Risorgimento, involved maintaining and glorifying the country's own traditions and core values, which would in turn unify different social segments. Liang and his fellow reformers realized the importance of having simultaneously a national cause, a single political party, and a single leader, instead of having to take separate steps toward awakening. Liang's awakening paved the way for the unfolding of the great Chinese revolutions of the twentieth century, led first by the Kuomintang and then by the Communists. Following Liang's track of thinking, they both strived to build - or rebuild - a political centralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]