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Territorial tensions in the waters surrounding China have escalated in recent years. Maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas are, however, not just territorial, but are fundamentally underpinned by China’s attempts to display its growing regional dominance. In this vein, this article focuses on both the tangible and intangible values inherent in the concept of territory, analyzing existing studies proposing that contemporary territorial disputes may transform themselves into military clashes. It shows how China’s national pride and burgeoning military nationalism are connected to tensions with the USA by presenting two case studies. Congruently, the paper critically assesses contemporary claims that the territorial disputes are, in fact, a product of China’s ‘Monroe Doctrine,’ which frequently functions as a warning to the USA. In so doing, the article contributes to understanding the implications of the region’s instability for American foreign policy and, more significantly, for international security.

The Jeju April 3rd Incident of 1948, which resulted in the largest number of casualties in modern Korean history other than in war, was a national tragedy. The complexity of the incident and its importance in Korean history explain the failure to discuss it publicly until the late 1980s. For this reason, existing studies have largely focused on uncovering the truth about this incident. Even though national reconciliation is an important topic in South Korea, a more structured study from a transitional justice perspective has not been undertaken of this violent event that led to a divided country. Thus, this study provides a theoretical framework for the conditioning of the institutionalisation, national narratives and psychological healing that are required to establish national reconciliation. The paper, then, applies this framework to the Jeju April 3rd Incident. Finally, it evaluates the limitations and challenges of national reconciliation in South Korea.

The aims of this paper are to take stock of the current development of political reconciliation in Northeast Asia at the levels of government and citizenry, and to explore a critical impediment to political reconciliation, despite increasingly complex interdependence in the region. This paper argues that different (if not incompatible) historical prisms are central to explaining the current regression of political reconciliation in Northeast Asia. It is also argued that, without any sensitivity to different historical prisms of China, Japan and South Korea, mainstream international relations theories are insufficient to explain the complexity of Northeast Asian international relations today.

This study analyzed the Collective Action for the Mobility Program of University Students in Asia (CAMPUS Asia) program, whose initiation in the Northeast Asia region was agreed upon for political reasons by the leaders of the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, and China. The program is significant due to the current rapid marketization of East Asia’s higher education exchange. Accordingly, this study examines CAMPUS Asia as a top-down exchange and explains how the program enables the institutionalization of a trilateral relationship, promotion of mutual understanding, and identity change. It is hoped that the utilization of one-on-one interviews with participant students in particular will enhance the academic contribution of the paper. Moreover, the conclusion explains the current issues of political instability and imbalanced participation the program faces, and suggests measures to overcome these issues. Through this discussion, it is expected that a vision will be produced whereby the CAMPUS Asia program will go beyond its current pilot phase and develop into a stable program.

In recent years, the process of reconciliation between South Korea and Japan has been going backwards, at both governmental and societal levels. Previous studies, including those from historical, realist, and domestic perspectives, have attributed this to government-level actions only. This study, however, treats civil society as an active agent and scrutinizes evolving South Korea–Japan relations through the prism of cooperation/conflict between Japan’s civil society and its government. Cases involving forced sex slaves and history textbooks will be used to examine how Japan’s civil society affects policies on postwar issues, or to discover the reasons for their limited influence. Because such structural factors as the Japanese government’s control over civil society and civil society’s restricted influence on government cannot be changed rapidly, this study recommends that civil society organizations in each country form a transnational civil society as an alternative way to create solidarity and give meaning to Japanese civil society’s past efforts at reconciliation.

Previous studies on international reconciliation have focused on the security and economic interests of the countries involved, treating reconciliation as an end-goal rather than an ongoing process. This study divides the process of reconciliation into three stages. ‘Procedural reconciliation’, which refers to the mending of international relations through institutional change, is the most basic. In the ‘material reconciliation’ phase, the perpetrator(s) provides the victim(s) – either at the individual or state level – with economic compensation for inflicting harm. The third stage, ‘ideational reconciliation’, is reached when the perpetrator acknowledges past wrongdoings and when civil and cultural exchanges are carried out smoothly.This study delves into the relations between South Korea and Japan. Even though reconciliation between South Korea and Japan is vital to achieve stable peace in Northeast Asia, the topic has not received sufficient scholarly attention. Former studies have focused on bilateral relations, but few have discussed the two countries' path towards reconciliation. In this study, readers will find an in-depth analysis of the ties between South Korea and Japan from an international reconciliation perspective, one which will help them understand how the two nations have worked towards understanding and how much they have achieved to date. The study also suggests a roadmap to reach the final stage of reconciliation and identifies the policy changes needed to get there.

This study critically assesses whether Japan has fully and sincerely apologized to its neighbors for many of its actions during World War II. Existing studies frequently assume that Japan has not provided such an apology. As a result, studies have provided explanations for this, but have not considered the form required of such an apology. This article, therefore, provides a fourfold analytical categorization of Japan's diplomatic apologies. The article reveals that not only has the Japanese government made a number of apologies, but they have varied in their sincerity and political purpose. This was ascertained by evaluating whether an apology was specific – resulting in a sincere acknowledgment of an event – and whether there were specific consequences – such as an action or some form of reparation. The results provide useful insights into the form that sincere and insincere apologies have taken, with the aim of undermining the cyclical “apology debate.”

Despite significant commonalities such as shared threat perceptions, democratic consolidation, and socioeconomic interdependence, Korea and Japan have failed to find a deeper level of reconciliation. To solve this puzzle, in this article I introduce and illuminate the features of an ‘ideational reconciliation process’, which captures the dynamics created by the main actors in the process people. Through this analytical framework I explain how and why Korea and Japan failed to achieve a deep level of reconciliation by analyzing the sophisticated features of a flawed ideational reconciliation and the ‘rights revolution’ brought about by the sex-slave victims and forced laborers’ transnational litigations. Contrary to the liberalist prediction of unconditional cooperation between Korea and Japan, this study foresees an era of new dynamics surrounding historical contentious issues in the Korea-Japan relationship.