Deconstructing Japan's Image of South Korea: Identity in Foreign Policy

Deconstructing Japan’s Image of South Korea

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Deconstructing Japan’s Image of South Korea Identity in Foreign Policy Taku Tamaki

deconstructing japan’s image of south korea Copyright © Taku Tamaki, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978-0-230-61931-9 Tamaki, Taku. Deconstructing Japan’s image of South Korea : identity in foreign policy / Taku Tamaki. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-230-61931-9 (alk. paper) 1. Korea (South)—Foreign public opinion, Japanese. 2. Group identity—Japan. 3. Japan—Relations—Korea (South) 4. Korea (South)— Relations—Japan. 5. Public opinion—Japan. I. Title. JZ1745.A57K68 2010 303.48'25195052—dc22

2009029409

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: March 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Contents

Preface

vii

Notes on Japanese Names and Translations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

Part I

Theorizing Resilient Identity

1

Identity Theorizing in International Relations Theories

15

2

Identity Representation and Intersubjectivity

33

Part II

Japanese Collective Identity as Reification

3

Contemporary Japanese Identity Narratives

61

4

Japan-(South) Korea Relations in Historical Context

87

Part III The Narrative Tripod in Contemporary Japan-South Korea Relations 5

The Politics of Memory

113

6

The Politics of Future in Bilateral Summitry

141

7

The Political Economy of Identity: Backwardness Revisited

157

8

Conclusion

177

Notes

187

Bibliography

227

Index

245

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Preface

It has been sometime since identity theorizing entered the lexicon of international relations (IR) theory via the so-called postpositivist literature. Despite the initial skepticism over whether or not postpositivist literature can provide robust empirical research,1 this mode of enquiry has now established itself as one of the mainstream ways of thinking about international politics. Yet, an exploration into the literature on the AsiaPacific reveals that ideational factors, such as norms and identity, are still not prominent, with the notable exceptions on the various studies on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and some aspects of Japanese foreign policy as well as Chinese strategic culture.2 When it comes to Japan-South Korea relations, this lack becomes stark: much of identity theorizing appears within cultural studies, but such a combination of identity with the bilateral relations is considered a novelty. It is also an opportune moment to enquire into the role of identity in Japan-South Korea relations today, a century after the annexation of Korea in August 1910. Over the past one hundred years, it goes without saying that so much has changed. The colonial relationship has given way to a quasi-alliance within the U.S.-Japan-South Korea tripod,3 and the two are cooperating with three other states (the United States, China, and Russia) within the framework of six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear program, putting aside the familiar issue of the past for the time being. At the same time, it is intriguing that the “inner logic” in the dynamics of bilateral relations resembles 1910: one can readily identify Japanese condescension toward Korea, not to mention the recurring debate over Japan’s wartime record despite policy coordination in other areas. It is as if Japan’s collective self-understanding is predicated upon identifying Korea as an enigma in its foreign policy formulation. Hence, Japan-South Korea relations of 2010 share some conceptual similarities with the colonial-era relationship defined through hierarchy: the purported “myth” of Japanese uniqueness justifying the subordination of Korea. Put differently, while the international environment and diplomatic relations between Japan and (South) Korea have transformed within the past century, the resilience of this psychological landscape indicates Japan’s constant readjustment to the

viii

PREFACE

contingencies of spatial-temporal existence. It is through this process that collective identity informs Japan’s worldviews and reaffirms the images of Korean otherness. Such an observation provides a window of opportunity to further explore identity theorizing in IR as well. Japan’s experience with Korea necessitates an account through which changing identities and worldviews need to be conceptualized within a resilient—if not stable—conceptual framework. This enquiry entails treating the international system as a macro-level social sphere. Furthermore, not only do we need to engage with variances in identity narratives through time and space, we also need to be able to appreciate the resilience inherent in the reconstruction of self and other. In other words, this book explores how the collective self has experienced vacillating international environment and yet consistently managed to reconstruct the familiar otherness despite the changing circumstances. Hence, this book is both an IR theory intervention into JapanSouth Korea relations, on the one hand; as well as an attempt at transposing identity theorizing from cultural studies into the mainstream of IR theory literature, on the other. Japanese colonial rule over Korea ended sixty-five years ago; but the narrative infrastructure of Japan’s Korea imaginary retains its capacity to frame Japanese policy elites’ images of Korea and their shared worldviews into the wider world to this day. This book is a theoretical exploration into the cohabitation between continuity and disjuncture in Japan’s Asian existence.

Notes on Japanese Names and Translations

Japanese names in this book appear in Japanese order—family names followed by given names. However, exceptions to the rule apply when authors cited prefer Western rendering of their names, as in books and articles published in English. Also, I have decided against the use of macrons, since they are redundant in most instances. I have provided the bulk of translations from Japanese to English, apart from cases where translations were either provided by the Japanese government (e.g., the 1947 constitution), or by the authors cited (e.g., the 1995 Diet Resolution).

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Acknowledgments

The task of completing a book often seems a solitary one. The long hours spent poring over the literature, notes, and documents so easily make one forget that undertaking such a project needs the support of so many people. Looking back, one is reminded of how humbling an experience it truly is. This book grew out of a PhD thesis while I was at Aberystwyth University, and I owe my greatest intellectual debt to my supervisor, Colin Wight. He has shown an incredulous amount of patience throughout the entire process, reading through the manuscript a countless number of times and never failing to point out weaknesses, discrepancies, and everything else that he deemed substandard in his strenuous criteria. One can only look back with awe at the immensity of his intellectual drive. I am also grateful for Tim Dunne for his encouragements throughout the process. His numerous inputs made this project into a wholesome experience. I have also gained invaluable insights from discussions with various individuals. Nicola Piper provided me with direction during the developmental stage of the research. Stephen Large’s generosity in providing me with detailed comments and ideas on my earliest drafts has been a great source of inspiration, as well as encouragement. The exchange of ideas with M. William Steele and Kenneth Robinson helped me refine my arguments. The Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University made this project possible in the first place through the E. H. Carr Scholarship. I am also grateful to the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee (Grant 107) for providing me with the financial means to conduct my field trip to Tokyo in the summer of 2000. I am also indebted to the Institute of Asian Cultural Studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo for facilitating my research, and above all, for their unstinting hospitality. Ajiken provided me with support, both academically and spiritually, enabling me to conduct research over several summers: it was indeed a collegial refuge from the scorching heat of summer in Tokyo and an indispensable oasis in regaining one’s sanity. I also thank Kazumi Cunnison and Noboru Koyama of Cambridge University Library for their assistance during my research, and not forgetting, of course, the numerous oyatsu sessions.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many friends and colleagues contributed in their many ways throughout the prolonged process. I mention them with the obvious risk of leaving out more names—and for this, perhaps, a mea culpa is due. Nevertheless, Karl Cordell, Patrick Holden, Adam Morton, Wolfango Piccoli, and Gerry Hughes have never failed to provide me with various hints on resources. I am also grateful to my colleagues in the Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies for various hints in disentangling my ideas. Here, I risk restating the obvious; but a collegial environment is indispensable for one’s intellectual development. I also thank Matt McCullock for poring through my later drafts. Without them, this project would not have been a rewarding one. To them, I owe the strengths of this book; the weaknesses are mine alone. It seems almost customary to leave them until the end; but it also goes on to show that they are the basis of this project. I thank my mother, Setsuko, for her incessant support. Even if she is thousands of miles away, her counsels never felt distant. Junko has been my steadfast supporter with endless patience, despite her acclimation to an unfamiliar land. Finally, to my father, Norio, who would undoubtedly have several critical comments to make. Sadly, he is no longer with us to provide such scrutiny. It is to him that I dedicate this book.

Introduction

It is almost taken for granted that the bilateral relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (the ROK; South Korea) are bound to be tempestuous. The South Korean government accuses Japan of whitewashing history, while Tokyo alleges sinister Korean motives in discrediting Japan. This diplomatic quid pro quo has become such a familiar feature in this corner of Northeast Asia to the effect that the cohosting of the 2002 World Cup became a pleasant surprise—albeit a momentary one. The two governments claimed success; and for a while, the relationship across the Tsushima Strait seemed to be on course for a renewed friendship. Indeed, both the Japanese prime minister, Koizumi Junichiro, and South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, capitalized on the games, depicting them as a harbinger for a “new sense of partnership.”1 Despite this, mutual suspicion remained, reexposing historical rivalry between the two nations: The Economist notes that the decision to cohost the games was made when South Korea “spurred to compete for the games after Japan made its bid.”2 The relations further deteriorated with Koizumi’s adamant refusal to refrain from visiting the controversial Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, less than two months before the games, insisting on paying homage to the Japanese war dead, but not the former Class A war criminals, as Koizumi made clear on numerous occasions. Koizumi repeated his pilgrimage until he stepped down as prime minister in September 2005; and there was an initial ray of hope for a better relationship in his successor, Abe Shinzo, who pledged to improve relations with Japan’s neighbors. Yet, the initial euphoria faltered once the issue of wartime past, including comfort women, resurfaced as a political agenda.3 Putting aside whether or not this signifies continued Japanese amnesia, the bilateral exchange of invectives presents an inescapable reality in Northeast Asia. Why is this the case? I argue that an important part of the answer lies in Japanese collective identity. Collective identity reconstructs a frame of reference—a worldview—through which policy elites socialized into a particular mode of thinking to interpret the international environment. It is with this shared lens through which the Japanese government interacts with its South Korean counterpart. In short, diplomacy is a macro-level

2

DECONSTRUCTING JAPAN’S IMAGE OF SOUTH KOREA

social interaction. By analyzing the role of collective identity in Japanese foreign policy, I seek to explore the emergence and elaboration of a particular, Japanese, “language” of its relations with South Korea; and how that reifies bilateral relations as a social context often defined as difficult and sensitive. Here, reification is taken seriously. Rather than an epistemological trap best avoided, I take reification seriously as a social construct since it constitutes a “reality” faced by the agents. I explore the narratives of Japanese self within Japanese policy circles to shed light on how Korean otherness is depicted and reiterated; and how the legitimacy of Japanese self is subsequently reinforced. Nina Tannenwald argues that identity provides an actor with the “realm of possibilities” through which it encounters and reconstructs intersubjective structures.4 Treating Japan-South Korea relations as a macro-level social sphere enables us to take identity narratives seriously in their application to international relations (IR). Put differently, given the limits of exogenizing— or trivializing—actor identities, we are left without adequate theoretical tools to appreciate how certain social contexts emerge and manifest. This is particularly the case when we can only consider historical rivalries as merely a starting point of analysis, when it might be more fruitful to take the process apart. I explore the narratives of Japanese self and Korean other dichotomy through three themes: the Past, the Future, and Backwardness. I emphasize these terms with capital letters because they are not just about past events and optimism, nor representing Tokyo’s generalized disregard for Asian concerns; but rather because they represent reified images that inform and drive Japan’s approaches to its most immediate neighbor. To be sure, they are constructed images, but they pose an obdurate psychological landscape. The Past refers to the omnipresence of history—colonialism and wartime atrocities—as a constant backdrop to Tokyo’s intercourse with Seoul. The accusations and counteraccusations over Japan’s mnemonics exemplify this theme. Japanese policy makers know this: a series of official apologies over the decades is one diplomatic tool that Japanese government uses to placate Asian neighbors. The Future is very much related to the Past: it is in a sense a backlash to the persistence of the Past as an issue, such that Tokyo finds it imperative to reiterate mirai-shiko gaiko (the future-oriented diplomacy) in official pronouncements. It is precisely the manifestation of the Past that the Future becomes a language of escape—an avenue to abscond from the Past and the associated criticisms directed at Tokyo in a hope that Japan’s legitimacy is resurrected. Yet, the persistence of Past and Future assumes Backwardness as the defining characteristic of the Korean other, which employs war guilt as a means to criticize Japan. For the Japanese government, the reiteration of

INTRODUCTION

3

the Past and Future necessarily reflects the Backwardness of Koreans in refusing to grant Japan due credit. Hence, the Future is used as a signifier to mitigate the worst excesses of the Past, but the very act of uttering them reinforces the Backwardness of Korean otherness as opposed to forward-looking Japanese self. As such, the three themes are intertwined to the extent that one reinforces the other two. This is the vicious circle upon which the reification of difficulty—from the Japanese perspective—can be problematized. Taking the Narratives of Japanese Self Seriously The sense of Japanese self shared within the policy circles is a historical construct that has been reified into a dominant narrative of Japan’s Asia imaginary. It is very much a product of Japan’s contemporary international experience throughout the decades—modernization following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, and the rapid reconstruction after World War II; and is construed as a hallmark of distinction that Japan as a non-Western nation is nevertheless dissimilar to Asia. Put differently, Asia is depicted as a backward entity against which modern Japanese self is constructed, altercasting both the West and Asia as otherness that needs countering.5 Consequently, the narrative structure of this collective identity suggests a construction of an enduring condescension toward Asia; and the reproduction of Korean otherness needs to be located within this hierarchy. This helps to explain the prewar liberationist discourse of pan-Asianism, as well as the emergence of postwar Korean dependence on Japanese technology and the associated narratives of Backwardness. To be sure, such images of Korean otherness are reifications; but they nevertheless posit an inescapable reality for policy makers in Tokyo who base their choices on such a reified image. There is a growing literature on how Japan utilizes its diplomatic and economic clout in its foreign policy. Reinhard Drifte, for example, analyzes Tokyo’s use of “hard” and “soft” power (e.g., political and economic influence) in the Asia-Pacific region.6 Japan’s postwar economic success and its military potential are seen as an obvious starting point in the analysis of Japanese foreign policy preference in leveraging its hard and soft power. Drifte is not alone in this type of analysis. In fact, much of the existing literature still centers on the traditional, rational choice, theories treating the source of Japanese national interest as exogenously given. Barry Buzan’s analysis that “unlike nineteenth century Europe, a balance of power system in contemporary east Asia is unlikely to end in war among the great powers if only because of the fear of nuclear weapons” is an example of a neorealist

4

DECONSTRUCTING JAPAN’S IMAGE OF SOUTH KOREA

analysis.7 Hendrik Spruyt’s assessment that “adjustments to existing institutional arrangements [involving Japan] inevitably has something of a zerosum logic to it, given that such change alters the status quo”8 pays homage to neoliberal institutionalism tinged with neorealism. Even in comparing and contrasting hard versus soft power, Eric Heginbotham and Richard Samuels note that “when trade-offs must be made between military and technoeconomic security values, the latter frequently take precedence.”9 It is not my intention to suggest that rational choice approach is wrong: on the contrary, I agree that it provides explanatory mileage when the question has policy implications. Taewoo Kim’s call for the construction of a limited alliance between Japan and South Korea is one such example.10 Yet, the preponderance of traditional approach forecloses other avenues of inquiry into the many aspects of Japan-South Korea relations, including the role of identity. The existing literature either subsumes identity as an explanatory factor along with other exogenously given variables; or at worst, simply disregards it. Instead, this book takes reifications and identity narratives seriously in order to explore how identities are integral in reproducing particular contexts of interaction, including the mutual exchange of invectives between Tokyo and Seoul. I use terms such as “Japan” and “Tokyo” interchangeably to refer to policy makers as a collective, just as I refer to “South Korea,” the “ROK,” and “Seoul” interchangeably for similar purposes. This is partly for reasons of parsimony; but as I shall subsequently argue, collective actors have agencies that cannot be reduced down to the aggregation of individual attributes. The exploration into collective identity narratives necessitates an analysis into the role of collective agency precisely because an imaginary as a product of organizational behavior possesses a unique, collective, agency.11 In the diplomatic arena, the narratives of cabinet members, legislators, and bureaucrats all constitute the larger discourse of Japanese collective identity. Within economic relations, we also have to include the narratives of business community since they are at the forefront of economic interactions between Japan and South Korea. As Inoguchi Takashi argues, there is an organic link between the business and government.12 Hence, the narrative of the business community is an important constituent of a larger discourse of Japanese collective identity. Perhaps the issue here is one of actor designation. As Frederick Frey notes, “One cannot define and identify political systems in general or in particular without making some kind of basic actor designation.”13 Frey sums up the problem well: “undergeneralization of actors (seeing too many and too particular actors) confounds analysis and does not improve understanding, while overgeneralization (seeing too few and too comprehensive actors that are not unitary in their behavior) leads to distorted

INTRODUCTION

5

analysis and misinterpretation. Countless case studies replete with quickly forgotten proper names illustrate the magnitude of the problem of undergeneralization, while many analyses of national systems in terms of a dozen or so actors of shared characteristics (the military, peasants, business, etc.) illustrate the chronic problem of overgeneralization.”14 Frey’s argument provides a justification for my approach: I am exploring how the narratives representing the shared sense of Japanese self in opposition to Korean otherness reproduce bilateral relations defined as difficult and sensitive. Hence, the focus on elite narratives is warranted because speech acts at the level of diplomatic sphere acquires agency within the larger public discourse. Robert Gilpin addresses this as well. While noting that “states, as such, have no interests . . . only individuals and individuals joined together into various types of coalitions can be said to have interests,”15 he further suggests that “the state, i.e., those particular individuals who hold authority, has interests of its own.”16 The point here, of course, is not that states are sui generis unitary actors. Gilpin’s argument makes sense in that authorities do represent the state and what counts in diplomatic discourse is the dominant discourse within this particular sphere as negotiated among the key decision makers. To reiterate Frey’s point, attributing identity representation alone to non- and substate actors will not necessarily right the wrongs. My argument is that dominant narratives emerge through the logic of collective action:17 they emerge through the crowding out of individual narratives. As Steve Smith notes, state identities are born out of domestic politics to the extent that such domestic negotiations need to be taken seriously when considering the role of collective identity.18 Hence, references to “Japan” and “Tokyo” in this book refer more precisely to the collective identity narratives as represented within the discourses of policy makers as an emergent property of negotiations within the public sphere. As an emergent property, therefore, it makes it possible to talk of a policy circle as irreducible to individuals comprising it; and as such, collective identity represented by such a collective agent, too, cannot be reduced to a mere aggregate of individual identities.19 Theorizing Identity as Reification The aim of this book is two-fold. First, I provide a constructivist account that takes the resilience of dominant identity narratives seriously, rather than suggesting that identities are purely performative. My argument is that identities are layered, such that, as a resilient identity becomes reified, the agent is equipped with a longer-lasting worldview, which in

6

DECONSTRUCTING JAPAN’S IMAGE OF SOUTH KOREA

turn enables it to adjust and adapt to the contingencies of international environment. Second, I apply this framework to Japanese foreign policy in tracing the process through which Asia and Korea imaginaries are reified into an obdurate social fact for Japanese policy elites. Here, we need to be able to account for malleability in identity (e.g., pre- and post-1945 role prescriptions) while simultaneously accounting for similarities in the depiction of Korean otherness throughout the decades. I find both neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism to be inadequate in addressing the issues of identity, given their preoccupation with systemic analyses of state actions rather than the attributes at the unit-level. In short, traditional IR focuses on external factors as the main vehicle for explaining events. Even if neorealism and neoliberalism do recognize the existence of actor identities, either they are subsumed under the larger rubric of national interests, or their existence is attributed to exogenous factors.20 I then analyze the identity turn in IR theorizing, namely within constructivism and poststructuralism. As Yosef Lapid argues, identity theorizing pays close attention to “multiplicity” and “social construction,”21 and seeks to rectify the excesses and “disappointments” in what Lapid calls the “variable-centered model” prevalent in neorealism and neoliberalism.22 If traditional IR lumps identity into the realm of exogenously defined national interests, then the so-called postpositivist IR counteracts it by delving into ideational factors in an effort to understand the contingencies in actor behavior. Simultaneously though, both constructivism and poststructuralism are similar in their preoccupation with the performative identity, reluctant to countenance the reification of identity as a social possibility. This seems problematic: if only through performance can the self be defined, how do actors enter into such a performance in the first place? Who is performing it? This effectively reduces actors into automatons simply waiting for subjectivity to take hold of them. I turn to social theory to address this problem, focusing on a distinction based on a debate between antirealism and (philosophical) realism. On the one hand, antirealism is characterized by its ontological skepticism. Realism, on the other hand, suggests that while an identity is a social construct, it also acquires an autonomous agency that allows it to interact with its beholder.23 I argue that an actor needs to possess a sense of self in order for an individual to enter into any interaction, but by treating identity as solely a product of “doing,” it then fails to address the issue of contingency in actor behavior. Put differently, if a performance is to take place, we need an account of the performer, otherwise we cannot explore a person’s worldview as a key to understanding the circumstances that led to a particular performance. I am sympathetic to the antirealist argument that identities are born out of societal interactions, and I am

INTRODUCTION

7

also aware that identities, as social constructs, are multilayered. Social contexts change over time and space such that identities, too, transform over time and space. But the construction of identity is not a one-off event: it emerges from various social contexts, but is also elaborated into an agency of its own.24 Only by taking into account a resilient identity through which an actor reflects on the various social contexts, we are able to salvage subjects from being reduced to automatons. Theorizing Japanese Foreign Policy The above framework is necessary for exploring the role of identity in Japanese foreign policy. If the mode of inquiry is rational choice oriented (e.g., how Japanese interests translate into policy outcomes) then a discussion on the construction of Japanese worldview is superfluous. But given the emphasis on how particular context of interaction—namely, the difficulty experienced by Tokyo—is reproduced, abandoning identity narratives will be counterproductive. Only by embarking on a survey of ideational factors can we gain additional insight into the dynamics behind mutual skepticism—and in this case, Japan’s suspicion of, if not condescension toward, South Korea that is replicated throughout history. This mode of inquiry is a propitious addition to the growing literature on the Asia-Pacific, as well as the theoretical constellation within IR. The notion of a resilient identity is crucial in understanding why the acrimonious context of interactions between Japan and South Korea are so painfully familiar. I say resilient given the malleability of identity narratives on both sides of August 1945; while simultaneously reproducing hierarchy as the predominant frame of reference through which Tokyo casts its collective gaze on Asia. The notion of Japan as heiwa kokka (a peaceful state) and shonin kokka (a merchant state) being called upon to exercise leadership in nurturing peaceful interdependence is a common theme shared by the Japanese government and business community. Through this worldview, Japanese policy elites reproduce Korean otherness, according it with the status of a junior partner supposedly helping Japan to pursue its self-professed role. Their frustration at perceived Korean intransigence reproduces Backwardness as a label that best “fits” their view of their neighbors. To be sure, Japanese collective identity is a historical construct:25 it is not simply a product of the 1990s, let alone the post-1945 era. Japan’s self-professed role to promote peace—however ethnocentric—is already evident in the immediate aftermath of the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The politicization of kokutai (polity)—an ideology which centers on the

8

DECONSTRUCTING JAPAN’S IMAGE OF SOUTH KOREA

uninterrupted imperial lineage of the throne—in the Meiji Constitution of 1889 and the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890 marks the prewar emergence of hierarchy as a primary mode of thinking that continued through August 1945 in various guises. This hierarchy was preserved into the postwar decades. The renunciation-of-war clause in the 1947 constitution (article 9) congeals heiwa kokka identity; and Japan’s enthusiasm for soft power—ranging from Official Development Assistance (ODA) to foreign direct investment in Asia—signifies its penchant for taking initiatives by leveraging its economic influence.26 Both the heiwa- and shonin kokka designations constitute the postwar equivalent of hierarchy as a dominant worldview reminiscent of kokutai: in either case, Tokyo fails to identify Asia as an equal. While I am not suggesting colonial habits among the policy elites—at least not in the twenty-first century— the hierarchy as a prism through which Tokyo interprets international developments and rearticulates Korea imaginary is a poignant reminder that something reminiscent of a colonial image persists to this day. The reification of difficulty and the recurrent condescension toward Korean otherness need to be understood within this contemporary rearticulation of a colonial residue. The existing literature does analyze Japanese-South Korean relations, hinting at history as a major source of conflict. Drifte understands that the exchange of invectives forms a vicious circle whereby calls for apologies by Seoul result in diplomatic finger pointing.27 William Nester sees the bilateral relations through mutual antipathy,28 while Kenneth Pyle recognizes part of the problem to lie with South Korean skepticism toward its neighbor.29 However, the mainstream literature on Japanese foreign policy and the international politics of the Asia-Pacific treats bilateral exchange of invectives as something to be taken for granted—a starting point, rather than an object, of analysis. I provide a different perspective: I take the emergence of the politics of identity that exists across the Tsushima Strait seriously. Unless we can account for Japanese identity in the construction of Tokyo’s images of its most immediate neighbor, we cannot fully appreciate why and how the bilateral relations constantly degenerate into a mutual mud slinging. The resilience of hierarchy enables Japanese policy elites to reproduce Korean otherness as a backward entity amid Japan’s pursuit of peaceful interdependence. Such negative altercasting sets the frame of reference within which the three themes—the Past, the Future, and Backwardness—manifest themselves: the Past denoting the omnipresense of history in diplomatic relations; the Future symbolizing Tokyo’s intention to escape from it; and Backwardness as Japan’s reified image of Korea as obsessed with history. The ensuing conflict between Japan’s

INTRODUCTION

9

role-prescription and calls for repentance from South Korea provides fertile grounds for the reproduction of politics of identity between the two. My analysis is Japan-centric: I am primarily interested in understanding Tokyo’s bewilderment when Seoul demands restitution for Japanese wartime activities, given Japanese policy elites’ confidence in pursuing mirai-shiko gaiko precisely to entomb the Past. For Tokyo, compensation for the Past has been resolved through the 1965 Basic Treaty that normalized relations between Tokyo and Seoul. Yet, the recurring calls for apologies from Seoul and the ensuing diplomatic quid pro quo reifies South Korean demands for further compensation as a hallmark of its Backwardness—completing the thematic tripod. To be sure, the South Korean perspective is lacking from this analysis; but the theoretical framework that I posit here can easily be adopted to enquire into the Korean reproduction of Japanese otherness. Hence, this book provides the necessary start in seriously theorizing Japan-South Korea relations. An Overview I start with a theoretical discussion. Chapter 1 analyzes the various discourses of identity in IR theories, beginning with neorealism and neoliberalism by tracing the ways through which these two dominant, traditional, theories of IR effectively neutralize identities. While they do not deny the existence of ideational factors, their penchant for quantifiability and parsimony in model building suggests that intangibles are best left out of the equation, thereby denuding their actors of any sense of subjectivity. I then shift my focus on to constructivism and poststructuralism in IR. I choose these two so-called postpositivist theories since they serve as a useful benchmark in understanding how IR can begin to enquire into the issues of identity. Despite their superficial differences, however, both constructivism and poststructuralism are ultimately similar in the way they treat identity as predominantly preformative. It is as if an actor lacks identity until social interactions take place. Again, an actor is devoid of subjectivity. I shift my focus on to the debate between what can be termed antirealism and (philosophical) realism in social theory in Chapter 2. The constructivist/poststructuralist treatment of identity as relational begs the question of “who” enters into social interactions: their skepticism toward the existence of a resilient identity effectively turns both into antirealists. This is where I introduce realism. Realism not only allows us to account for the emergence of identity through social interactions; but it also equips us with an understanding of how emergent identity can interact

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DECONSTRUCTING JAPAN’S IMAGE OF SOUTH KOREA

with its holder, and be reified into an idea that a collectivity can tap into and utilize. Hence, my position is that it is important to account for the existence of a durable identity enabling the beholder to decide on which narratives to pronounce. This way, we are able to bring subjectivity back into “actorhood.” Chapter 3 provides a genealogy of Japanese identity narratives from 1889 to the present. I begin my analysis with the emergence of politicized kokutai. When kokutai—with its set of hierarchy and purported Japanese uniqueness—was enshrined into the Meiji Constitution (1889) and the Imperial Rescript on Education, its inculcation into the national psyche began. As a result, Japanese leadership identity was elaborated into a signifier shared by generations of policy makers—even into the decades after World War II. Whether Japan’s role-prescription was “liberation” of Asia through coprosperity (pre-1945), or peaceful interdependence (post-1945), hierarchy continues to represent Japan’s Asia imaginary in which Japan seeks to enlist the help of its “subordinates” in the region. Chapter 4 traces the processes through which Japan’s ethnocentric images of Korean otherness are reified; and how they in turn help legitimize Japanese self—whether through pan-Asianism or the postwar heiwa- and shonin kokka framework—from the mid-1870s to the present. While the Japanese self and Korean otherness dichotomy is a historical artifact, the similarities persist via the language of hierarchy. Reconstruction of the Backward Korean otherness solidified concomitantly with the politicization of kokutai, as Japan embarked on its version of imperialism. Yet, I also argue that even after the war, the persistent hierarchy meant that policy elites recollect the inevitability of the war, and interpret South Korean demands for recompensation as an indicator of their Backwardness. I then embark on an exploration of the thematic tripod consisting of the Past, the Future, and Backwardness. This tripod represents the dominant modes through which Tokyo conducts diplomacy with South Korea today. Chapter 5 focuses on the Past—the way historical memories afflict bilateral relations. I call this the politics of memory in which Japanese narratives consistently trivialize Korean memories of colonialism. This results in the issue of the Past becoming a constant irritant—if not an impediment—in Tokyo’s attempts at forging a workable relationship. The very existence of the Past as a contemporary phenomenon precipitates a second set of narratives: the Future. Chapter 6 focuses on Tokyo’s calls for mirai-shiko gaiko as a way to entomb the Past. It represents Tokyo’s eagerness to look to the future as a vehicle for propelling bilateral relations on to a new plane, thereby comfortably reassuming the role of a peaceful merchant state at the apex of regional hierarchy. But the regularity of the Past frustrates this effort,

INTRODUCTION

11

reifying Backwardness into a reality. In Chapter 7, I locate this reconstruction of Backwardness within the economic arena. Japan’s self-professed role as an economic leader expects South Korea to assume the role of a junior partner, but Seoul’s constant demands for technology transfers, along with complaints about current account deficit with Japan reinforces the difficulty of doing business with them. This sense of foreboding is shared among the business community, and filters into the policy plane when the Japanese government finds itself confronting South Korean accusations that Tokyo is not doing enough.

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Part I

Theorizing Resilient Identity

I

dentity is now a familiar topic in international relations (IR) literature. Theoretically, it has become a mainstay of postpositivist approaches; and empirically, wide-ranging case studies are subjected to identity theorizing. The aim of Part I is to establish a theoretical driver before embarking upon its empirical application to Japanese foreign policy and Japan-South Korea relations in Parts II and III. Here, I explore dominant contestations in IR theory before proceeding on to insights from social theory to gauge a better sense of how to account for a resilient identity that withstands contradictions inherent within fluctuating time and space just as Japan’s resilient sense of Korean otherness on both sides of August 1945 entails a conceptual resolution of continuity within disjuncture. Chapter 1 is an overview of identity theorizing within mainstream IR theories, starting with neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism. They argue that identities do not play a significant role in determining how actors behave within the international system, exogenizing factors such as worldviews held by policy entrepreneurs. To a certain degree, neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism are not concerned with the inner logic of states as black boxes, but given Kenneth Waltz’s meticulous neutralization of ideational factors,1 traditional IR theories are at least mindful of the potential roles identities might play in the “real” world. Yet, their penchant for parsimony in model construction ultimately dismisses identities as “unquantifiables,” subsuming them within the larger framework of actor interests. This provides the cue to explore constructivism and poststructuralism. Constructivism, on the one hand, treats actor identity as a social construct born of societal interactions, and once an identity is constructed the actors use them to further their interests. In other words, constructivism argues that actor identity and interests are mutually constitutive. Poststructuralism, on the other hand, suggests that identity is unstable, always shifting, and is constantly under challenge, pointing out that the boundaries of us versus them are always fragile. Such shifting of the boundary constitutes the “politics of identity.”

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While there are discernible differences in their approaches to identity, both constructivism and poststructuralism share similarities. The two schools of thought believe identity is relational, claiming that unless otherness can be defined, the self, which stands in opposition to the other, cannot be realized. In other words, only after societal interactions or shifts in boundaries take place can self-understandings be established. This elicits a question: “who” is experiencing this interaction and shift? The failure of both constructivism and poststructuralism to account for a resilient identity to experience such shifts and contradictions effectively results in agents being denuded of subjectivity. In order to “salvage” subjectivity, I turn to social theory. In Chapter 2, I seek insights from philosophical realism to reject the antirealism of both constructivism and poststructuralism in IR. I argue that in order for an actor to experience shifts in self-understandings resulting from upheavals in the external environment, we need to be able to account for a resilient identity to experience such transitions. It is the reified symbols of identity that allows actors to reconstruct worldviews through which interests are defined and preferences formed. Without this, actors are denuded of subjectivity and reduced to automatons. Realism provides a powerful account of emergence and elaboration of identities, allowing us to provide an explanation of how actors experience transformations without losing sight of the self. In effect, realism enables us to fully appreciate contingencies in actor behaviors, something antirealism is not well equipped to do. Indeed, without it, we are unable to appreciate the dynamics behind the lingering mistrust of Korean otherness among the Japanese policy elites, succumbing to the temptation to treat perennial exchange of invectives as a mere starting point of analysis instead of it being a symptom of reified Japanese worldview.

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ollective identity provides policy elites with a shared worldview through which the international environment is collectively interpreted; and this, in turn, presents them with a set of images that define viable actions. Japanese government’s reproduction of Korean otherness is no exception. The tenor of bilateral relations is partly a product of Japanese policy establishment sharing a particular, reified, image of Korea nurtured throughout the decades. In this chapter, I examine the various discourses of identity in international relations (IR) theories, ranging from traditional, rational choice, approaches to the so-called postpositivist approaches, particularly constructivism and poststructuralism. I use the term postpositivism as a convenient signifier of contemporary IR theories. While I appreciate that constructivism and poststructuralism are not the only contemporary IR theories with an interest in identities, their common penchant for performance provides us with a platform for further exploration into the possibility of taking reified identity seriously. Nor do I set out distinctions within traditional IR theories. I am not interested in rearticulating the neo-neo debate, for this fails to address the issue of how identities are treated therein. Instead, I place traditional IR under the larger rubric of rational choice theories. Problematic, though this might be, it is justified since their assumptions about state actors are very similar. Whatever the actor designation, traditional IR theories treat actors as sui generis rational and unitary, leaving almost no room for identities to be considered. I say almost, since some theorists display enthusiasm toward causal effects of identities on state behavior.2 My concern with the existing IR theories center on the prevailing consideration that identity is either, (a) unquantifiable, thereby leading to its dismissal; or (b) the focus on

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performance and the associated apprehension at any hint of a Cartesian entity. These prevent us from taking historically constructed—and reified—identities seriously, because the theories—both rational choice and postpositivist—tend to forget who the performer is. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the logic of rejection in neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism. The logic of rejection recognizes the existence of ideational factors, but their interest in how state actors behave within exogenously given constraints effectively neutralizes ideational factors in their model construction. They are not concerned with how state actors formulate self-understandings, but rather, they are attuned to how exogenous factors influence the way actors behave in the international arena. Hence, actor identity is subsumed into the larger framework of national interests, only to be sidelined as being irrelevant. By analyzing the logic of rejection, we can then appreciate how the postpositivist approaches. The second section moves on to constructivism and poststructuralism where I compare and contrast how they conceptualize identity. To be sure, it is difficult to specify their defining characteristics, but for the sake of clarity I treat this typology as unproblematic, since to question it detracts from how these theories utilize identities. Finally in the third section, I point out that despite their proclaimed differences, both constructivism and poststructuralism share a similar, if not identical, ontological position on identity. Their similarities point to the relational characteristic of identities, such that they seem to lose sight of who is socially interacting. The absence of self prior to socialization condemns actors into becoming automatons waiting for subjectivity to take hold. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to set out the context within which identity is theorized within the existing IR literature, and to provide a bridge into Chapter 2 where some of their inadequacies are elaborated and developed. The Logic of Rejection in Traditional IR Theories The traditional, rational choice, theories of IR are primarily interested in how actors’ interests affect their behaviors. From this, it seems as though the actors’ self-understandings play a crucial role in how they construct various models. Instead, traditional IR neutralizes identities for reasons of parsimony. As Kenneth Waltz writes, “Theories do construct a reality, but no one can ever say that it is the reality.”3 Hence, a theorist needs to limit the potential number of parameters, consequently abandoning factors that are relevant in real life, such as identities.4 Andreas Hasenclever et al. state

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that both the neorealists and neoliberals “do not problematize actors’ perception or causal beliefs.”5 The focus for neorealists and neoliberals centers on how actors behave within particular external constraints. For them, delving into actors’ domestic politics, let alone conceptual milieu, offends the parsimony of their model construction by introducing complexities. Robert Keohane identifies this to be one of the greatest weaknesses of rationalist (along with reflexive) school—the “insufficient attention to domestic politics.”6 Yet, Keohane quickly adds that insights from a levels-of-analysis approach enhance the explanatory power, thereby defending the core assumptions of both neorealism and neoliberalism by insisting on externalizing identities at any given levels of analysis.7 Furthermore, when traditional theorists turn to game theory, we encounter numerous games that actors play. But in the absence of an interest in how actors choose to play one game or another, we are left with an assumption that they simply find themselves in any given game, incognizant of the circumstances that led them into playing these games in the first place. This is tantamount to suggesting that the politics of memory, for instance, preexists Tokyo and Seoul. Put differently, the exogenous factors—e.g., the anarchical international system—are privileged over subjectivity and contingency. The core assumptions of neorealism outlined by Peter Katzenstein, Keohane, and Stephen Krasner explain the logic of rejection in traditional IR: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The international system is anarchic. States are the only actors in the international system. States are rational actors. States are unitary actors.8

The second and fourth assumptions do not necessarily collate well with neoliberal assumptions, but just as Joseph Nye and Keohane admitted;9 and as Robert Gilpin’s arguments show,10 even accounting for the roles played by non- and substate actors, the significance of state actors crowds out other players on the international stage. Their assumption that state actors are rational makes it pointless to ask how they formulate their preferences. For a rational actor, its preferences are determined by exogenous factors and that there is no point asking what role identities play in actors’ policy choices. Otherwise, an analysis into actor identities would be tantamount to taking apart actorhood, which in turn violates another of its core assumptions: that states are unitary actors. In essence, any inquiry into the worldviews of actors must be rejected at the outset. Waltz argues that the theory of international politics is written in terms of great powers because, in the end, “they set the tone.”11 This conveniently

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limits the amount of variables within his model. To be sure, Waltz does recognize the existence of both non- and substate actors. But for him, the parsimony in his modeling demands rationalization in the constellation of actors; and in his view, the reality of the international system provides him with a justification for concentrating solely on state actors.12 He does not entirely reject the role of ideational factors initially, but his assumption of actor rationality slowly erodes such elements from his model.13 For Waltz, rational actors worry about one thing: survival; and this conditions actor behavior.14 An actor’s primary motive for survival—and the subsequent urge to amass power for that purpose—is conditioned primarily by the nature of the international system, such that an actor behavior is affected by exogenous, rather than endogenous, factors. Hence, given the external constraints, Waltz argues that states are conditioned into seeking survival, if not universal domination.15 Such modeling leads to the uniformity of actor attributes. Put differently, in a dog-eat-dog international system, those states that fail to adapt to the rule simply drive themselves into extinction. Thus for Waltz, the international system today is comprised of “like units” that survived this competition, with states differing only in their power capabilities;16 and any efforts at unraveling the black box of a unitary actor are deemed reductionist.17 While Waltz admits that norms do play a role in international politics, survival of the fittest implies that states are socialized into the international system in favor of uniformity rather than difference.18 Waltz argues that “competition spurs the actors to accommodate their ways to the socially most acceptable and successful practices. Socialization and competition are two aspects of a process by which the variety of behaviors and outcomes is reduced.”19 Actors’ self-understandings become irrelevant in Waltz’s model of the international system since “socialization encourages similarities and attribute of behavior.”20 Therefore, Waltz’s conception of actorhood resembles automatons being affected by, but not impacting on, exogenous factors. Robert Keohane begins by suggesting that states might not necessarily be unitary actors. He states that international regimes are “constituted principally by governments whose officials seek to further the interests of the states,”21 but the focus shifts away from levels of analysis to eventually endorsing the view that states need to be conceptualized as unitary actors. This is necessary since his main concern lies in how state actors bargain within international political economy.22 Keohane argues that “actors are rational egoists,”23 adding that “egoistic players linked by a common society, with expectations of interaction may act as if they shared ethical standards.”24 Yet, these interests ultimately derive from exogenous factors—the anarchical international system.25

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Keohane provides an account of a rational actor whose interests are borne of exogenous factors. Despite the seeming recognition that non- and substate actors affect the way state actors might behave, Keohane tows a similar line to Waltz in justifying his recourse to focusing on states alone. He argues that the study of IR is concerned with “the purposive behavior of relatively small numbers of actors engaged in strategic bargaining,”26 such that there is the need to identify the most powerful set of actors from among the pool of potential candidates. This effectively delimits the constellation of actors within Keohane’s model, leaving unitary states as the only viable entity worth discussing. Ultimately, for both the neorealists and neoliberals, states are unitary and rational. Simultaneously, states are the most significant players in the international system, even if recognizing that there are non- and substate actors with some residual agency.27 Having posited this, it still seems possible for them to allude to identities. Waltz seems to hint at this possibility when he states that “socialization brings members of a group into conformity with its norms.”28 It is as if states are aware of who they are in counterdistinction to the others within the international system but cannot afford to concentrate on it. Keohane, too, suggests that “regimes consist of injunction at various levels of generality, ranging from principles to norms to highly specific rules and decision-making procedures.”29 Again, it is as if Keohane is alluding to the possibility of states formulating selfunderstandings as they interact with one another through socialization. However, Waltz quickly discounts the role of identities and other ideational factors since they do not provide a system-level explanation in his model. He maintains that a system-level analysis needs to look into how interacting units are arranged, rather than by observing their individual attributes,30 such that “structure is not a collection of political institutions, but rather the arrangement of them.”31 While Waltz delves into the possibility for identities, it becomes irrelevant, falling by the wayside. Keohane’s treatment of states as the most significant actors in the international system is similar in scope to Waltz’s, recognizing that there are actors other than states with marginal agency. But he suggests that outcomes in international politics are largely determined by a small number of actors—meaning sovereign states.32 To be sure, Keohane is sympathetic to the idea of identities as having some bearing on the way the states behave. Keohane and Judith Goldstein argue that “ideas matter for foreign policy, even when human beings behave rationally to achieve their ends.”33 However, the requirements of rational choice modeling compel Goldstein and Keohane to crunch identities into one of many independent variables, arguing that “the key issue, however, is not whether identities matter but how they matter, and how the effects can be systematically studied by social scientists.”34

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Identities are held exogenous to the actors themselves, resembling Waltz’s argument that states are primarily constrained by the anarchical international system. The logic of rejection in traditional IR theories, therefore, argues that the Hobbesian state of international anarchy creates like units that are concerned with survival and power maximizing. Differences in their selfunderstandings become irrelevant as actors are differentiated through power capabilities alone. Likewise, if some traditional IR theorists are interested in identities, it is because they treat identities as independent variables. Again, the ultimate source of preferences and interests for state actors derive from the international structure—to the extent that actors’ worldviews are deemed a distraction and agents are denuded of their intentionalities. In sum, the penchant for systemic analysis presupposes a simple model of the international system, resulting in the blackboxing of states.35 States, so they seem, are treated as mere automatons. The logic of rejection potentially elides Japan’s Korea experience borne of historical interactions into a mere distribution of capabilities, consciously refusing to explore the intricacies and intrigues into how Tokyo’s worldviews informed its socialization with the Asian neighbors. This makes for an extremely desolate psychological landscape, preventing us from delving into the entrenched nature of bilateral acrimony. The Logic of Engagement in Constructivism and Poststructuralism The logic of rejection in traditional IR theories derives from their treatment of states as rational, unitary, actors. This assumption precludes exploration into the inner workings of agents, otherwise the model suffers from complexities. Thus, only the external factors are considered in determining actor behavior; and self-understandings about the environment and about themselves are neglected. Subsequently, traditional IR treats states as black boxes, almost as if they are automatons acting and reacting only to external stimuli. An alternative to this is the logic of engagement in constructivism and poststructuralism in IR. They are usually referred to as postpositivism or critical theories of IR. I concentrate on these two since identity constitutes a key element in their theorizing, though I am mindful of the potentials for problems inherent in their nomenclature. It is difficult to draw a line between constructivism and poststructuralism in IR: and there are other approaches within the wider realm of postpositivism that explore realms neglected by traditional theories. Also, poststructuralism in IR is itself a misnomer. While I understand these problems, I utilize terms

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constructivism and poststructuralism as useful signposts in determining how they operationalize identity. To that extent, what matters are not their names, but how they make sense of identities. Both constructivism and poststructuralism entered the mainstream IR theorizing since the so-called identity/cultural turn toward the end of the cold war. Yosef Lapid notes that the 1990s had cast a critical look not only into the workings of international politics in reality, but on the discipline of IR as well. He states that the “enriched understanding of the concepts of culture and identity may contribute to a better comprehension of contemporary global dynamics,”36 since the identity turn allows us to look into the aspects of international life that traditional IR dismissed as irrelevant. Put differently, the turn allows us to explore new set of questions. Ronen Palan considers this turn to be more of a “fad” in IR, stating that they borrow “from social theory in order to argue that a proper understanding of the way subjects interact with the world and with each other alerts us to the fallacy of conventional IR theory.”37 However critical his view might be, the identity turn allows us to explore new theoretical frontiers. My first focus is on constructivism as I lay out its primary concern with the issue of identity. Then, I move on to poststructuralism to review its treatment of identity, providing an overview of how identities are treated in postpositivist literature. Here, I concentrate mainly on the writings of Alexander Wendt and David Campbell, since they represent constructivism and poststructuralism well. While they are not the only thinkers in each field, their concerns reflect the wider involvement of identity within constructivism and poststructuralism. Their approaches to identity indicate a general tendency in postpositivist IR to concentrate heavily on performance in favor of possibilities for a resilient identity that informs actor choices through time and space. Constructivist Discourse on Identity Constructivism purports to take actor subjectivity seriously. John Ruggie suggests that constructivists are concerned with “what happens before the neo-utilitarian model kicks in,”38 problematizing the hitherto under theorized intentionalities of agents. Nicholas Onuf states that “Constructivism is a way of studying social relations,”39 so that we can appreciate how states engage in diplomacy, not simply in reaction to external stimuli but driven by their perceptions of the environment. Therefore, the issue of identity is accorded priority in constructivist thinking, and an overview of Wendt’s treatment of identity exemplifies a constructivist conception of identity as an explanatory tool.

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Wendt defines identity as a “property of intentional actors that generates motivational and behavioral dispositions,”40 occupying an important position within the agent-structure problem. Contrary to the neorealist assumption that the structure of the international system hinges on the distribution of material capabilities, Wendt suggests that it is the distribution of ideas that matter. He considers international system as a social structure that is “ontologically dependent upon and therefore constituted by the practices and self-understandings of agents,”41 noting that, while game-theoretic approaches are interesting, they lack insights into agents’ intentionalities.42 Wendt seeks to rescue states from degenerating into automatons, and instead, recast them into intentional agents acting on their own volition. In essence states are “social entities” that constitute, and are in turn constituted by, the international system.43 Wendt suggests that his basic concern lies with how state identities and interests are formulated.44 Unlike neorealists, he claims that “anarchic structure explains little by itself; what matters is the identities and interests that states bring to their interaction and their subsequent impact of the latter on the former.”45 Instead of treating actors as automatons, he argues that “people act toward objects, including each other, on the basis of the meanings these objects have for them.”46 For Wendt, “intentional actors interact when they ‘take each other into account’ in making their choices,”47 such that external factors alone cannot account for actions because these factors need to be interpreted by the agents themselves. Only after the data is processed can the actors engage in any purposive behavior, since a “structure is carried in the heads of agents and is instantiated in their practices.”48 Thus, the exogeneity of international environment alone tells us nothing: we require subjectivity to process what it means. This is why “anarchy is what states make of it.”49 It is worth noting that Wendt treats the state as a unitary actor as well. For him, treating states in such a way is less problematic, arguing that one of the core claims of constructivism is to treat state as a principle actor in the international system.50 The crucial difference between Wendt and traditional IR lies in the former suggesting that a state is a complex social entity, while the latter treats uniformity as given. While acknowledging that there are sub- and non-state actors, as well as policy entrepreneurs at various levels, it is the complex web of interaction between and among them that constitutes a state. Wendt posits that “Insofar as the state is ontologically emergent, however, anthropomorphising it is not merely an analytical convenience, but essential to predicting and explaining its behavior, just as folk psychology is essential to explaining human behavior.”51 Here, Wendt recognizes that the state is a complex social entity such that what is akin to reification through theorizing is essentially a restatement of a social fact.52

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Simultaneously, the international system is construed as a social sphere upon which states as social agents interact with one another.53 With this core assumption—that the state is a collective actor with its own collective agency—Wendt seeks to introduce subjectivity as an additional explanatory factor. Having argued that the anthropomorphization of states is warranted, he then embarks upon how states acquire social identity through their interactions with one another—an argument reminiscent of G. H. Mead’s conception of the “conversation of gestures.”54 Mead describes social identity as “sets of meaning that an actor attributes to itself while taking the perspective of others, that is, as a social object.”55 For Wendt, “one cannot enact role identities by oneself,”56 meaning that it is through socialization with the others that any conception of the self is realized. In the conversation of gestures, a state A encounters state B. Yet, only after B reacts to A’s initial “introduction” and when the dynamics of the bilateral relations are established can A fully realize “who it is” in opposition to the “other” (e.g., B).Wendt claims that “interests and identities come from somewhere, and that obviously includes society,”57 since states do not have a portfolio of identities prior to socialization. Rather, their identities are relation specific to the extent that the conversation of gestures largely determines how states come to form their own self-understandings.58 For Wendt, “socialization is in part a causal process of learning identities.”59 Thus for Wendt, identities are borne of social interactions between and among the states, and until such interactions take place, actors seem devoid of subjectivity. Put differently, until the other is identified can the self be realized. This constant feedback loop comprising the conversation of gestures and identity formation seems like a self-professing prophesy. For instance, those hardwired to be predatory will reproduce a Darwinian state of nature in the international system. To counter this claim, Wendt suggests that changes are indeed possible, to the extent that “[identities] may be hard to change, but they are not cast in stone, and indeed sometimes are the only variable actors can manipulate in a situation.”60 Here, Wendt leaves open a possibility that a state might alter its role prescription, potentially altering the conversation of gestures with which it is engaged. The flip side of this is to suggest that a “systemic change may also be inhibited by actors’ interest in maintaining relatively stable role identities.”61 While states might initially lack self-understandings, once the conversation of gestures ensues, states can leverage identities strategically in realizing their national interests. For Wendt, identities are not only the effects of socialization but also an important variable in the equation. Of course, Wendt is not the only constructivist concerned with identities. But Wendt provides a useful benchmark with which other constructivist

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accounts of identity can be appreciated. Their treatment of identity is similar, if not identical, to Wendt’s approach. Ruggie argues that “identities are logically prior to preferences,”62 with Bill McSweeney suggesting that actors have “a prior confidence that me and they share in a common, fundamental identity as the condition for being able to construct differences between self and other, us and them.”63 They underline Wendt’s argument that identities can be used as a strategic tool for formulating national interests. Once identities are formed, they construct a particular worldview through which choices are rationalized and preferences formed. Jonathan Mercer, too, notes that “when identities change, so do definitions of self-interest,”64 claiming that “identities are made, not given.”65 Thomas Risse et al. uses this framework—that identities help shape national interests—to analyze the debate on the euro. They argue that “collective identities define and shape in the first place how actors view their perceived instrumental and material interests and which preferences are regarded as legitimate and appropriate for enacting given identities. At the same time, a change in perceived material and instrumental interests might well lead over time to changes in collective identities.”66 In effect, constructivists argue that identities provide a sense of orientation for states engaging in the conversation of gestures.67 The key to constructivist understanding of identities lies in it being a product of social interaction: this being very much a result of performance and hence transient in nature.68 Poststructuralist Discourse on Identity Just as pinpointing to what is meant by constructivism is difficult, the same can be said about poststructuralism in IR. However, I use this term unproblematically as a useful signpost depicting a particular set of ideas. Also, poststructuralism and postmodernism, while technically different, are used interchangeably in many instances. I refer to the former to encompass the latter. This, again, is for the purpose of convenience. I am confident that the analysis of identity theorizing within poststructuralist IR shows that its characteristic treatment of identity minimizes potentials for discrepancy. I believe what follows illustrates the nature of identity theorizing in this corner of the postpositivist IR. The defining nature of poststructuralism and postmodernism lies in its critique of the existing order. Ziauddin Sardar observes that poststructuralism tries to go beyond modernity by contesting meanings that were once thought of as obvious and unproblematic. Poststructuralism reveals that there are multiplicities of meanings, some of which have been subdued,

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while others are privileged,69 seeking to reveal contingencies in meanings, and hence the concept of the political. Jenny Edkins argues that the political “arises in the undecidability that is found in every moment of decision.”70 If meanings are contested, then our self-understandings are also indeterminate, constantly shifting and under challenge, being transformed from one social context to another through time and space. In short, identity is itself politicized. Edkins claims that “the postmodern subject, by contrast [to the Cartesian one], has no fixed, essential, or permanent identity.”71 David Campbell captures this indeterminacy well. For him, identity is a political project of securing autonomy; and the modernist notion of sovereign statehood is one prominent example. Campbell argues that “states are never finished as entities,” since the contested nature of state identity means that it cannot be “fixed” permanently.72 Campbell posits that “identity is an inescapable dimension of being. No body could be without it,”73 because social entities always find themselves within a particular social context with multitude of meanings constantly in a flux. Campbell argues that “meaning and identity are, therefore, always the consequence of a relationship between the self and the other that emerges through the imposition of an interpretation, rather than being the product of uncovering an exclusive domain within its own established identity.”74 Using the Bosnian War as an example, he argues that any reference to a “Bosnian identity” needs to be understood in the particular sociopolitical, as well as historical, context: any claim to its certainty needs to be contested once the hidden meanings are exposed.75 Poststructuralism stipulates that identities are inherently relational, and only through the realization of otherness can the self be identified. Campbell states that identity has “no ontological status apart from the various acts that constitute its reality” and that “the problematic of identity/difference contains, therefore, no foundations that are prior to, or outside of, its operation,”76 such that a state’s identity is recognizable only after the enemy is defined. Here again, the self is contingent upon the other, as it is in constructivism. As Campbell puts it, “The boundaries of a state’s identity are secured by the representation of danger integral to foreign policy.”77 Foreign policy becomes an act of delineating the boundaries between the self and other; and such identification constitutes an integral part of how states maintain their sense of security and autonomy. For him, foreign policy as politics of identity is an integral part of the international system.78 Campbell states that “Foreign Policy is concerned with the reproduction of an unstable identity at the level of the state, and the containment of challenge to that identity.”79 Identity, therefore, is a product of interaction. It is through the performance of diplomacy that differences are recognized, the otherness defined, and the self established.

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Since identity can only be discerned through difference, Campbell suggests that it becomes real when a subject actively engages in the political act of delineating boundaries.80 Difference/distinction can also be formulated through constant references to ethnicity and history. He uses the Bosnian case to suggest that the incessant reiteration of claims to ethnicity and history is tantamount to writing and rewriting the boundaries of the self and other. Meanings are attached to what is meant by Us versus Them in terms of the space We inhabit as opposed to where They are. Campbell argues that “even overtly instrumental accounts of the conflict can invoke primordial-like notions of ethnicity, and when the concern is history rather than ethnicity, a similar fixity can be observed.”81 According to him, “Ethnicity is therefore better understood as a component of the representational politics of identity.”82 Campbell argues that identities are inherently relational and unstable, prone to change as the boundaries of self/other shift. There is nothing definite about identities: any claim to the continuity of identity is a political ploy to maintain status quo—something that needs to be contested and usurped. Campbell argues that an “understanding of the performative constitution of identity is required to appreciate the way in which the foundation of authority for political actions and community are constructed.”83 The various avenues through which identities can be contested mean that they are multilayered, accounting for why identities are unstable and constantly shifting. Campbell notes that “identity is therefore more than something that derives its meaning solely from being positioned in contradistinction to difference; identity is a condition that has depth, is multilayered, possesses texture, and comprises many dimensions.”84 The politics of identity is simultaneously the politics of meaning. Other poststructuralists share his view on identity as being shifting and unsettled, only made realizable through performance. Roxanne Lynn Doty echoes Campbell when she argues that “national identity is never a finished product; it is always in the process of being constructed and reconstructed,”85 and due to it being a never-ending project, the boundaries of the self/other are flexible. Doty notes that “the identity of the ‘we’ is a flexible political resource, adaptable to changing circumstances and new crises,”86 as such, it is impossible to pin down national identity to one representation: there is no way of finding a single dimension to the multifarious ways in which national identities are realized.87 Iver Neumann also suggests that “the self will know the other and everything else only as a series of changing perspectives, not as a foundational fact. Indeed, it is the knowing that makes the self, not the other way around.”88 Being a political project, R. B. J. Walker argues that the struggle for political identity guarantees that the claims to us versus them is constantly, and rapidly, shifting back and forth through time and space.89

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Thus, the focus of poststructuralist theorizing on identity centers on how unstable identities are. Various claims to self and the countervailing perception of otherness provide for the emergence of the political in which meanings are constantly challenged. This concern with difference implies that identities are inherently relational, lacking any foundational anchorage. Any claims to such a foundation needs to be seen as an ideological discourse, and since identity lacks a foundation, it relies on language for its ontological sustenance. In other words, identity is tantamount to performing; and when the practice ceases, identity disappears. Discourse of Identity in Postpositivism: A Debate? Both constructivism and poststructuralism locate identity as a centerpiece in their theorizing with their insights into the inner workings of agents setting them apart from the traditional, rational choice, theories of IR. While neorealism and neoliberalism are interested in how states behave under a set of pregiven conditions, both constructivism and poststructuralism are interested in how identities as endogenous factors shape the many aspects of international politics. Bill McSweeney notes that “From different backgrounds, Wendt and Campbell bring the cognitive dimension of collective identity to bear on the formulation of foreign policy in a mode of inquiry relevant to security and in contrast to the materialist, structuralist mode of security studies.”90 It is noteworthy that McSweeney suggests Wendt and Campbell as coming from “different backgrounds.” Superficially, he is justified, given the frequent sniping between the constructivist camp and the poststructuralist counterpart. Campbell, for instance, takes issues with Wendt’s perceived state centrism, accusing him of “marginalizing a more radical understanding of identity.”91 He is uneasy with Wendt’s treatment of the state as a collective actor with an emergent collective agency, accusing Wendt of reification. Campbell argues that Wendt’s rendition of the state fails to focus on the contested nature of state identity, taking issue with Wendt’s apparent use of identity as a tool of foreign policy.92 Here, Campbell sees “a powerful rationalist pull” condoning traditional IR theories.93 Taken together, Campbell’s main problem with Wendt is that the former faults the latter for being too sympathetic to neorealism and neoliberalism in ignoring the political in identity politics. Campbell accuses constructivism of crunching identity into a set of variables used in the calculation of state behavior. In short, Campbell sees constructivism as rational choice reincarnate. Doty shares Campbell’s compunction, accusing Wendt of providing an account of a state that is just about anything: it being “an actor with an

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identity, interests, and agency and a social structure.”94 She is concerned with the determinacy involved in Wendt’s treatment of the state, expressing discomfort with Wendt’s concern with state agency. For her, Wendt’s state remains unjustifiably unproblematic: the state is always there to be socialized into the international system; and the state is always there to acquire, and then utilize, its social identity. Paralleling Campbell’s argument, Doty considers the state as a “project,” whose identity is constantly shifting and being challenged, such that any reference to the state as being a unitary or collective actor is unacceptable. She further argues that “the overall effect of [Wendt’s argument] is an abstract, conceptual entity, ‘the state,’ that is in fact not unitary, but split, contradicting and even schizophrenic.”95 In her view, Wendt “has trouble grappling with a world characterized by opposed ideas, contradiction, instability, contingency, and indeterminacy.”96 Here again, Wendt is faulted for ignoring the political in identity politics. Wendt, on the other hand, criticizes Campbell for providing an account of state identity that lacks any notion of causality.97 Instead of identity as shifting and contested, Wendt considers identity as a social construct,98 simultaneously posing as a foreign policy tool.99 For Wendt, the internal relationship between social identity and the ideational structure of the international system suggests a need to consider the unintended consequences of intended actions in order for the system to transform. He views the poststructuralist notion of unstable identity as incapable of accounting for this change, implying that Wendt wants to construct an account of how identity causes state behavior. Hence, he argues that a reification of identity is necessary, rather than treating identity as mere difference/distinction.100 Is the difference between the constructivist account of identity and its poststructuralist counterpart as stark as it is suggested? It seems that the focus of the debate centers on whether, on the one hand, identity as a social construct can nevertheless be used as a tool for foreign policy; or, on the other hand, a shifting and unstable identity is a political project that is difficult to pinpoint. Yet, to the extent that both constructivism and poststructuralism suggest that identities are acquired through social interactions, similarities seem more pronounced than the differences. Postpositivism in general seems to suggest that even if identity can be used to realize national interests, the state’s self-understanding is realized only after the other is recognized. Simultaneously, the political emerges only once the agents enter into a conversation of gestures. The relational accounts of identity in both constructivism and poststructuralism seem to indicate that they are much more similar to each other than what a debate might otherwise suggest. Wendt argues that “actors acquire identities . . . by participating in such collective meanings. Identities are inherently relational,”101 since there is no

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self until the otherness is defined. Instead, “they define their interests in the process of defining situation.”102 Only after such interactions ensue can actors acquire meaningful understanding of the other, let alone the self,103 arguing that “identities are produced in and through situated activity.”104 Hence, identity is subsumed into performance, noting that “practice is the core of constructivist resolution of the agent-structure problem.”105 This is peculiarly similar to Doty’s claim that “the issue of agency and structure(s) cannot be adequately or critically examined without also examining representational practices.”106 Identity emerges from social interaction, and the process is largely dependent on the course the interaction itself takes. In effect, “in any given situation, however, it is the nature of identification that determines how the boundaries of the self are drawn.”107 For Wendt, identity is never concrete; on the contrary, it is determined through performance. Campbell treats identity in a similar way: for him, it is relational as well. For instance, an identity of a state is formulated after the enemy—or in his case “danger”—is recognized. The otherness represented though the sense of “danger” eventually constructs the self in distinction/difference to such a representation.108 The context within which “danger” is defined changes constantly, as is the self in opposition to it. The constant struggle to preserve the self from this incessantly changing “danger” is the very fluidity inherent within the politics of identity. Thus, the poststructuralist self is never settled. Indeed, it is a never-ending project, similar to Wendt’s earlier suggestion that there is no portfolio of predetermined identity and interests. Campbell argues that “there are no primary and stable identities,”109 and until the difference/distinction emerges out of social interaction, an agent is devoid of subjectivity. For Campbell, the sociological provides the grounds for the emergence of the political, but insofar as he is interested primarily in the elaboration of difference, the idea of the self prior to the emergence of the political is less crucial for him. Campbell argues that “identity can be understood as the outcome of exclusionary practice in which resistant elements to a secure identity on the “inside” are linked through a discourse of ‘danger,’ with threats identified and located on the ‘outside.’”110 Therefore, “difference is a requisite for identity.”111 Both accounts of identity by Wendt and Campbell are very similar: they both claim that identities are relational, and that an actor has no sense of self until the otherness is defined through performance. While poststructuralists do not explicitly profess to doing so, they unwittingly subscribe to Mead’s notion of the conversation of gestures just as constructivists do. As a prelude to Wendt and Campbell, Mead argues that a “meaning appears within the process [of interaction]”112 and that a self is not there are birth: it comes through social activities.113 In short, “selves can only exist in definite relationship to other selves.”114

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Accounts of identity in constructivism and poststructuralism, therefore, are silent on who is engaged in the social interaction which provides for the emergence of social identities: it is as if the agents are automatons devoid of subjectivity. It is worth noting that Wendt criticizes Campbell for his lack of insight into actor intentionality.115 To be sure, Campbell’s concern with the political means that he is less worried about the sociological from which the difference emerges. Yet, Wendt too is guilty of neglecting intentionality insofar as faithfully following Mead’s conversation of gestures,116 since there is no account of the performer prior to the onset of performance. Moreover, if both constructivism and poststructuralism are mindful of contingencies in actor behaviors,117 we need an account of the self that is experiencing the various shifts and constructions that are taking place. This poses a serious challenge to the extant IR literature: both the constructivists and poststructuralists cannot adequately account for the evolution of a social context between two actors despite the possibilities for inherent continuities and changes in one’s attitudes toward the other. The case of Japan’s relations with Korea over the decades is particularly telling: we need a theoretical tool able to countenance both the changes and continuities in their perceptively difficult relationship. Furthermore, socialization at any given time is a product of preceding interactions, to the effect that any account that aligns identity solely with a particular spatial-temporal performance remains blind to the process of change. Just like neorealism and neoliberalism, both the constructivist and poststructuralist actors are reduced into automatons merely waiting for subjectivity to befall them. Conclusion This chapter explored the various ways through which the issues of identity are dealt with in IR theories. Traditional IR theories such as neorealism and neoliberalism subsume identities within the ceteris paribus of rational choice assumptions since they cannot find adequate ways to integrate unquantifiables. In this case, just as preferences are held constant in economics, identities are assumed and held constant. As Waltz notes, the process of socialization within the anarchical international system produces like units whose preferences are distilled down to constitute an identity such that they are all primarily interested in survival.118 On certain occasions, traditional, rational choice, theorists do engage with identities, turning the unquantifiable into a variable.119 But in general, identity ceases to be the primary concern for them.120 Identity is taken more seriously in the contemporary IR theories. I examined both constructivism and poststructuralism, despite the difficulties in

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defining exactly what these two terms mean.121 Also, it has not been my intention to suggest that constructivism and poststructuralism are the only contemporary IR theories to be interested in identity. Rather, my discussion identified these two theories as explicitly involved with identity, and therefore they constitute benchmarks within the gamut of contemporary IR theories. Through the discussion of constructivism and poststructuralism, I have shown that the former is interested in how identities are borne of social interactions, while the latter is concerned with identities being constantly shifting and inherently unstable. Yet, to the extent that both constructivism and poststructuralism treat identity as primarily performative, they are prone to luring in automatons. While the two are initially engaged in a debate of sorts, subsequently, the differences become negligible. It seems that both the constructivists and poststructuralists are ontologically antirealists insinuating that identities are somehow reducible to performances that constitute them. Furthermore, they seem to trivialize the contingencies of subjectivity, reducing identity down to mere difference.122 This relational conception of identity is fine insofar as the question centers on how identities are constructed throughout time and space, but once the question involves a resolution of change versus continuity in an agent’s lifespan, such a treatment remains unhelpful trivializing the contingencies in subjectivity and the agency of actors themselves. What, after all, accounts for a resilient identity that enables an agent to experience changes and helps her to recalibrate interpretations of the social environment around her throughout the decades? The problem is particularly dire for a state like Japan that experienced significant transformations in its psychological landscape straddling August 1945, yet displays familiar condescension toward its Asian neighbors. In order to make sense of how identity reproduces agency, while simultaneously adapting to changes, I shall now turn to hints from social theory in the next chapter.

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perusal of identity debate within international relations (IR) suggests that both the constructivists and poststructuralists share similarities despite their antagonisms, reluctant in addressing the possibility of an enduring identity informing a government’s worldview at any given time and space. This lack is particularly acute when exploring the politics of memory in Northeast Asia, for instance. This chapter expounds on the possibility of analyzing identity from a philosophical realist perspective as opposed to the strong discursivity prevalent within postpositivist IR. There are several issues, which cannot be addressed by it alone;1 and social theory provides us with a useful platform for addressing them. By exposing variations in the approaches to identity, I highlight the shortcomings of antirealist pull in IR, and suggest that philosophical realism provides a better conceptual tool for taking resilient identities seriously. To be sure, narratives will also be taken seriously; but I pay closer attention to a reified identity that transcends generations of policy elites as an important focal point. A simple description of the terms is in order. On the one hand, antirealism is marked by its ontological skepticism,2 arguing that when social contexts change, meanings attached to various speech acts also undergo transformation. Likewise for identity, antirealism argues that it is never fixed;3 that it has no ontological status apart from the representations which constitute it,4 and evolutions in social context entail changes in identity narratives—which are always shifting, unstable, and contested. This indeterminacy is the very politics of identity. It is worth noting that the uncertainty of identity and its relational characteristic is an idea shared by constructivists as well. Realism, on the other hand, argues that even if meanings are constructed through social interactions, they cannot be reduced to practices alone. This is because once the meanings are constructed, they emerge

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to acquire an agency of its own, making it possible for the interlocutors to interact with ideas and images that emerge from discursive practices.5 In terms of identity, realism agrees that self-understandings are born of social interactions; but once a particular identity is constructed and reiterated, it gains resilience, enabling an agent to reflect upon her position within society. Realism avoids reducing identity into mere representations alone, providing an account of a resilient identity amid transient social contexts.6 I borrow from realism in an effort at making a case for the representor of identity representation. This is particularly salient when we need to take seriously the similarities in Japan’s approach to (South) Korea on both sides of August 1945 despite the purported changes in Japan’s superficial identity narratives and the surrounding international environment. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section recapitulates some of the main discussions on identity representation within the antirealist literature in social theory in order to expose some of their problems. The second section discusses the realist/antirealist debate in more detail, illuminating similarities as well as differences between them. In the final section, I provide my alternative account—drawing from the works of John Searle and Margaret Archer—in accounting for the existence of a resilient identity; and how it is represented through narratives to reify enduring images of the international environment, on the one hand; and the construction of collective self in perpetual opposition to an other as a shared image within policy circles, on the other. I suggest that a representation needs a representor to begin with. Otherwise, subjectivity is trivialized in the process. Identity as Representation The contested nature of identity—in both theory and practice—and the difficulty of physically locating it encourages the notion that identity has no ontological status apart from the representations within which it is constituted. The physical difficulty is easily appreciated: the impracticality of splitting open people’s heads is an obvious case in point. It is made more difficult in the discussion of collective identities, since their loci cannot be reduced to each constituent, requiring discussion not only of individual attributes but how they are shared between and among the group members. To compound the problem, the philosophical definition of identity—everything is what it is and not something else—fails to capture social identity as contested and constantly shifting. The mainstream theories in social theory seek to explain identity in three ways:

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(1) through narratives, (2) via “doing,” and (3) within language in general. These three explanations of identity representation do not imply that they are all separate and distinct from one another, but rather, they all point back to the contested nature of identity. These three strands provide a useful framework for understanding the predominant approaches to identity—antirealism.7 Identity as Narrative Antirealism suggests that an unstable identity shifts from one social context to another through a political project in which a subject represents her self in opposition to whoever is construed as the other. This self/other dichotomy and the reproduction of boundaries separating us from them constitute the “political” within the politics of identity, thereby rejecting it as a concrete entity. Craig Calhoun maintains that “in the modern era, identity is always constituted and situated in a field and amid a flow of contending cultural discourses.”8 Identities are deemed most conspicuous in narratives, since a subject constantly needs to associate herself with the particular context by telling stories about “who I am” in opposition to “them.” It is a dialogue both external (the subject communicating with the world around her) as well as internal, since she can only understand the world within which she inhabits by constantly readjusting her self-understandings.9 Dialogue in the form of storytelling is a practicable way through which a subject reaffirms self-knowledge. As Margaret Somers and Gloria Gibson note, “Stories guide action”10 to the extent that social actors tell stories in which “one becomes through stories/ narratives.”11 Calhoun adds that a “self-knowledge” is constructed through representations such that identity “is a construction no matter how much it feels like a discovery.”12 Thus, antirealism is skeptical of the existence of a stable self since subjects tell particular stories within particular contexts which denote ever-changing selves. The indeterminacy of identity means that it is a mere symbol signifying the self-knowledge of the subject: identity is realized only when it is put into practice. Maykel Verkuyten states that “people have to be oriented, interested in what is being expressed and the symbolic form has to be the means to experience the symbolic content.”13 Here, we see that identity as representation is accorded potency only when the symbolism is expressed in storytelling. Through representations, actors “state who they are, how they understand both themselves and others, when they locate themselves and others, and which are the cognitive and affective resources that are available to them in a given historical

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time. Social representations, therefore, tell us about who is doing the representational work.”14 Here, representation is a dialogue between the subject and the world in a process that makes self-understanding possible.15 Narratives enable a subject to understand who she is by providing meanings via speech acts enunciated within a particular context. Thus, if on “ontological terms the representation is the object whose name it bears,”16 the narratives of identity become the identity itself. Memory is an integral part of identity representation. Past events and experiences of the subjects are reified into symbols for recollection, subsequently fusing with life experiences to construct an identity. It is worth noting that memories also involve intergenerational storytelling, such that collective experiences by one group of people are manufactured into collective memories about past events constituting communal identities. As John Gillis states, “Identity and memories are not things we think about, but rather things we think with.”17 Collective memories of past events emerge as a representation of collective identity since it is possible for the present generation to “relive” the experiences of their forefathers even if none of the constituent members possess any firsthand experience of the event in question. The perseverance of postwar peace state identity in Japan as a restatement of the trauma of war is a case in point. Reification of a particular past experience into collective memory/identity is realized through the process whereby “communal identity is . . . secured, [and] honor satisfied, simply by frequent reiteration of a claim.”18 For antirealists, memory is a reiterated storytelling in which the selfunderstandings of subjects are reconstituted through narratives symbolizing collective experience, even when the present generation is physically distant from the actual historical event. So long as the event is reiterated through narratives, communal identity remains resilient. It is here that the discussion moves away from continuous identity to continuous representation since only dialogue can provide meanings for the identity represented in it. Identity as “Doing” Another similar concept is “doing.” If narratives can be construed as a form of verbal communication, then doing encompasses a whole gamut of nonverbal representation. Doing is a physical process of conveying meanings— the most visually explicit vehicle of representation embedded within social context that is available to the subject. Here, a particular context defines the meaning of the deed, since an identity is never fixed but negotiated, open, shifting, and ambiguous. As Dorinne Kondo notes, “You are not an

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‘I’ untouched by context, rather you are defined by the context,”19 and the “I” is realizable only through a particular act. For antirealists, an “identity is not a static object, but a creative process” as in the case of storytelling, since an identity of a subject must be evinced through actions that symbolize the particular subject position.20 According to Anne-Marie Costalat-Founeau, a subject is “an actor . . . that is to say a producer of meaning and of information through his acting on the world,”21 such that narratives are part of “doing” as well, if communication in general is taken to mean actions conveying meanings. This suggests that actions are physical manifestations of “doing” whereas narratives are linguistic manifestations of it. But for antirealists, it is not so much a subject doing the acting, but rather, it is the acting that “does” the subject. Put differently, since a subject position can only be inferred from the representations, to say that a subject “does” something becomes counterintuitive because knowledge about a particular subject position can only be garnered from the “doing,” and not vice versa. Costalat-Founeau underlines this point by stating that the “subject’s representation within action can be considered as a central vector of social conduct.”22 Thus we see, for instance, the case of Japanese craftsmen whose identities are inextricably linked with the work they do. In the case of Kondo’s field observations, the work of making confectionaries, involving a long process of apprenticeship these craftsmen undertake means that skills acquired over the years, along with the daily routine, fuse with their selfunderstandings to provide an inextricable link between work and their identities.23 Or, in the case of a vocational trainer as illustrated by Costalat-Founeau, even when her job has a negative impact on her self-esteem, this particular self-understanding constitutes her identity as a “prisoner of her social legitimation.”24 These examples illustrate the processes through which the “doing” highlights, and indeed coagulates, the sense of self. Antirealism states that iterated practices of an actor provide valuable meanings for her; and through her interactions with others, the “doing” not only become part of her self-consciousness, but creates meanings for others around her as well. The “doing”—equivalent to Mead’s conversation of gestures—constructs meanings for the actor herself in the form of “who I am” defined as the “work I do.” Simultaneously, what she does provides meanings for others around her when they start seeing her in terms of what she does.25

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Identity as Language The discussion so far has not specifically dealt with language as a medium of communication; but both narratives and “doing” are part of its larger framework. Language enables the subject to understand the “I” by allowing her to communicate with the designated other, offering two avenues for identities to be signified. In the words of Wittgenstein, “I make a plan not merely so as to make myself understood but also in order to get clear about the matter myself (i.e., language is not merely a means of communication).”26 This confirms the antirealist account that since language is all we have, any self-understanding is only made possible through such a medium. As John Shotter notes, we are “talked into” our conversational realities, including our self-understandings.27 Antirealism suggests that a subject comes to perceive its own selfunderstanding through various uses of language, whether be it storytelling or by way of acting. “The necessity for the realization of a thought to be ‘successively developed’ (and checked) in a back-and-forth process in which the transition of thought to work is through meaning”;28 and self as a conversation between the interlocutor and the world, as well as between and among the interlocutors themselves, points to the discursivity of identities. If language is the only tool for understanding the world and ourselves, antirealism argues that “words perform with the collaboration of users,”29 and the user is the subject whose identity is represented either through narratives or “doing.” But insofar as identity lacks ontological status apart from representations, the argument returns to the basic point: that language is everything. For antirealists, representation through language is the only way by which we can make sense of who we are. Judith Butler argues that “one exists not by virtue of being recognized, but in a prior sense, by being recognizable,”30 and the state of being recognizable derives from uttering about it. For Butler, language is synonymous with doing;31 and the subject’s existence becomes a “condition of possibility” via “language-as-doing”32 in line with the notion of contested and unstable identity which is constantly deconstructed and reconstructed. Hence, language enables the subject to undertake represent her identity, but insofar as performance is needed to sustain the symbolism, antirealism accords primacy to the performativity of language. Application of the above idea is reflected in Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities.” Similar in scope to memories, the collective identity of a community is constituted through representation. Memories can be subsumed under the rubric of language, since as a form of

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representation—storytelling—they need language to propagate, and for Anderson, this is accomplished through the use of vernacular language common to everyone as opposed to the often-exclusive language of elites.33 Nationalism as one representation of collective identity gains potency through the use of vernacular language, allowing a large cross-section of the population to share experiences and ideas, linguistically reproducing common signifiers to be shared by the populace.34 However “imagined” this community might be, the very potency of memories are exemplified throughout the recurrence of invectives between Tokyo and its Asian neighbors—both loath to concede and compromise accepted narratives of the wartime past. Hence, we do not speak the language; the language speaks for us. This centrality of language is an important point. Indeed, language is what we use to convey our thoughts including ideas about who we are. Yet, the antirealist synthesis still begs fundamental questions about the identity of the interlocutor engaging in the performance. But before moving on to the discussion on an alternative synthesis, I explore the realist/antirealist debate in order to expose its main focus of contention in the debate. By doing so, I hope to make clear what an alternative account—a (philosophical) realist argument—looks like. The Realist/Antirealist Debate in Social Construction The antirealist approach to identity provides an important conceptual toolkit to take identities seriously. Indeed, language is all we have for us to understand the world we inhabit; and since the understanding of the self, too, can only be constituted through it, the primacy accorded to language and performativity is not only justified, but crucial. It is the relative ease with which the role played by identities via physical manifestations, both verbal and nonverbal, that makes antirealism appealing—the case of Japanese craftsmen observed by Kondo is a case in point. Bystanders understand “who” the craftsman is through what he “does”; and for the craftsman himself, “who I am” is intrinsically linked with “what I do.”35 Implicit in this is the difficulty of introspection into the self. As Colin Wight notes, “The more I try to identify who I am, the more I try to locate my gaze, the hazier becomes the horizon.”36 Introspection into one’s identity potentially leads to a downward spiral of emptiness that makes antirealist accounts of identity representation very appealing. It is here that antirealism has a powerful case. The haziness of selfreflection, as opposed to the clarity of representations adds conviction, and the entirety of language amplifies the certitude as the only viable device for us to convey meanings to others. Without language, it seems, there is

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no sense of self. Yet, the primacy of language also requires an exploration into how actors convey meanings through it. As Sandy Petrey notes, “From a speech-act perspective, all linguistic artifacts, including those that count as literary, must be understood in relation to the sociohistorical context of their production and reception.”37 It follows that a sentence structure and the role of individual words within it become crucial; otherwise, words become mere dummy variables. This is where ideas about the holistic nature of language need dissecting. Jacques Derrida claims that “I would wish rather to suggest that the alleged derivativeness of writing, however real and massive, was possible only on one condition: that the ‘original,’ ‘natural,’ etc. language had never existed, never been intact and untouched by writing, that it had itself always been a writing,”38 For him, it is through “doing/writing” that meanings become evident. However, he later argues that “if texts that interest us mean something, it is the engagement and the appurtenance that encompass existence and writing in the same tissue, the same text.”39 Here, it seems Derrida is making a reference to the existence of a “reader” who brings her own intentionality in the process of deciphering the text; but a spotlight is never cast on the “who” does the reading or the worldview the “reader” brings with her. I am concerned that representation needs a representor to begin with, and the role of the subject might be trivialized. The implication here is that if the words “I” and “we” are representations of identity, it must also be a relevant question to ask “who” they are referring to. Put differently, there needs to be a narrator for narratives to emerge. But who are they? Antirealists might retort that the appreciation of the narrator is itself a product of a narrative. Yet, it begs a further question as to what makes this appreciation possible, since the question of “who” is left unanswered as the focus immediately shifts to “how” we understand the world, and not whether there is “someone” physically existing prior to speech. Furthermore, under this synthesis, misperceptions cannot be accounted for. An obvious question is why actors misperceive signals when, superficially, meanings are already inherent. Related to this point is the question regarding the particularity of meanings actors perceive from any given signal: why do actors perceive one representation but not another? If language is everything, then all the inherent meanings should be selfevident to the actors.40 I contend that it is intentionality that enables actors to selectively decipher a variety of meanings. In rejecting the argument that intentionality plays any significant role in speech acts, Sandy Petrey argues that “if written signs are the preservers of intended meanings, then that preservation has from its inception no need for the person, the subjective consciousness, that will eventually read it.”41 But this still begs the question of the existence of misperceptions, unless, contra Robert Jervis and

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Wendt,42 misperceptions need to be construed as “meanings” in the larger sense of the word. Take a statement: Japan is a peaceful country. If the primacy of language is to be vindicated, the meanings should be inherent in the sentence itself, not requiring the intention of actors. Plus, if there are multiple meanings, interlocutors should realize such variations. But is this really the case? The statement above seems to mean different things to different people. Compare what it means for the prime minister of Japan and the president of South Korea. If the meanings are inherent in the statement, actors’ roles—whether it be Japanese prime minister or South Korean president—should be redundant. Yet, the possibility of dissonance—for example, the prime minister interpreting the statement to imply Japan’s peaceful intentions in the Asia-Pacific as a symbol of the country’s goodwill; while the president dismissing it as Japan’s whitewashing of history—is real. This shows that while a particular meaning of a proposition p is evident to particular interlocutors, they are not necessarily aware of all the possible meanings. From a different perspective the meaning of p is delimited by prior identity which suggests that for an actor at any given time and space, the meaning of p is not self-evident, indicating the crucial role played by actor intentionalities in how interlocutors interpret p. Otherwise, there is nothing to suggest that the two interlocutors in the above example appreciate the statement, Japan is a peaceful country, in the ways they do. Even if meanings are inherent within the sentence, sensing which meaning makes sense within a particular context needs intentionality to decide. Moreover, subject positions require subjects to take positions. The problem of antirealism centers on this point: trivialization of the identity of the interlocutor before narratives ensue. To be sure, agents are located within a particular social context, and social structures require performance by agents. Despite this, representations must be performed and meanings ascertained by someone, since it takes actor intentionality to attach meanings to statements in the first place. The Three Questions It is useful to redesignate social construction as a locus of debate between the realists and antirealists by revealing their agreements as well as disagreements. As Irving Velody and Robin Williams note, “The apparent commitment of (some) constructionists to relativism and ontological skepticism has done much to generate an air of irritable suspicion among many outside and some within the ‘movement.’”43 Ian Parker echoes this

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assessment in noting that the debate between the realists and the antirealists seems to center on the “degree of construction.”44 As a debate, the parties agree that social facts are constructed, hence the point of contention is not whether they are social constructions or not, but to what extent they are intersubjective. Ian Hacking maintains that various approaches to the politics of constructionism occupy “different intellectual millieux.”45 Whatever is meant by the “ism” in constructivism in IR or constructionism in social theory is best conceptualized as a locus of debate between the different approaches, just as Ruggie’s typology of social constructivism in IR may be a useful point for further debates.46 There are three questions on social constructs addressed by the parties involved in the debate: (1) the “what” question asking “what” is being constructed, (2) the “how” question asking “how” it is being constructed, and (3) the “who” question of “who” is constructing it. The “What” Question The “what” question is not as clear-cut. While it is tempting to say that both the realists and antirealists agree on this issue, this question is nevertheless contentious. When directed toward objects, it is relatively straightforward; but once the focus shifts to social facts, controversy emerges. For example, social institutions, such as friendship, are contentious because of the ontological issue of what is meant by friendship— whether it is purely discursive or has an emergent property with an agency autonomous from the individuals that constitute this relationship. Even material things with social connotations can be contentious. Take AIDS, for example. Because the issue has both material as well as ideational components, what is meant by AIDS varies between interlocutors.47 AIDS might refer to the actual illness caused by HIV, something that can be “proven” using blood samples. AIDS might also suggest social connotations of the disease, such as the idea in the 1980s that AIDS was the disease of homosexuals whereby calls to eradicate AIDS is tantamount to saying eradicate those with HIV. Even if what is meant by AIDS refers to societal aspects of the AIDS epidemic, this cannot literally mean the denial of the existence of material components: HIV that causes it. Even so, what is meant by AIDS remains highly contested. In a similar sense, AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is a disease as well as a socioeconomic time bomb that can potentially wipe out a significant portion of the workforce, damaging the economy in the decades to come.48 This is the case of “where you stand depends on where you sit.” If an interlocutor asks the “what” question from a purely medical point of

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view, then AIDS is a disease caused by HIV. But if the “what” question is addressed from the perspective of demographics, then AIDS becomes a brewing humanitarian crisis. Thus the “what” question itself becomes contentious because, for antirealists, the ideational is privileged over the material; while for realists, the material and ideational both lie on the same continuum. Hence for realists, AIDS can simultaneously be a material—for example, an illness caused by HIV—while it also shares an ideational element of an impending socioeconomic disaster. AIDS and its attendant problems are real insofar as they are made real through conversations between and among the interlocutors.49 Realists argue that it is only through the existence of the material from which conversational realities emerge. Similarly, if the “what” question is applied to identity, antirealism suggests that identity is a performance with no ontological status apart from the very “doing” of identity representation. But for realists, identity as a narrative construct nevertheless has emergent properties that cannot be reduced to performance alone. Identity’s capacity to interact with its holder by informing—or framing—her worldview is crucial in understanding how agents experience changes in social contexts. The realist position argues that an explanation needs to be provided in order to account for such interactions, an explanation that is not ultimately subsumed within the exclusive framework of performativity. The “How” Question The “how” question of social construction comes with its own set of variations. It must be pointed out, however, that a superficial glance at the “how” question seems less beset with problems, since both the realists and antirealists seem to agree that an answer to the “how” question is one of “narrative construct.”50 Even in light of this superficial agreement, however, the debate focuses on whether intentionality plays part in the construction of social facts;51 and if intentionality is to be accounted for, then an enduring identity holds the clue. On the one hand, antirealists dismiss intentionality on grounds of performativity: even if we think we have intentions in undertaking various activities, the understanding of intentionality itself involves language, so to grant independent ontological status to it contradicts the conversational realities of social life.52 On the other hand, realists claim that action necessarily involves intentionality. Even if intentionality involves language itself to make sense, without intentionality, the understanding that intentionality involves language cannot be garnered. Roy Bhaskar argues that “if a piece

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of behavior is correctly described as a basic action it must also be the case that it be performed intentionally.”53 As John Searle notes, “Language is derived from intentionality, and not conversely.”54 It is useful to go back to the statement, Japan is a peaceful state. The antirealist argument seems to imply that intentionality is less important since meanings are already inherent in the statement. As Mead claims, “Language does not simply symbolize a situation or object which is already there in advance; it makes possible the existence or the appearance of the mechanism whereby that situation or object is created,”55 implying that the statement is self-evident to the observer. But self-evident to whom? And how? The proposition that Japan is a peaceful state is self-evident to the two leaders mentioned earlier in their particular ways. But if Mead is correct, why should they only infer meanings particular to them if symbolism is already there? The central claim of realism, contra antirealists, lies in the former’s account of how the multiplicity of meanings is interpreted. As Douglas Porpora notes, we “need to explain why actors choose to perform one act rather than another.”56 Even if intentionality is understood as a linguistic construct, the presence of intentionality deriving from stable identity provides contingency in agency.57 There are other problems with performativity; and its rejection of intentionality fails to address such as learning a language. If language preexists the subject to the extent that actor intentionalities are rejected, why is it that babies cannot talk when they are born? Or how is it that our language capacities are limited? Perhaps the fact that we have to learn how to speak seems to imply that intentionality plays a pivotal role in how languages are acquired. Likewise, how are we to conceptualize contemporary Japanese experience of adopting a set of discursive tools used to evolve from a semicolonial state to an imperial power by the mid-nineteenth century? To suggest that Japan was socialized into the international system is one thing; it is quite another to discount Japanese policy elites’ images of the international environment throughout the years. Identity narratives contribute important vehicles for reification within this process; but they are predicated upon narrators to act and react to external stimuli. Without providing an account of how intentionalities delimit our actions, limitations in our various abilities are difficult to explain. As Searle puts it, “Any attempt to reduce intentionality to something nonmental will always fail because it leaves out intentionality,” or put differently, our understanding of the “how” question as discursive itself needs intentionality.58

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The “Who” Question Issue of identity centers on this “who” question. Previous questions are important for us to determine whether there is a continuous personality to enable social construction in the first place. The preceding discussion on intentionality leads to the question of “who” is constructing social facts through her intentionality (the “how” question), since conversations do not take place in a vacuum. But, as noted earlier, the antirealists and realists seem to be asking qualitatively different “who” questions—something that hinges on their respective ontologies: (1) the antirealist ontology that the identity of the representor is itself unstable and contested and (2) the realist ontology suggesting that there is a representor whose agency cannot be reduced to representation. For antirealists, the “who” question is redundant. If, as Campbell notes, that identity has no ontological status independent of the representations that constitute it,59 the “who” question becomes subsumed within the earlier two questions of “what” and “how”: the “what” being the identity of “who” and the “how” being narrative representation. This is what Don Foster calls the “representational position [of antirealism] when the signifier follows spontaneously from the signified.”60 This position follows Mead’s conception of the “me” and the “I” as derivatives of the conversation of gestures. For Mead, the self is not there at birth—it emerges through social interactions.61 The “me” and the “I” emerge when the “individual takes the attitude of the generalized other toward himself,”62 and that “a person is a personality because he belongs to a community, because he takes over the institution of that community into his own conduct.”63 As such, “selves can only exist in definite relationships to other selves.”64 In this case, the “who” is not only unsettled, but undefined until the “what” and “how” questions are answered. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann reflect this view when they argue that identity is dialectic: “[Identity] entails a dialectic between identification by others and self-identification [by the actor]. . . . In other words, the self is a reflected entity, reflecting the attitudes first taken by significant others toward it.”65 What disappears from this antirealist argument is the notion of “who” is experiencing this speech act. For the realists, the “who” question refers to an agent whose agency cannot be reduced to discursive construction itself.66 Instead of attributing the identity of the representor to representation, the realists refer to the emergent identity that enables discursive construction to take place, and to be reified into a set of signifiers that inform the agent of her position relative to the various social contexts. Margaret Archer argues that one needs an account of “who is interacting with what and how”67

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because “we need to have and to make reference to a continuous identity . . . in order for there to be someone who experiences this absence or loss [of identity].”68 Ian Burkitt notes too that we need to have an account of “who it is who does the knowing—in other words, the constitution of the knower.”69 Hence, a realist answer to the “who” question is that there is an actor with a resilient identity partaking in various societal interactions. Critique of Antirealism Evident within the realist/antirealist debate is the trivialization of subject within the antirealist literature, though many would deny this.70 Yet the swiftness with which they shift the attention away from the identity of the representor to what is being represented and the premature dismissal of intentionality paints a rather hollow picture of subjectivity. As Douglas Porpora declares, “After murdering God, we have turned the knives on ourselves.”71 Its problems are twofold: (1) the trivialization of subject and (2) the implied automaticity of representation due to its fascination with language and performativity. The first problem is that so long as one cannot account for the representor to represent an identity, what we are left with is an infinite regression of actor and practice such that her agency is lost in the process of explaining subjectivity and contingency. Yet if this is to be prevented, we have to make room for an automaton simply switching on and off the switch of representation, belying what is meant by subjectivity.72 As Porpora puts it, “Postmodernism . . . cannot account for human action, since action implies an actor.”73 Antirealism effectively trivializes actor’s agency. Second, the discussion on the statement, Japan is a peaceful country, already outlined the problems of antirealism in its inability to account for the variety of meanings interpreted by various interlocutors. Without intentionality, identity representation merely becomes a product of social interactions since there is nothing to appreciate the circumstances through which the actors entered into a particular intersubjectivity. What needs to be accounted for is the continuous identity of the agent who decides to enter into various performances to begin with; but this entails intentionality deriving from prior identity acting as a Background capability—which is discussed below.74 In his critique of antirealism, Searle states that “it is important to see that rules [and hence language] only have application relative to the Background capacities. The rules are not self-interpreting, and in consequence they require a Background to function.”75

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Having posited some reservations I have against the antirealist accounts of identity, I provide an alternative view of how identities reproduce the social context using a realist argument in the following section. Identity Representation and Intersubjectivity The identity debate between realists and antirealists centers on whether we can ascertain an enduring personality to experience changes in identity, on the one hand;76 or whether identity is indeterminate by definition, on the other.77 It is my contention that identity—understandably best recognized through representations—still needs a representor in order for anyone, let alone the performer herself, to make sense of it. It is the antirealist’s penchant for performance that consequently loses track of “who” is performing the identity representation. Language might be all we have, but it takes someone to come to grips with its all-encompassing nature and use this medium to represent our identities. In other words, language as a Wittgensteinian toolkit needs subjects to use it in social interactions. Moreover, we need accounts of how identity narratives are reified in order for agents to appropriate a set of meanings as a primary mode for understanding the external environment. While I am sympathetic to the idea that representations are among the easiest ways through which identities can be recognized, I suggest that it does not necessarily follow from this that identities have no ontological status apart from them. Indeed, identities require narratives to be enunciated; but they are also reified to the extent that the agents are able to undertake and reproduce such meanings. Hence, we need to account for an enduring and resilient identity in order for there to be any self that sees itself in opposition to an other. Resilient Identity as a Background Identities are acquired through actor’s various experiences and they provide her with particular worldviews—in other words identities construct her frames of reference. The term “Background” has been mentioned several times and here, Searle’s discussion is useful.78 Background is defined as “a set of non-representational mental capacities that enable all representing to take place.”79 He notes two types of Background—the “deep” Background and a “local” Background. The deep Background refers to “all of those Background capacities that are common to all normal human beings,” while the “local” corresponds to a “set of local cultural practices.”80 Background as a “set of non-intentional or preintentional capacities that

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enable intentional states of function”81 allows identity representations to be performed by the representor, and their narratives of identity transgress time and space. With this, we are now able to fully appreciate the “who” question. As an actor encounters a series of events throughout her lifetime it recedes into the local Background that reconstitutes her realm of possibilities. Meanwhile, in order for her to undertake any social interaction in the first place, she must possess a deep Background providing her with intentionality. In order to prevent the discussion from degenerating into an infinite regress of representations that fails to capture any plausible sense of subjectivity, this rendering of stability via the Background is pivotal. For individuals, the Background enables them to engage in speech acts representing their identities; for collective agents it is the collective experience of individuals comprising the group that recede into the collective Background. Contra Mead, the “I” must precede the “me,” such that the “I” must preexist the performance. To borrow Searle’s words, “You must know what to do with [representations].”82 Porpora takes a similar position, stating that “the I and me cannot be so divorced without compromising what is meant by genuine self-reflection. For that, we need not a transcendental I reflecting on a me but a me reflecting on a me.”83 Numerous interactions we have with other actors enable us to acquire multiple layers of identities, but an acquisition of an identity requires a durable identity to experience it even when surface identities are transformed through time. Porpora claims that “there is no such a thing as a separate identity over and above our various mental states”;84 that there must be an underlying identity that experiences this transformation, so much so that “identity is not what matters to us; what matters is the psychological continuity of our mental states.”85 New experience recedes into the Background to propagate new identities, but this process is predicated upon the survival of an identity, since without it, social interactions are impossible. So far, the discussion of resilient identity is centered on individual identity. Since IR involves analyses into the behaviors of macro-level actors—the states, policy makers, or groups of states—it is necessary to provide a discussion of stability and the nature of collective identity. I acknowledge that a collective actor is a far more complex entity than an individual, with internal contradictions and disagreements, which sometimes compromise its efficacy. However, it is also the case that collective entities—sometimes despite these difficulties—are able to act collectively, behaving as though it is acting with a single voice. We must be mindful of their overlapping agencies and unravel the processes whereby they are able to narrate identity as a unitary actor without recourse to reductionism. Colin Wight provides a useful account of how we can appreciate the

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interaction between and among the various “planes” of human existence and experiences that help us to appreciate the seeming endurance of policy orientation despite the comings and goings of individuals occupying the many levels of government.86 This makes for a complex theory of collective agents, but the complexity of reality necessitates this theoretical device.87 I argue that collective actors have a collective identity represented through collective intentionality. This process cannot be reduced to the attributes of individual constituents alone. If intentionality derives from the Background, and therefore a reified identity, then a collective intentionality must derive from a resilient collective identity. As Searle notes, collective intentionality cannot be reduced to individual intentionalities, since what is represented in the resultant speech act is a collective, not individual, identity.88 Elaborating on Searle’s point, while collective identity cannot be reduced to individual identities, it must also be recognized that individuals do comprise the collective, although this must not be confused with saying that the behaviors of a collectivity can be understood if we aggregate their behaviors. My point is that a collective identity is an emergent property of internal negotiations involving constituents bargaining with their individual identities. As such, we have to take into account how the logic of collective action facilitates the formation of collective identities, while maintaining that a collective identity nonetheless possesses an autonomous agency of its own.89 Mancur Olson’s model of institutional bargaining provides a useful framework.90 Individuals with their individual identity and intentionality compete and negotiate in their efforts at realizing a common goal. The subsequent crowding out of the final outcome may not be what everyone hoped for; but the socialization process involved in the logic of collective action enables constituent members to realize that this is something on which the group can agree. Hence, through the process of competition and negotiation, the “I” transmogrifies into “I belong to this group,” leading to the construction of the “We.” The perception of “We” emerges through speech acts made by group members acting as interlocutors on behalf of the collectivity. Thus, the local Background informs actions to be taken at any given time and space; but the deep Background provides a referential point with which such decisions can be rationalized. This deep Background is itself a product of accumulated collective experience; but it also entrusts a collective sense of self/us in opposition to other/them garnered through iterated interactions. Thus, the “collectivities of human beings are grouped and regrouped as they contribute to the process of reproducing or changing the structure or culture of society.”91 The emergent properties of a collectivity leave the authorship of the authors and

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“boomerangs” on to each of the constituents as an obdurate social fact, enabling individuals to become stakeholders in the enduring narratives of collective identity. Put differently, policy makers share ideas about the state they represent, which in turn recede into their local Background as collective identity. Once the collective identity recedes into the local Background of individuals comprising the policy-making circles each member can initiate speech acts and act in the name of the government as a whole. Negotiations do take place within the policy circles: this is an everyday occurrence; and the dominant narratives of collective identity emerge to frame the realm of possibility facing the government—something which policy makers feel collectively responsible. As Archer suggests, “[Actors are] role incumbents and roles themselves have emergent properties which cannot be reduced to characteristics of the occupants.”92 Hence, a crowding out produces a dominant narrative that individual members can recognize as pertaining to them as a policy-making elite of the state. The collective identity born of this logic of collective action constitutes a shared worldview allowing them to reproduce the dichotomy of collective self in relation to a reified image of otherness. W. James Booth provides an interesting account of how collective identities survive to constitute a continuous collective identity: “Continuous selves are the foundations of holding individuals and political communities to account for the past; and they also lay out a claim of duty toward the future continuation of this same self.”93 What he means by the continuity of collective identity, as opposed to the continuity of individual identity, is that “nations survive, under this new dispension, as cultures or cultural identities, as traditions to be appropriated critically, and as heuristic vantage point for which the universal principles of the public sphere are interpreted.”94 Memory and Identity While the Background is crucial in the reformulation of malleable identities, this process takes place over time and space. One way to conceptualize this is to introduce memory as a mode of identity representation. Archer argues that the “self is an emergent relational property whose realization comes about through the necessary relations between embodied practice and the nondiscursive environment,”95 and as a subject experiences various social interactions, surface identities are embedded within the Background to constitute memories.96 Simultaneously, an actor reflects on the present by appropriating memories as a navigational tool: accrued

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memories indicate the continuity of self by allowing actors to experience changes in the environment and reflect upon one’s position, visà-vis the other. Memories then become things that actors think “with” rather than something that they think “about.”97 Embedded memories, therefore, turn into an actor’s frame of reference. As Miki Kiyoshi puts it, “The reality of human existence is none other than its own historicity.”98 Paraphrasing this, memory and the “embedded practice”99 constitute an actor’s self-awareness; and as for collective identity, the experiences and legacies of the past shared by the community anchor themselves within the collective Background. John Gillis argues that the memory of a nation entails everyone, but no one in particular.100 As such, reiteration of collective memory by identity entrepreneurs at any given juncture might not be directly linked to a specific set of events, but the memory as a collective construct becomes reified into a signifier—a symbol—of common thread that defines a community. Using this framework, we can conceptualize memory as identity and discuss how it is represented through speech acts. There are two ways in which the recollection of memory takes place. The first view is that memory, while it leaves the authorship of the authors to provide the agent with a worldview, is also a historical construct. As Archer notes, memory is “the ‘habitual body’ which gives us our past tense and enables us to contemplate a future, even though our embodied expectations have to be reconciled with the dynamic nature of our existence in the world.”101 The process by which memory locks on to the Background reconstitutes identity as an internal dialogue through which a narrator relates with herself. Memory as a historical construct seems obvious, since it refers to what happened before rather than what happens in the future. Yet, when we look into memories and how they are involved with our lives, we discover that we often do not have direct experiences of the events in question. The South Korean school children “reading” the accounts of thirty-six years of Japanese colonial rule are not sharing in the actual experience firsthand. On the contrary, their “reading” facilitates an active reproduction of memory as an integral process in the construction and legitimization of Korean self, as a counterweight to the whitewashing Japanese other. The discourse of “who we were” is juxtaposed with the shared identity of “who we are.” While it is tempting to suggest that memory is an invention, Dipesh Chakrabarty warns us that it needs people to invent it,102 meaning memory is passed on from one generation to another, and the narratives of the past are internalized as though the present generation can vividly “remember” the legacies being talked about.103 This accounts for the continuity of the nation, as W. James Booth puts it,104 or, as Miki Kiyoshi states, “The very logic of history [and therefore of the continuity

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of the nation] lies in the unification of material and human subjectivity taking place through time and space.”105 This process is none other than the reification of the Past into the Present through the medium of collective remembrance. This leads to the second point. To the extent that memory is being narrated today, there is the inevitable “nowness” to it. This nowness makes the argument that memory as an invention rather appealing since it feels as though an actor is experiencing the past in the now.106 Put differently, the world in which we thrive today is primarily a legacy of our forbearers, and to that extent, we need to appreciate its historical construction; but since the experience itself is taking place in the present, we need to account for how an actor perceives it today. To paraphrase Watsuji Tetsuro, our temporal existence involves an interaction between memories and the people reliving them.107 As such, memory is not a mere invention: its nowness needs the continuity of the self to relive it. The discussion of memory involves taking into account both its historical construction and the nowness elaborated through time and space, allowing for the memory to embed itself into the collective Background to reconstruct a worldview of the collectivity as a whole. Without this recourse to shared memory, a collective actor cannot reflect upon the contemporary issues as a coherent entity. A synchronized recollection of historical legacies is itself an identity representation. Narrating Identity Actors’ experiences and memories recede into the collective Background to embed themselves within the holders’ resilient sense of collective self. Memories and experiences accumulate to constitute and reinforce actors’ shared knowledge about the world within which they thrive and act as their frames of reference, delineating the choices made available for them. The frames of reference, in effect, act as agents’ social reality with which they form preferences and define actions mediated through narratives. This is where rationality comes into play: the legacies of the past being passed on from one generation to another become real for the present generation.108 It is within this reality that rational actions are determined. Actors think they are choosing from numerous choices, but these choices are already filtered out by underlying identities. The dominant narrative of Japan as a Peaceful Sate, for instance, prompts policy elites in Tokyo to favor enhancing interdependence over military confrontation in promoting its national interest. This does not mean, however, that Japan is incapable of projecting its military capabilities; it is just that

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military option is not within its immediate realm of possibilities, making it rational for Tokyo to promote interdependence in the first instance, rather than opting for gunboat diplomacy. A similar argument can be made for collective actors. They share a collective identity represented through the dominant discourse irreducible to individual narratives. They also possess collective intentionalities which, again, cannot be reduced to individual ones.109 Experiences accrue as in individual cases. But this time, they are shared by the group as a whole, receding into the Background as a collective memory and identity.110 Although individuals within a collectivity constitute the primary vehicle for recognizing this institutional fact, the logic of collective action provides an impetus for the emergence of collective intentionality within which the group as a whole is able to recognize that “X counts as Y in context C.”111 The intentionality born of continuous identity delimits the worldview and provides the context within which narratives are made. While actors may not necessarily be aware of this delimiting process, intentionality “causes” action to the extent that a prior intentionality causes intention in action which in turn causes the action—perlocutionary or illocutionary.112 In other words, Japans’ dominant narratives of Peaceful State (the prior intentionality) make the promotion of trade relations more attractive (the intention in action), thereby linking the act of engaging in trade with identity.113 As Friedrich Kratochwil notes, this explanation “appears ‘causal’ even in the positivist sense, since, by definition, motives are always prior to the action and thus can be considered its antecedent conditions.”114 Thus contra antirealism, we derive an account of identity that is irreducible to speech acts alone. Hence, identities and speech acts are organically linked. Actor interests are defined and constructed by identities and their realization is made possible through, and represented by, narratives.115 When an actor does something, she is acting according to her interests. This much is nothing new—rational choice theorists have recognized this a long time ago, but the role of identity and its associated intentionality in the actor’s behavior tell us that the realization of interests is tantamount to speech acts representing the process whereby actors attach meanings to the social world. Her narratives are meaningful because her identity attaches symbolism to the environment within which she inhabits. This is how the social context is elaborated.

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Reproduction of Intersubjectivity Actors enter into social interactions by attaching meanings to the relationships they develop in the process. Hence, actors interact with one another to reproduce the intersubjective structure that confronts them as an obdurate social fact. Narratives equipped with memories are also exchanged, giving rise to the emergence of the politics of memory. As Robert Maier puts it, “The social relations between parties can be seen as either existing objectively, as for example between experts and novices, in which case the participants have to recognize the relation, or as a relation which is strategically construed by the participants for the sake of discussion.”116 Things—including social facts—have meanings for us, precisely because we attach meanings to them in the first place. We must account for this in the reconstruction of intersubjectivity since actions and the exchange of meanings between actors do not take place within a social vacuum. Through narratives, actors provide one another with signals, whether advertently or inadvertently. Intersubjectivity emerges when participants attach meanings to mutual signals and react according to what they perceive to be the rational course of action—a process that is itself a product of reified identity signifiers informing how the narratives are enunciated. As Searle puts it, “We create a new institutional fact . . . by using an object (or objects) with an existing status function, such as sentence, whose existence is itself an institutional fact, to perform a certain type of speech act.”117 Roy Bhaskar argues that “society must be regarded as an ensemble of structures, practices and conventions which individuals reproduce or transform, but which would not exist unless they did so. Society does not exist independently of human activity.”118 Anthony Giddens notes too that “structure has no existence independent of the knowledge that agents have about what they do in the day-to-day activity.”119 In terms of the role played by identity in the reproduction of the social context, Giddens states that “the ‘I’ is at the core of what is involved in discursive consciousness and demands considerable attention conceptually.”120 Unlike Archer who conceptualizes structure and agents as “dualism” through which the two interact, Giddens’s structuration theory argues that they are mutually constitutive and, instead, form a “duality.” He argues that “the constitution of agents and structures are not two independently given sets of phenomena, a dualism, but represent a duality.”121 According to structuration theory, the actors and context are inextricably tied to one another; and privileging an actor over the context, or vice versa, becomes an ontological reductionism—the former being individualist, and the latter being structuralist. To the extent that the two constitute an internal relation, Giddens’s argument makes sense although it says nothing of the

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processes through which actors come to realize the effect of contradiction the structure might impose on them. It is important to have an account of how a structure and agents interact, since the socialization process involves actors acquiring new identities by reflecting on the effect the intersubjective structures have on them, and vice versa. Archer notes that “the notion of mutual constitution as simultaneous process means that there is no way of ‘unifying’ the constitutive elements. The intimacy of the interconnection denies even relative autonomy to the components involved. And in the absence of any degree of autonomy it becomes impossible to examine the interplay.”122 In other words, structuration cannot adequately account for the process in which actors come to realize that the social structures have discernible effects on them. As an example of why and how structuration theory cannot adequately account for the interplay between the agent and the structure; and to show why this inadequacy matters, take the phrase, Japan and the Pacific War. If Japan is the agent, and the war is the structure, what structuration seeks to do is to conceptualize Japan and the war as mutually constitutive. But what it does not permit us to do is to reformulate the phrase slightly to ask the following questions: (a) What was Japan’s role in the Pacific War? and (b) What was the war’s effect on Japan? As far as structuration theory is concerned, (a) cannot be derived from the original phrase so long as its internal relation is to be maintained, since (a) constitutes methodological individualism. Likewise for (b), the explanation for it entails methodological structuralism. If Japan and the war are mutually constituted, the moment Japan is uttered, one must provide an account in which the war constitutes Japan. Contra Giddens, the “duality” of Japan and the war must be reconceptualized as “dualism” if Japan’s role in the Pacific War is to be understood; and how the war in turn affected Japan. Likewise, Japan’s memories of the Past constitute an integral part of Japanese collective identity. But unless we are equipped with an account of the way policy elites utilize them as a legitimization tool, the memories of the Past and Japan are ultimately elided into an incomprehensible mush. Only by distinguishing between the resilient identity and the social context within which narratives are enunciated can we make sense of how actors acquire new identities, and how these new identities in turn transform the context of interactions. According to Archer, “It is only through analyzing the processes by which structure and agency shape and reshape one another over time that we can account for variable social outcomes at different times.”123 The social context of interactions has an emergent property of its own. Contradictions between the actors and the context are the driving force behind structural change,124 and when actors confront the context of

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interactions and contradictions are realized, new actions are called for, but the choices—the necessity for new actions—that confront them can only be perceived within the frame of reference provided by the resilient identities. Actors adjust their actions so that incremental changes are introduced. When these possibilities are realized, new identities born of reformulated conversation of gestures recede into the local Background. But I also argue that there has to be a reified identity to experience this transition: this, I argue, is the process whereby multiple identities are constructed.125 Reification is nothing to be shunned; but rather, something to be taken seriously. Conclusion This chapter questioned an antirealist approach to identity. Antirealism states that identity has no ontological status apart from the practices which constitute it, but my contention here is that narratives need narrators to begin with; and unless we can account for the existence of representors prior to the onset of performance, it is easy to fall victim to an infinite regress of representations. Moreover, we might have to conclude that at the bottom of all the layers of performance are automatons, belying the fundamental notion of subjectivity, resulting in the much taunted “death of the subject.”126 I then provided an alternative account of identity representation recognizing the need for a resilient identity—the narrator who narrates—for the subject to position herself within the social context. I also provided an account of deriving the “We” from the “I” through the logic of collective action by which collective identities emerge through a negotiation process.127 As for the reproduction of intersubjective structures, resilient identities delimit choices confronting the actors and through them, actors enter into a conversation of gestures, reproducing the images of one another. The narrative of self might be predicated upon the identification of an other; but the realization of otherness also requires the self to appreciate the encompassing social context. I reject Giddens’s structuration theory since it does not adequately conceptualize the interactions which take place between and among the actors and the social structure itself. Instead, I argue along the lines of Archer that we need an account of how a structure interacts with agents, and vice versa.128 In sum, we need to account for the existence of a relatively stable identity constructing a particular worldview. An enduring identity is crucial in analyzing Japan’s relationship with (South) Korea. Otherwise, despite the psychological chasm of August 1945, it is not difficult to discern a continuing sense of Japanese skepticism toward Asia in general, and Korea in particular. The theoretical

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framework developed above will help us to place the recurring—and often entrenched—nature of invectives between Tokyo and Seoul into a more theoretical perspective. While the prewar pan-Asianism gave way to the postwar Peace State, generations of policy makers in Tokyo seem to share similar worldviews, vis-à-vis the Asian neighbors. In the next two chapters, I apply this idea of how identities—both at the surface level and at an underlying level—are represented within the dominant policy narratives of Japanese elites since 1889—the year the Imperial Constitution was promulgated—and into the 1980s. I posit that Japan’s historical interactions with the Korean peninsula exemplify its Asian existence punctuated through changes amid continuity. The year 1945 seemed to have marked a disjuncture in which the prewar identity representation gave way to a newly acquired postwar counterpart. Yet, I argue that even despite the seeming disjuncture, what made this change possible was a resilient narrative of collective identity shared among the Japanese policy circles that kept on reproducing the familiar Korean otherness in opposition to the enduring sense of Japanese self. The endurance of this shared Asia Imaginary provides the Background from which Japan’s often negative images of Korean otherness have been reified into an obdurate diplomatic reality into the 1990s and beyond.

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Part II

Japanese Collective Identity as Reification

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art II provides a genealogy of Japanese collective identity, tracing the narratives of Japanese self in opposition to Korean otherness from the late nineteenth century into the twenty-first century. Japan’s reemergence on to the international stage initially exposed Japanese elites to Korea as a hostile other refusing to confer legitimacy on Japan. This bitter experience congealed the narratives of Japanese self into altercasting Korean otherness as an object of desire and eventually into an otherness within through annexation in August 1910. Superficially, Japan’s defeat in August 1945 ushered in a new era through which Japanese policy elites sought to regain international legitimacy. Yet, the negative images of Korean otherness lingered: acrimony during the normalization negotiations throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s reaffirmed Japanese perception of (South) Korea as consistently backward looking, This remains the tone of Japanese identity narratives to this day, suggesting the cohabitation of change and continuity in dominant Japanese worldview. Put differently, this indicates that resilient sense of Japanese self enabled generations of policy elites in Tokyo to adapt themselves to the challenges and contradictions of changing international environment. Chapter 3 traces the elaboration of Japanese collective identity since the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. The prewar constitution marks the politicization of kokutai as an overbearing symbol of identity with which Japanese policy makers legitimized Japan’s self-professed role as a harbinger of peace and coprosperity in Asia and as a bulwark against the purported threat of Western colonialism. Kokutai as a convenient set of narrative signposts provided Japanese policy elites with the myth of Japanese uniqueness, a worldview through which the rest of Asia was depicted as backward and therefore subordinate. This self-proclaimed role prescription culminated in the proclamation of the Greater Far East Asian Coprosperity Sphere of August 1940, and the steady march toward the Pacific war in December 1941.

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Superficially the defeat of August 1945 presaged a new era. The 1947 constitution proclaimed Japan to be a “peaceful state,” whose primary goal is to nurture interdependence through economic interdependence. At first glance, the “peaceful merchant” indicates a fundamental repudiation of the prewar ultranationalism and imperialism. Indeed, Tokyo’s contemporary reluctance to amend the constitution and deploy Self-Defense Forces (SDF) abroad, coupled with its identification of economic diplomacy as the country’s core competence, suggest that heiwa- and shonin kokka had anchored themselves within the deep Background of Japanese collective identity. However, the appearance of “peace” and “merchant” narratives within the “leadership” role prescription demonstrates that hierarchy remains the primary lens through which Japanese policy elites comprehend Japan’s diplomatic reality. Put differently, Japan still seeks to proclaim its self-professed “leadership” role through nurturing peaceful interdependence, as if the hierarchy reminiscent of prewar kokutai is still pertinent. Colonialism ended in August 1945; but the colonial mindset that continues to portray Asia—and Korea in particular—with condescension, unfortunately, can be identified into the twenty-first century. I apply the above framework to Japan-Korea relations between 1875 and 1989 in Chapter 4. The Kanghwa Incident of 1875—the first Japanese expedition on to the continent—represented not only Japan’s ambition to become a great power, but it was tantamount to a speech act manifestation of kokutai firmly established by the time the Meiji Constitution was promulgated in 1889. The annexation of Korea in August 1910 was done in the name of “peace” and “coprosperity” in Asia, an ominous reference to the Coprosperity Sphere thirty years later. The postwar bilateral relations displayed similarities: Japanese policy makers repeatedly represented South Korea as backward trivializing Korean accusations of Tokyo’s whitewashing of history. Despite the psychological disjuncture of August 1945, the negative images of Korea remained intact, altercasting Korean otherness through a set of narratives that closely resembles the prewar discursive frame. Japan expects South Korea’s postwar role as providing support for Tokyo’s leadership role of a peaceful merchant, but the “reality” encountered by Tokyo is one of obdurate Koreans primarily concerned with retribution for the past. The resultant context of interactions reifies a particular reality for Japan to consider Seoul as a “difficult” partner to manage.

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Contemporary Japanese Identity Narratives

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aving made the case for taking enduring identities seriously, I now apply this model to Japan’s Asian experience since its socialization into the international system in the late-nineteenth century. This chapter explores changes and continuity in contemporary Japanese identity since the Meiji Restoration to cast Japan’s present day Korean imaginary within a historical context: Japan’s current attitudes toward South Korea are precisely the elaboration of a colonial relationship into a contemporary diplomatic intercourse. There are similarities across the decades, such as the recurrence of condescension toward Asia in general, and (South) Korea in particular, amid changing international circumstances, including Japan’s defeat in August 1945. I am not suggesting that the colonial relationship is intact; but neither can we deny the family resemblance in how Japan reconstructs Korean otherness today. The bilateral relations are not colonial relations; but a colonial mindset is somehow visible, indicating that the narratives of Japanese self are still legitimated through the particular reproduction of Korean otherness. I begin my analysis with the discussion of the Meiji Constitution in 1889, since its promulgation was a public act catapulting kokutai into a national ideology, precipitating its mass inculcation as the preeminent symbol of prewar Japanese collective identity. I do not problematize kokutai nor its emergence, per se; rather, I focus on how kokutai diffused into the Background through which Japanese identity narratives were articulated and legitimized, subordinating Korean otherness in the process. The idea of Asian “liberation” gained legitimacy—if not urgency—as a result, justifying Japanese version of imperialism as a counterweight to perceived Western threats in Asia. Such narratives reified kokutai as a justification for Tokyo’s expansionist policies in the Asia-Pacific. Hence, kokutai was not simply a foreign policy tool, but rather, it provided Japanese policy elites

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with a set of worldviews in which the liberation of Asia became a legitimate policy preference.1 The trauma of defeat in August 1945 presaged a significant recalibration of Japanese identity, with the renunciation of war clause in the new 1947 constitution marking Japan’s “rebirth” as a heiwa- and shonin kokka (peaceful and merchant state). Postwar governments pledged never to repeat the same mistakes, determined to focus Japanese attention toward achieving peaceful coexistence through interdependence. Yet, I argue that kokutai identity has not fully disappeared. More precisely, the hierarchic worldview and the associated sense of Japanese “uniqueness” can be identified within the postwar heiwa/shonin kokka narratives, with their inherent ethnocentrism intact—the hallmark of kokutai—fusing with peaceful merchant role prescriptions. In other words, both heiwaand shonin kokka intimate Japan’s self-professed leadership role—a worldview that is not dissimilar to the prewar Asia imaginary. Indeed, given the post-1945 discourse of “change,” the similarities seemed even more striking. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section traces the emergence and elaboration of kokutai as a defining narrative of Japanese national polity. Through the process of mass inculcation, kokutai sunk into the collective Background informing the worldview through which the international environment is perceived. The endurance of kokutai can be identified through its recurrent references within “pan-Asianism” justifying Tokyo’s imperialist policies. By the time the Greater Far Eastern Coprosperity Sphere was proclaimed in August 1940, kokutai became a stable template upon which Japanese expansionist policies were articulated. In the second section, I analyze the emergence of postwar narratives of heiwa- and shonin kokka. They emerged as a backlash to the trauma of the war, being elaborated into key foreign policy instruments after 1945. The peaceful-merchant state identity legitimized Tokyo’s self-proclaimed role prescription to take initiatives in fostering peaceful coexistence through interdependence. What is striking here is the resilient sense of leadership signified within the peaceful- and trading-state identity construction—as if to lend credence to the endurance of ethnocentricity that is characteristic of prewar kokutai. This is the topic of the third section. While it is tempting to argue that August 15, 1945, marked a disjuncture between the prewar militarism and postwar pacifism, the survival of condescension toward Asia suggests that it readily adapts to postwar narratives in legitimizing Japan’s self-confidence as a function of neutralizing Asian skepticism. As such, only by appreciating the coexistence of changes within continuity can we make sense of Japan’s contemporary approach to its most immediate neighbor.

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Kokutai as Identity Kokutai occupies a pivotal position within the prewar Japanese Asia imaginary, being a source of rationale for Japanese continental expansion from the late-nineteenth century onward. Kokutai translates into “polity”: the polity of the state defined through emperor as the father figure, and the people—the subjects—as his “children.” The foundational myth maintains that the imperial throne traces its roots directly to the sun goddess Amaterasu, lending itself to the manifestation of a mythical claim to nation’s divine origins—a source of “uniqueness” myth and the enduring ethnocentricity. Carol Gluck argues that kokutai’s elemental aspect refers simply to continuity of the throne.2 The original concept signified the continuity of the state rather than as a tool for framing Japan’s liberationism,3 and until the 1850s, kokutai was primarily a mythical notion symbolizing Japan as a state unified by divinity.4 Yet, following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, it was recast as a symbol of country’s autonomy amid Western colonialism, becoming further politicized as Meiji oligarchs portrayed Japan as a resilient autonomous state capable of warding off the West, transforming it into a national ideology for legitimizing sovereignty both internal and external.5 In short, the divine unity became synonymous with the declaration of Japan’s arrival on to the international stage. Being inextricably associated with the emperor system (tennosei), kokutai constituted an important element within the prewar identity narratives, tantamount to a grammar through which the prewar assertion of Japanese statehood as an imagined community was realized,6 and it became the very fabric of a familial state headed by the emperor whose divine ancestry justified Japan’s “superiority” over Asia. Kokutai was abused and disabused by conservatives and particularly the militarists after the mid-1920s: numerous oppressive laws—including the notorious Peace Preservation Law of 1925—were designed to anchor kokutai within Japanese society. Aggression into Asia, and ultimately the attack on Pearl Harbor, constituted a physical manifestation of kokutai in the name of Japan’s divine duty to “liberate” Asia from the West. The acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration in the closing days for the war was justified, again, in the name of “kokutai no goji” (the preservation of kokutai). As mentioned above, kokutai did preexist the Meiji Restoration, having featured within the political and philosophical lexicon. As Yoon Keuncha notes, “It has been widely accepted by the mid-Edo period to describe the sanctity of the emperor; yet the inherent idea was religious and cultural, therefore apolitical in nature.”7 It was not until kaikoku (the opening) that it gained further political momentum, fusing with Japan’s sense

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of insecurity and reified into a dominant worldview through which Meiji oligarchs addressed Japan’s perceived foreign policy objectives. Maruyama Masao points to the enmeshing of kaikoku with kokutai: “on the one hand, kaikoku meant opening Japan to international society; and on the other hand, it implied a portrayal of Japan as a unified state. This double movement was a destiny that was common to backward regions of Asia, but Japan was the only country successful in modernizing itself in the nineteenth century.”8 Kokutai’s symbolism was further politicized as it merged with the common narrative of elites, following the promulgation of the 1889 constitution and the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education. As a signifier, kokutai transcended the inside/outside dichotomy:9 Japanese elites’ view of the international environment necessitated a construction of a unified state to withstand Western challenges through fukoku kyohei (prosperity through strength). The international situation of the mid- to late-nineteenth century prompted the nascent Japanese government to choose between domination and autonomy. The choice was evident.10 The elites’ struggled toward national resilience legitimized a narrative that consolidated unitary state via kokutai. Inculcation of Kokutai Ever since kokutai entered the political lexicon, it has remained an ambiguous term. As Yoon suggests, ambiguities were part of its etymology—the sanctity of emperor as a function of religion or culture, albeit fluid and contingent.11 Kokutai is composed of two Chinese characters whose literal meanings are “state” (koku) and “body” (tai); whose direct translation simply means “national essence or polity.”12 Yet, the ambiguity of the idea lends itself to elite appropriation. Gluck identifies permutations in the representations of kokutai: (1) the emperor as “both a continuous monarch and a deified patriarch” embodying the state13 and (2) the timeless series of emperors in succession.14 This duality of kokutai is unified by Ito Hirobumi, among the most influential Meiji oligarchs and the protagonist behind Meiji Constitution of 1889, who defined kokutai as a rule by an emperor “transmitted through an unbroken line of one and the same dynasty,” entailing “historical and ethical frameworks of the nation, its legal and political systems, as well as its customs and traditions.”15 Kokutai occupied an important locus within the emperor system,16 imparting legitimacy on to the state under the divine imperium. Superficially, this recourse to emperor had all the trappings of a political ploy by disgruntled Satsuma and Choshu clans whose revolt against Tokugawa

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shogunate had resulted in the Meiji Restoration.17 Yet, even if the politicized kokutai had its roots in a coup d’état, it endured until 1945: the collapse of Japanese ultranationalism precipitated by the failure of the most virulent form of kokutai shows the degree of inculcation among the policy elites. Indeed, Maruyama reiterates Emil Lederer’s 1929 observation and apparent surprise at seeing schoolmasters running into fires as they tried to salvage the emperor’s portraits from the burning school buildings.18 Following a series of similar incidents, a debate ensued on whether to remove the portraits from schools as they were deemed hazardous to the lives of teachers, but it stopped short of discussing whether school masters should sacrifice the portraits instead.19 This anecdote shows the potency of kokutai as a dominant signifier of Japan’s identity narratives prescribing what is to be construed as an “acceptable practice.” Kokutai was enshrined in the 1889 constitution, designating it as a defining element of the modern Japanese state, in which the security of the state became synonymous with its preservation. The constitutional definition of kokutai stipulated the following: Article 1: The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal; and Article 4: The Emperor is the head of the empire, combining in himself the right of sovereignty and exercises them according to the provisions of the present constitution.20

The ambiguity remained. Maruyama argues that even the Supreme Court in 1929 failed to provide a concrete definition of kokutai, having simply reiterated articles 1 and 4 of the constitution, effectively preserving its ambiguity.21 Yet, it was the ambiguity that guaranteed its perseverance, facilitating the fusion of two ideas crucial to the construction of Japan’s Asia imaginary: (1) that Japan was the only autonomous state in Asia and (2) Japan was ineluctably a non-Western nation, unique in its successful national resilience.22 The reality of this ambiguity harnessed Japan’s ethnocentric duty of liberation. Kokutai rears its head in another significant document, the Imperial Rescript on Education, promulgated by the emperor in 1890. The rescript is not simply a document outlining the educational policies of the imperial government: it was also deemed a moral document “issued to illustrate the moral principles that each citizen [was] to follow.”23 This marked a beginning of kokutai’s further infusion into the wider national psyche. The constitution made the preservation of kokutai an imperative; and now the rescript paved the way for this ideology to be dispersed into the populace—a vehicle through which policy elites enjoyed tacit support of their

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imperialist policies from the public. If the constitution marked the politicization of kokutai, then the rescript congealed it. The rescript exhorted subjects to always “respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arises, offer yourselves courageously to the state; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth. . . . The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by Our Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by Their Descendants and the subjects for all ages and the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all places.”24 Gluck suggests that this was not a trivial document. The copies of the rescript were distributed to schools throughout the country, and school children were required to memorize it. Gluck adds that “with the rescript as a moral basis, a corpus of national textbooks and a body of publicly trained and employed teachers, the [Ministry of Education] pursued its mission of civic education.”25 Hence, through mass inculcation and regurgitation within the elite language, kokutai matured into a political template upon which the contradiction between the domestic need for national resilience, on the one hand; and the international ambition to be recognized by the great powers, on the other, were resolved.

Kokutai as Hierarchy Kokutai became inextricably linked to the notion of hierarchy, with the emperor at the helm and his “children”—the subjects—practicing filial piety. In presenting the Japanese state as a unified state capable of warding off Western encroachment, the emperor system came to symbolize a familial state: the state was tantamount to the family and village, with patriotism identified with longing for home.26 Patriarchy (of the emperor) became synonymous with the family; and the state represented the locus of interaction between them, hence the home.27 This was proclaimed as a unique national attribute underlying Japan’s superiority over the rest of Asia. The idea of the father as the head of the household, the mother as caring for the children, and the children in turn professing loyalty to the parents was transposed on to the state level whereby the emperor represented the father figure, motherhood manifesting the land or soil on which the family home stood, and the subjects as children of the state. Indeed, the first chief of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, Kawaji Toshiyoshi, was quoted as saying that the “government should be seen as the parent, the people as the children and the policemen as the nurses of children.”28 While the idea of family signified collectivity, it also symbolized hierarchy. When the elites’ gaze turned inward, the familial state was realized and

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generally accepted by the population. But as the focus shifted beyond its borders, Japan’s purported uniqueness and superiority over other Asians were also assumed to be apparent. As Masao Miyoshi notes, “Its cultural exceptionalism, for instance, is a logical extension of a strategy to place itself outside the categories of both ‘advanced’ nations and ‘underdeveloped’ nations.”29 The post-1868 modernization aided this perception, and the comparative economic, and military, strength—especially after the victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)—gave policy elites the confidence to proclaim Japan’s supremacy. Kokutai, therefore, comprised a double movement: the “inside” component equating the state with the family, and the “outside” component reaffirming the duality of Japan that is physically situated in Asia—and hence non-Western—but sentimentally alien to it. There was a unifying element transcending the “inside/ outside” dichotomy: modernized Japan had a unique position to “liberate” the rest of Asia from the West. Illustrating this point, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi suggests that “in Japanese eyes, [the emperor’s] ‘sacred and inviolable’ authority stood above and beyond diplomatic covenants. Thus it follows that the imperial rescript declaring war in 1941—unlike those issued for all previous wars—omitted the stipulation that Japan should respect international law.”30 The ambiguity of politicized kokutai instilled an admixture of Japan’s leadership identity bolstered by hierarchic worldview. Naito Konan, a historian in the early part of the twentieth century, aptly summarized the prevailing mood of the times when he observed that “the difference between China and Japan today comes from their different stages in their national lives. Had Japan lived through the age of China, Japan would be another China, and China’s would be another Japan. The reverse would also be true.”31 On the one hand, the sense of danger deriving from the imminence of subjugation by Western powers unless Japan did something is evident. On the other hand, Japan’s good fortune in escaping the Chinese, or indeed the Asian, predicament was a “proof ” of Japan’s uniqueness, and the idea that only Japan can prevent the rest of Asia falling into the hands of Western colonial powers gained credence within the elite circles. The historical experience of being the only Asian country (apart from Thailand) that was spared colonialism encouraged Tokyo to take initiatives in warding off the West. Naito was not alone. Other intellectuals held similar views on Japan’s international position at the turn of the century. Fukuzawa Yukichi noted that the country was both inside Asia for geographical reasons, yet outside because of its successful modernization.32 The resultant Asian liberationism was “reformulated within an increasingly enclosed, narcissistic vision”33 legitimizing the denigration of Asia, an idea further underpinned

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by the racial implications of kokutai—the purported purity of the divine Japanese race embraced by the emperor, as opposed to the rest of “backward” Asia. This dichotomy helped to blur the contrast between jinshu (race) and minzoku (peoples). Michael Weiner argues that “throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, numerous publications appeared that argued a biological or genetic basis for the distinctiveness and superiority of the Japanese people.”34 Louise Young claims, too, that “Japan learned to think in alien racial categories [not] from the West, but rather that such categories made sense precisely because they resonated with homegrown notions of hierarchy.”35 This construction of Asian otherness became more evident when Korean otherness in particular was reconstructed as “dirty” but “fearsome”: dirty because the Koreans were underdeveloped; and fearsome because the Koreans, instead of being grateful for Japanese leadership, were rebelling against them.36 Similarly, following the Russo-Japanese War, General Yamagata Aritomo preached the necessity of protecting South Manchuria from Russians vengeful for their defeat in 1905.37 He added that China should be grateful for Japan’s role in protecting Chinese heartland of Manchuria from Western invasion.38 The Japanese government of the times was very sensitive to the discourse of “Yellow peril,” confirming Tokyo’s racialized worldview that conceptualized developments in Asia as a battle between the White and “Yellow” races.39 Kaiser Wilhelm’s assertion that “Christian nations must take a firm stand against the pagan yellow race”40 endorsed the Japanese view that it had no choice but to embark upon its program of liberation, with Admiral Kato Kanji of the Imperial Navy stating in the early part of the twentieth century that “Yamato race must become the savior of the people of Asia.”41 This sentiment was enhanced at the 1919 Versailles Conference when the issue of racial equality was brushed aside, confirming the racialized reality facing the Japanese government, fueling panAsianism that “validated the subsequent belief that Japan was uniquely qualified to assume leadership in Asia.”42 What transpired within policy circles was that “Japan’s leadership meant Asia’s security”;43 and insofar as the Korean peninsula and Manchuria were concerned, they were necessary for Japan to legitimize the beleaguered Japanese self amid Western hostility.44 The fifteen years under the throne of Emperor Taisho (1912–1926) was also known as the era of “Taisho Democracy,” seen as a heyday of prewar party politics as political debates flourished. The Meiji era was reevaluated: debates abound as to its effect on material prosperity and how it impacted upon Japanese spirituality. Socialism also became fashionable. The spread of capitalism and its side effects, as well as how to remedy its concomitant inequality, were hotly debated.45 Discussions over commerce and free

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trade also played a prominent role, with thinkers, such as Ishibashi Tanzan, believing it to be the only way for Japan to prosper.46 Taisho Democracy marked an era, albeit a short one, whereby modernization since the Restoration came under scrutiny, but the unfettered debate did not last long. The economic downturn starting with the banking crisis of 1927 meant Taisho Democracy lacked substance in the face of rising poverty, and the prospects for further prosperity proved to be a false promise. Despite the nascent liberalism, Taisho Democracy also rationalized Japan’s exploitation of Asia. Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijuro, for example, was sympathetic toward nationalist movements in China and Korea, but reiterated the necessity of securing Japan’s economic interests on the continent.47 Indeed, Shidehara could not presage surrendering China and Korea: he was adamant that Japan should still take initiatives in the protection of foreign assets in Asia.48 The policy elites felt that Asia’s security could only be guaranteed by Japan reasserting its position and amassing resources. Japanese imperialism, therefore, was seen as a necessary evil in its racialized struggle for survival. The liberal experiment quickly soured after Japan succumbed to a banking crisis in 1927 followed by the Great Depression of 1929. Elites became increasingly disillusioned with the false promise of capitalism; and the liberals, including Shidehara, were discredited and shunted aside by a rising tide of conservative revisionism.49 The failures of Taisho Democracy precipitated the rise of fascism,50 and the familial state imaginary inherent within kokutai gathered virulence as ultranationalists expropriated the concept. Even amid Taisho Democracy, kokutai always lurked in the background. The Peace Preservation Law of 1925 that criminalized socialist activities was amended in 1928 to include capital punishment. The law was adopted in the name of preserving kokutai, and the ensuing persecution of left-wing activists by the authorities continued throughout the Taisho era, with the law marking a culmination of the government’s determination to balance political debate against its preservation.51 Essentially, kokutai defined the perimeters of the debate, effectively delimiting its ethical contours: anything deemed a challenge to kokutai became a heresy. While Taisho Democracy as an experiment was tolerated to a certain degree, kokutai as a political lens through which the circumstances of the late 1920s were perceived quickly invalidated the experiment, identifying the ideological shift from the center to extreme right as the sole alternative. The conservative revisionism originated primarily from the military, particularly the army, whose recruits came mainly from the countryside which bore the full brunt of depression. The rural hardships signified the travails of home, and the notion of familial state added fuel to the

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emergence of Japanese militarism.52 Tokutomi Soho, a journalist, noted that the countryside was the main constituency for the army.53 As Richard Smethurst argues, there were deep-rooted feelings of loyalty to the state among army reservists from the countryside. He states that “when one spoke of chu, loyalty to the emperor—as all of the interview respondents in this study did—he referred to more than political obedience to the state and its symbol. The term encompassed all of the user’s feelings about unique Japanese ethnicity, the ideas of filial piety to a national father figure in a paternal society, of ‘feudal’ dependence on a benevolent lord, and of reverence, love, and awe of a man-deity (arahitogami). In short, the nationalist held a deeply emotional attachment to the emperor.”54 This was the product of mass education drive by the Meiji oligarchs,55 but the degree to which kokutai comprised the collective Background reveals its potency. It seems the ambiguities of kokutai tolerated extremism, so long as the hierarchical worldview remained intact. The failures of the liberal experiment in the 1920s provided further rationale for the conservatives to campaign for Japan’s self-professed role to its logical extreme. Okawa Shumei—later to become the main ideologue for the military clique—saw both capitalism and socialism to have failed in delivering the promised good life, since they were solely concerned with the redistribution of material wealth. The disillusioned Okawa, instead, called for nurturing the spiritual dimensions in realizing the overall interests of the Japanese state.56 He blamed Japanese government’s “spiritual deficit” for its failure to manage power politics of the 1920s and 1930s, concluding that Japan’s vulnerability and Asia’s colonization were due to this spiritual deficit.57 It was as if “a psychological dislocation bordering on a fatal illness had spread through all of Asia,”58 arguing that, as soon as the Chinese and Koreans came to appreciate Japanese intentions, Tokyo’s leadership position would be accepted. He justified violence against China on the grounds of cleansing Asia of Western colonialism: “It was not simply expelling the Western presence from Japan and Asia but purging the spirit of putrefaction and pollution.”59 Other intellectuals of the time held similar views to Okawa, arguing that Japan must act as a leader. Such views infiltrated policy circles, adding credence to the government’s geopolitical thinking and justifying ultranationalist policies.60 Ishiwara Kanji, the army mastermind behind the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, saw Japan as the standard-bearer for Asia in an “inevitable” Armageddon between the West and East—more precisely between the United States and Japan—designating the latter as an Asian liberator.61 He justified the invasion of Manchuria as a necessary step toward securing resources in anticipation of the war to end all wars.62 Kita Ikki, the brains behind the failed February 26, 1936, coup attempt by disgruntled young

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officers in the imperial army, initially supported Chinese revolution by advocating the self-determination of the Asian peoples. Yet, having sensed failure on the continent, Kita began to argue instead for civilized Japan to usher China toward a true path of revolution. For him, China needed to be sacrificed in the name of Japanese autonomy.63 These narratives marked the emergence of extremism buttressed by the ambiguities of kokutai. The culmination of these emergent narratives came in the form of a New Far Eastern Order proclaimed in 1938, something Tokyo stipulated was an “honourable responsibility of the Japanese nation,” vis-à-vis Asia.64 The start of the Second World War in Europe, and the subsequent formation of the Axis, led to the proclamation of the Greater Far East Asian Coprosperity Sphere outlined by Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke in 1940. The significance of the Coprosperity Sphere announcement lies in the explicit mention of hakko ichiu (eight corners of the world under one roof)—in other words the proliferation of kokutai throughout Asia—as the goal of the imperial government, which Matsuoka defined as “instilling hakko ichiu within the minds of the Asian peoples.”65 Iriye Akira argues that kokutai made Pearl Harbor in December 1941 inevitable. The Japanese perception of the international environment defined as a zero-sum game between the White and Yellow races left Japan with “no choice” but to reassert its position through the use of force.66 Miyoshi criticizes the Japanese propensities of the time stating that “the fundamental problematic of Japanese liberationism, however, was that it immediately inverted, or perverted, and initiated its own agenda of aggression and suppression in the Pacific islands and continental Asia as well as at home. It was a semi-colonized country attempting to colonize others without a dominant metropolitan culture.”67 It was only after total devastation and a loss of three million lives that the Japanese government accepted the Potsdam Declaration on the pretext that kokutai was preserved.68 The gradual, but steady, progression toward extremism from the late 1920s was not inevitable as such; but this experience was legitimized as a viable policy preference informed through the lens of kokutai, however, ethnocentric this might have been. The incremental steps toward colonialism mark Japan’s changing psychological landscape; but the gradual militancy in Japanese narratives can only be predicated upon a narrator seeking to address an evolving landscape defined though realpolitik.

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Japan as Heiwa- and Shonin Kokka Japan assumed the role, and indeed the identity, of the vanquished on August 15, 1945. Emperor Hirohito stated that he had interpreted the terms of the unconditional surrender to imply that the Allies showed an understanding in preserving kokutai.69 The surrender marked a significant disjuncture in Japan’s psychological landscape. The occupation that started on August 28 signified the moment when Japan’s self-confidence evaporated, at least until April 1952. This was a far cry from the prewar liberator, precipitating a recalibration in Japanese identity narratives coinciding with a bout of postwar soul-searching. The immediate aims of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) were to demilitarize Japan and jump start democratization in order to forestall any future threat to Asia, including dismantling of the infamous Interior Ministry, the dissolution of the military apparatus, and instituting the war crimes tribunal.70 Simultaneously, the occupation introduced other changes. Eto Jun argues that the censorship policies of the SCAP fundamentally transformed Japan’s “linguistic space” (gengo kukan), cataloguing the introduction of a variety of euphemisms pertaining to the imperial household. He compares prewar with postwar renderings to show how certain vocabulary became extinct from the vernacular as well as criticizing the 1947 constitution for its “alien” language as quintessentially unJapanese.71 Whether the SCAP intended to alter the postwar Japanese linguistic space or whether it was due to mere incompetence on the part of the authorities,72 the fact remains that the new psychological landscape had a significant impact on the recalibration of identity narratives.73 The new elite grammar designating Japan’s role in the postwar international environment entailed prewar narratives of kokutai being superseded by “peace” and “merchant” narratives. The narratives of heiwa kokka and shonin kokka furnished a new template for Tokyo in reasserting its role in this changed landscape. The heiwa narrative, on the one hand, is a backlash to the trauma of war, comprising a pledge never to repeat the same mistakes. The shonin narrative, on the other hand, shares similarities to the economic signifiers inherent in kokutai: the vulnerability of Japanese archipelago dependent on imports for much of its natural resource and hence survival. Yet the shonin narrative needs to be couched within heiwa kokka, since the postwar pledge is to pursue national interests via interdependence and trade rather than through territorial aggression. These narratives combine to represent a New Japan, which at least on the surface, seeks to distance itself from the

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past. As if to suggest that Japan had always harbored these peaceful intentions, a former prime minister, Yoshida Shigeru, said that the war was an “aberration brought about by irresponsible and conspiratorial elements within the imperial military.”74 Narratives of Heiwa Kokka Heiwa kokka narratives manifest themselves most explicitly in the 1947 constitution. Yet, the calls for New Japan to be peaceful did not originate from it alone. As early as September 1945, a member of the Diet, Togo Minoru, urged the House of Representatives that a New Japan must be “cultural, economic, and peaceful,”75 according credence to the argument that despite the Allied influence on the way the new constitution was drafted, the language of peace is not as alien as Eto would like to suggest. This vindicates what Charles Kades, the chief architect of the constitution, wrote in 1989 that the SCAP tried to make it into a “Japanese product” as much as possible.76 Theodore McNelly, another former SCAP official involved in the drafting of the constitution, states that “although it is undeniable that General MacArthur’s headquarters provided the basic draft for the present Japanese constitution, it would be a gross overstatement to assume that the principle of popular sovereignty in the constitution was solely the result of a foreign imposition.”77 These statements from the American drafters suggest that even the socalled MacArthur Constitution incorporated an element of indigenous narratives. Indeed, the recurrence of heiwa and shonin signifiers within the postwar narratives indicates the domestication of pacifism into the collective Background of Japanese elites. Put differently, even if Peace State is a lip service, the fact of its centrality within subsequent foreign policy narratives suggests its cogency as a discursive infrastructure within which Japan’s realm of possibilities is legitimized. Since the polity of the Japanese state was theoretically preserved, the hierarchy as the defining element of kokutai survived to occupy the collective Background.78 Continuity is also reflected by the fact that the new constitution is technically an amendment to the Meiji Constitution. The new constitution came into effect on May 3, 1947, and its key articles appear in the preamble as well as the famous article 9. The preamble reads, “We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and the faith of the peace-loving people of the world.” And article 9—the renunciation of war clause—stipulates the following:

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1. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people for ever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes 2. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.79

Article 9 of the constitution comprises the defining narrative of heiwa kokka to the extent that any talk of changes to the article is considered a dereliction of Japan’s peaceful duty. The debates following Tokyo’s impotence during the 1990–91 Gulf War plunged Japan into a spate of national soul-searching;80 and Tokyo’s support for the “War on Terror” is still couched within the language of peaceful coexistence.81 The overall mood of the immediate postwar period was reflected by a former minister of education, Maeda Tamon, who observed that “the new era means that there is only one road for Japan to take. That is, to throw away arms and pursue instead the road of cultivating culture and knowledge in an effort at realizing moralistic Japan that can contribute to the world.”82 Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru suggested in 1946 that “as you know, we have the great undertaking of constructing a democratic peaceful nation in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration,”83 and pointed out that New Japan (shin Nihon) meant “peaceful New Japan” (heiwa shin Nihon).84 Moreover, Yoshida claimed in 1949 that “the only way to guarantee the security of our country is, as we do in the new constitution, to solemnly declare our country an unarmed nation, going before all countries and renouncing war and abandoning armaments in reliance on peace-loving world public opinion and make more and more clear the determination of our people to contribute to civilization, peace and prosperity in the world.”85 The inculcation of heiwa kokka was comprehensive: the United States tried in vain to persuade Japan to rearm following the onset of the Korean conflict in June 1950. The anticipated end to the occupation in 1952 exacerbated American pressure on Japan to be flexible with its heiwa kokka role. But Japanese elites were steadfast. The occupation ended in April 1952 amid the Korean War. Japan was urged to remilitarize, but the reaction was slow. Yoshida was reluctant to commit the country, and instead set out three foreign policy objectives that later became known as the Yoshida Doctrine: (1) promoting economic recovery and postwar reconstruction, (2) minimal rearmament, and (3) the alliance between Japan and the United States to constitute the centerpiece of Japanese security policy.86 The third element is effectively the main component of the doctrine, placing Japan under the American

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nuclear umbrella, minimizing Japanese military involvement thereby allowing Tokyo to focus on the economy. Yoshida went so far as telling John Foster Dulles, the American negotiator in the Peace Treaty of 1951, that his understanding of the cold war was that dangers were more apparent in Europe rather than in Asia.87 Sun-ki Chai notes that a large part of Yoshida’s nonmilitary stance reflected his pragmatism in seeing the need to divert resources away from defense toward economic development, but his purported aversion to the military also played a significant role.88 Yoshida commented that the military was the cancer compromising Japanese security.89 Eventually, though, Yoshida relented. As John Dower points out, “It was Yoshida who set the pattern for Japan’s course of slow but creeping rearmament.”90 Despite this, it is noteworthy that heiwa kokka remained intact. The conservative prime minister at the time of the Mutual Security Agreement (MSA) renegotiations in the late 1950s, Kishi Nobusuke (a former Class A war criminal), felt comfortable enough reiterating the peace narrative, declaring that “the government will continue to adhere to the basis of its usual diplomacy and wants to contribute to the prosperity of Asia and peace in the world, developing more and more its self-reliant peaceful diplomacy according to the changing international situation.”91 Kishi’s statement is striking, even if it was a lip service. Given Kishi’s penchant for Japan’s militarist revival and having stated that “the Greater Far Eastern Co-prosperity Sphere was fundamentally sound, despite all the criticisms,”92 the fact that he felt the need to invoke heiwa-kokka indicates its prevalence as the preferred language. This continues today. The second socialist prime minister in history, Murayama Tomiichi, reiterated in his speech to the Diet in January 1995 that the “lessons of the past” must be learnt and Japan must contribute toward “world peace.”93 In January 1996, his successor, Hashimoto Ryutaro, underlined the importance of working within the framework of the constitution.94 Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo outlined his policies in the Diet in January 1998 when he envisioned the twenty-first century as the “century for peace.”95 Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo told delegates attending the International Conference on the Future of Asia in May 2008 that Japan is ready to invest much of its efforts into becoming a “peaceful state willing and ready to cooperate internationally” (heiwa kyoryoku kokka).96 This obsession with “peace” also represents a psychological disjuncture within the ranks of policy makers, with heiwa narratives frequently reappearing within the framework of sengo (the postwar). Sengo denotes the passing of time, as well as the “mistakes” of the past; yet it also signifies New Japan rising out of the ashes and reincarnated as a peaceful merchant state. As early as 1956, the Economic Planning Agency White

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Paper proclaimed that “sengo is over,” calling on the people to put the past behind them now that the economy was on course to recovery. However, as Masaru Tamamoto notes, the word sengo “does not simply denote a time frame; it embodies a historical consciousness.”97 Intellectuals still debate the validity of sengo democracy. Policy elites hark back to the lessons of the war and invoke the notion of “only hibaku-koku” (the bombed country) emphasizing Japan’s victimization in the war.98 Sengo and heiwa kokka demarcate a clear disjuncture from the prewar era, signifying a complete make-over of Japan’s role on the international stage. Being the only economic superpower in the region; the only country with the Peace Constitution; and as the only victim of Atom bomb, these symbols legitimize Tokyo’s role as the promoter of peace. Yoshida had already made the connection between peace identity and leadership role for Japan in June 1946 when he noted that “aspiration for eternal peace will entrust its future security and survival to the justice and faith of the peace-loving people of the world, and we desire . . . to move forward with this high ideal in the vanguard of peace-loving countries on the great road of justice.”99 Peaceful leadership seems contradictory: leadership implies military commitment, while pacifism excludes it. But the dominant narrative treats them as mutually inclusive, not exclusive. The American nuclear umbrella and the MSA as the linchpin of Japanese security policy solve this contradiction. As Kishi, who renegotiated the MSA in 1960, noted, “Devoutly wishing this year [1960] will start to bring a thaw for the world, the government is resolved anew to more than ever dedicate positively its strength to peace and freedom as a member of the peace-loving international community, hand in hand with the United States and the liberal democracies.”100 This idea of “hand in hand” denotes Japan’s professed international role within the framework of the MSA, whereby Japan’s peaceful leadership is realized through close cooperation with the United States. The MSA as an institution is central to the mindset of policy planners and Japan’s security needs are defined exclusively through it. Nishimura Shigeki, a former general in the SDF states that “Japan’s security policy and defense program will continue to be implemented in the framework of the U.S.-Japan security system,”101 to the extent that the United States forms the basis for Japan’s security policy in East Asia.102 According to Yamazaki Ryu, an official from the Japan Defense Agency (JDA), Due to our geopolitical vulnerability as well as other factors, Japan finds it both realistic and in its national interest to establish its defense posture by combining the appropriate level of Japanese defense capability with American military capability. It is our firm conviction that the Japan-US security

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alliance contributes not only to Japan’s own security but also to the maintenance of peace and stability in Japan’s surrounding region.103 Japan aspires to contribute more to the region in a peaceful, non-aggressive manner and the new guidelines provide the framework to realizing this aspiration. . . . Japan hopes to live up to its role as a responsible ally of the United States while dispelling any concern from its neighbors about Japan’s wish to contribute to the common stake of peace and stability of the AsiaPacific region.104

Yamazaki’s assessment is reflected by Kakizawa Koji, the Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs in November 1992, that “because of its strict policies on arms exports Japan considers itself a ‘natural leader’ in the campaign to limit arms trade.”105 Nakasone Yasuhiro made similar comments when he was a prime minister in the 1980s. On his visit to Washington in January 1983, he reiterated how crucial the Japan-U.S. alliance was, underlining the need for Japan to play an active role in the maintenance of international peace.106 Japan’s perceived role as peaceful and responsible state willing to play its part within the framework of the security alliance is evident here, as the alliance legitimizes Tokyo’s enhanced international ambitions in the AsiaPacific region. Japan’s memories of the wartime, especially the Atom bomb, nurture its so-called nuclear allergy, internalized by the elites as the flagship postwar mindset, which in turn substantiates Tokyo’s commitment to pacifism. Here we see the cohabitation between the two: (1) the postwar peaceful state narrative with (2) the enduring hierarchical worldview that emphasizes Tokyo’s leadership role. Put differently, only thorough the preservation of hierarchy can the recalibration from “liberator” to “peaceful state” be undertaken smoothly.107 Narratives of Shonin Kokka The narratives of shonin kokka are intertwined with the heiwa kokka narratives constituting another facet of Japan’s identity representation. They reaffirm Tokyo’s intention as a peaceful harbinger of interdependence, helping to show that it is now a responsible member of the international system. It appears in various permutations, including chonin kokka, a term coined by Amaya Naohiro (a former Ministry of International Trade and Industry [MITI] official) to depict Japan as a nation of “shrewd merchants”; the “maritime state” (kaiyo kokka) deriving from Japan’s geography, but also denoting Japan’s need to become a “merchant state”; and shigen sho-koku (resource-scarce country) symbolizing its lack of resources. This latter idea, too, derives from Japan’s geographical

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position, but it also symbolizes Japan’s vulnerability and dependence on imports.108 Indeed, Euan Graham quotes Sato Seizaburo, suggesting that “the country’s experience with postwar pacifism is facilitated by geography.”109 The unifying theme here is the sense that interaction with the outside world is inevitable, along with a hint of pragmatism: Yoshida once observed that the “Japanese economy is impossible without trade.”110 The “merchant” narrative unifies the material with ideational—the material reality of Japan’s geographical constraints and the ideational elements of Japan’s delimited choices as heiwa kokka. The reality of shigen sho-koku became prominent after the Oil Crisis of 1973. Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei noted that “our country, poor in resources, narrow in land with a population over 100 million, has a trade the form of which is to import resources from overseas, add value to this, and export them as products [sic],”111 and Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo made clear in his inaugural speech to the Diet in January 1977 that “from the point of view of national economy and the people’s livelihood, securing natural resources and development of science and technology are both crucial to the country. Japan as lacking in resources (shigen sho-koku) means that these issues are of utmost security concern for the survival and well being of the country.”112 Fukuda’s speech illustrates Japanese policy of “comprehensive security” as encompassing both military as well as economic security.113 It is worth noting that the prewar economic considerations were also fused with security concerns, such as the “Nanshin (south advance) policy” toward Southeast Asia and the South Pacific as a means to secure natural resources for the war effort.114 This is another facet of change within continuity: the circumstances and policy prescriptions change within the enduring framework of Japan’s inevitable Asian existence. Even those outside the Yoshida clique, such as Kishi in the 1950s and Nakasone in the 1980s, found it extremely difficult to challenge this. Public sensitivities surrounding the constitutional amendment (e.g., article 9) discourage even the conservatives from pursuing policies aimed at enhancing Japan’s international political, let alone military, presence and instead focus their attention on core economic competency. Satoh Yukio, a former Japanese ambassador to The Hague, notes that since Japan’s security role is limited, the state’s primary occupation must lie in economic affairs, adding that “being a global economic power, Japan must work to make regional economic developments compatible with global economic and trade expansion.”115 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is also happy to point out Japan’s economic role. In its 1998 Official Development Assistance (ODA) Summary, it states that “as a peace-loving nation, Japan has a mission to assume a role commensurate with its economic capability to help sustain

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world peace and work in the interests of international society.”116 The conflation of Peace State with Japan’s perceived vulnerability in which its economic role acts as a bridge between shonin- and heiwa kokka narratives is evident. The Ministry of Defense states, too, that for a country dependent on trade, international peace and stability are indispensable for its survival and prosperity.117 The immersion of shonin kokka into the collective Background and fusing with the hierarchy can be seen elsewhere. Hatakeyama Noboru, the former vice minister at MITI, states that “Japan has been the recipient of rules which have been made by others. From now on we would like to contribute to the formulation of new rules,”118 referring to the bitter lessons learnt during the semiconductor talks between Japan and the United States in the 1980s when Japan acquiesced to American demands for numerical targets.119 Intellectuals such as Amako Satoshi point to Japan’s economic capabilities and suggests Japan should play the role “as a co-ordinator between the industrial world and the developing states; [because] it has the role to encourage China to become integrated into the international economic system.”120 Both the heiwa- and shonin kokka narratives occupy the local collective Background informed through Japan’s postwar experience, providing a stable point of reference from which the leadership designation and the hierarchic worldview reemerge, substantiating identity narratives that legitimizes the ambitions of Japanese self. The urge to become the harbinger of peaceful coexistence through international trade is a collective mindset that assumes hierarchy as the ordering principle within the international system. Japan’s postwar confidence is an “evidence” of Japan’s purportedly legitimate position and role prescription. Nevertheless, the hierarchy remains intact, as if the colonial hangovers still contaminate Japan’s Asia Imaginary. It is this confluence of stability and disjuncture that tempers the prewar colonial relationship into its contemporary version, replicating the very dynamic. Stability and Disjuncture At first glance, heiwa- and shonin kokka seem significantly different from the historically constructed hierarchic worldview. The prewar kokutai signified Japan’s superiority and its divine right to protect Asia from the West, subsequently denigrating Asia into a mere tool for Japan’s autonomy, while the postwar signifiers are constructed from the trauma of war. It must be pointed out, though, that the merchant narrative is reminiscent of kokutai in alluding to Japan’s physical constraints. Katzenstein points out that “the idea of Japan as a small island nation, cosily held

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hostage in a hostile international environment, retain a powerful hold over Japanese thinking. . . . Japanese elites do, at times, mobilize the ideal to achieve specific objectives, appealing to the need to counter international vulnerability through collective effort, hard work, and willingness to pay higher prices.”121 This resonates with Enomoto Takaaki’s January 1875 memo to the foreign ministry in which he expressed his concern with Japan’s vulnerability as an island nation.122 Katzenstein acknowledges that the transformation in identity was a long, gradual process born of a contest between the “proponents of Japan’s traditional military-political identity and the new, economic-political one.”123 However, the defeat “did create windows of opportunity after 1945 during which general societal attitudes toward the military and the use of force became unusually malleable.”124 John Dower seems at first to confirm this view by stating that the Second World War had left an indelible mark on the Japanese populace.125 He underlines the imaginary of sengo as denoting a clear break from senzen (prewar), with policy elites from both sides of the political spectrum utilizing this narrative of change. The Japan Communist Party (JCP) lauds fundamental changes introduced following the adoption of the Potsdam Declaration,126 and conservatives take credit for their part in the development of New Japan.127 Yet, despite the image conjured by sengo, leadership narratives still reverberate. Gluck notes that “clinging to the ‘postwar’ [sengo] thus seems to be an overt expression of support for the status quo, as if to discard the name would throw the present system open to change or question.”128 As early as 1945, Prime Minister Shidehara Kijuro commented on Japan’s “power of moral justice,”129 adding in 1946 that the “proposed charter [the new constitution] could establish a vanguard role for Japan in the world.”130 Yoshida, after retiring from the political scene, wrote in 1957 that as a merchant state, Japan’s role is to exploit its leadership role in bridging the East and West,131 suggesting that “Japan’s role is to persuade Asians and Africans of the importance of freedom and economic development, and Japan has much to contribute toward these goals.”132 Miki Takeo, as the foreign minister in the late 1960s, reiterated Yoshida’s view when he argued that “Japan is deeply aware of its moral responsibility as the only advanced nation in Asia to address itself seriously to this important North-South problem.”133 Conservative politicians are more forthright in claiming Japan’s leadership role. Nakasone in his 1947 election speech provides some measure of his intentions: The new Japan must put aside the self-serving nationalism and the narrow prejudice seen in prewar Japan. We must adopt principles common to the

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world. We must also maintain our dignity. We must restore Japan’s prestige. I firmly believe dignity and prestige are important if we are to live in international society. People who do not have pride and love for their own country will neither respect the people of other nations nor will the people of other nations respect them. People who have lost their pride will be unable to fulfil their responsibilities as respected members of international society.134

He reiterates this when he told the New York Times five decades later that “the country’s leaders must be more forceful, more executive and more visible as real players on the world stage,”135 something he claims to have done as prime minister in the 1980s. In 1986, he made a speech in which he underlined his thinking by stating that “the biggest change for our country in postwar history is that its international position has changed greatly. In order for Japan to be an influential member of the international community in its true meaning, it must seriously reassess its position which hitherto has seemed to be simply inclined to be a one-sided benefactor of world peace and prosperity and must bear its fair share of the burden and contribute positively to the international community.”136 Furthermore, he remarked in 1985 that “our country has achieved spectacular economic development since the war and now accounts for one-tenth of world GNP. With this, in the international community the expectations are rising that our country will play a positive role, not only economically, but also politically and culturally, in the canon of world peace and prosperity, and it is necessary that [Japan] respond self-reliantly to this.”137 This leadership narrative is reproduced by his successors. Prime Minister Murayama talked of Japan’s desire to lead the world in abolishing nuclear weapons in July 1994,138 while Prime Minister Obuchi spoke to the Diet in 1998 that Japan should proactively play a role commensurate with its position within the international community.139 Prime Minister Aso’s suggestion to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2008 that Japan can enhance its role as harbinger of peace by taking on the role of a “broker of trust” (shinrai no chukai-sha) in the Middle East peace talks is a striking example of Tokyo’s exuding confidence.140 Even intellectuals on the Left seem to endorse policy makers’ narratives. Oe Kenzaburo, for example, wrote in 1981 that “Japan as envisaged by the Atom Bomb victims will be a nation that will have attained an identity of being a worthy member of the community of Asia and that of the world at large.”141 Here, the imaginary of the Atom bomb—the mistakes of the past and the pledge of peaceful coexistence—effectively combined with the leadership narrative, calling for Japan to become the standard-bearer of peace. This admixture of heiwa kokka and leadership appears in government publications as well. The Diplomatic Blue Book published by the

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MOFA in 1998 states that “Japan must, and indeed, is being called upon to make efforts in many ways to engage actively in the construction of a desirable international order for the international community as a whole.”142 This leadership designation is aptly summarized by a former official of the Finance Ministry, Sakakibara Eisuke. He wrote that the pivotal question facing Asia and Japan today is not all-or-nothing choice between globalisation western-style or receding into a pre-modern and backward tradition. Rather, the question is how Asian countries can help erect a new global system along with the West. . . . In such a paradigm, it is likely that there will be an important role for Japan, because it is both part of Asia and a nation that has succeeded in modernising its system without fundamentally losing its culture and religion. In other words, the sun may well rise again in the 21st century, with Japan not emulating the West but instead playing a leadership role in the effort to fuse modern western capitalism with pre-modern but nonetheless well-developed Asian global commercialism.143

Hence, the trauma of war effectively recalibrated, rather than fundamentally overhauling, the myth of uniqueness, while the leadership role stayed intact. Thus far, I have not focused on the role of the SCAP and the effects of the occupation. While I do not deny the significant role they played in ushering in transition from kokutai to heiwa- and shonin kokka in which the lessons of war provided an impetus for the emergence of New Japan,144 attributing everything to the occupation does much injustice. Gavan McCormack suggests that “identity is the fundamental unresolved question of Japan’s modern history,”145 arguing that “the structures and values [thought] to be perennial were based on the ideology of militarist Japan that had only become consolidated in the 1930s, which in the postwar era was the subtlest expression of US psychological warfare rather than of an immutable Japanese essence.”146 Such an attribution is a pity, because it trivializes the endurance of Japanese identity into the postwar period. For one thing, much of the bureaucracy remained intact. Graham also points to the inheritance of strategic mindset by the Maritime SDF as a legacy of the Imperial Navy.147 Even after the abolition of the Interior Ministry, bureaucrats were reassigned elsewhere. More significantly, the emperor stayed on, as if the mindset nurtured through kokutai was preserved.148 The occupation contributed to the endurance of the leadership identity by facilitating the “process of forgetting what [Japan] had done to the Asian neighbors,”149 and maintaining a racialized Japanese view of

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Asia.150 In Yukiko Koshiro’s words, “The race issue has transformed an instrument of wartime hatred into a negotiable part of a broader Japanese-American arrangement during the occupation. Racism did not evaporate; it merely moved from the battlefield to the bargaining table.”151 The Nationality Act was used as an excuse to repatriate ethnic Koreans and Chinese immediately after the war.152 Of course, collusion between the Japanese government and the SCAP was necessary for this, but there is also a double coincidence of wants between the Japanese elites wanting to maintain Japanese racial purity and the SCAP’s interest in accommodating Japanese demands for internal security during the cold war.153 Even if the SCAP did instigate changes, it needed the Japanese to realize them. One must also account for the resilient identity narratives on the part of the vanquished that made occupation policies successful and the hierarchy to endure. The use of the expression “mass recompense” (ichioku so zange) immediately after the war by the prime minister, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, underlines the stability of the hierarchic worldview. Mass recompense was directed not against Asians, but was primarily for domestic consumption, issued as an apology to the emperor for national failure to deliver victory.154 Furthermore, the hierarchic worldview was reflected in the Bandung Conference of 1955 by a MOFA official, Kase Toshikazu, when he stated that “the delegates from Asia and Africa expressed gratitude to Japan, who expelled the imperialistic powers from Asian and showed great hospitality to the Japanese delegate. In sum, they highly appreciated the past role of Japan in promoting their national liberation.”155 The endurance of leadership identity narrated through heiwa- and shonin kokka is the template upon which generations of Japanese policy elites experienced the drastic changes after August 1945. This continuity made it possible for Tokyo to embark upon its postwar campaign to regain international prestige lost through the war. Conclusion I have argued that while the defeat of August 1945 posed a significant change in Japanese psychological landscape, the identity narratives of leadership remained intact despite the trauma. While kokutai gave way to new forms of representation through heiwa- and shonin kokka, both sets of speech acts derive their legitimacy from their affiliation with the leadership identity. That is, while hierarchy and racial superiority over the rest of Asia were inherent within kokutai, a similar argument can be made about the postwar peace and merchant narratives. These narratives

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are symbolized through the lack of natural resources that compels Japan to justify its Asian existence via leadership role as the logical conclusion in preferring interdependence as a tool for survival—a theme common in various prime ministerial speeches.156 Put differently, Shonin kokka narrative reflects the recurrent concerns shared by generations of Japanese elites, indicating stability over disjuncture in their collective worldviews.157 Whether policy makers pursued aggression or peaceful coexistence, what lies underneath is the prevalence of ethnocentrism that tends to trivialize Asian experience of Japanese colonialism, focusing instead on Japan’s prewar Asian adventure as Japan’s response to realpolitik; and recasts postwar challenges as how to set about future-oriented diplomacy with its former colonies. Performativity alone cannot adequately explain the coincidence of both stability and disjuncture in Japanese identity narratives throughout the decades. While an actor’s subject position is most readily understood through performance/representation, I argue, contra poststructuralists, that we must account for the existence of a performer/representor to experience this change. Therefore, to say that the postwar Japanese narratives are specific to the constraints of the international environment after 1945 undermines the stability of hierarchy that underpins them.158 Furthermore, this postsructuralist assessment is potentially a reiteration of a truism: I am not claiming that Japanese militarism has survived. Instead, given the centrality of the Past and the consistent negative images of Korea that linger within Japanese foreign policy narratives, the postcolonial relationship needs to be analyzed contemporaneously with the historically constructed Korean otherness within the Japan’s Asia imaginary. These narratives are (mis)interpreted by skeptical Asians: not surprisingly, the often Japan-centric “apologies” fuel Korean anger, since by definition, they trivialize the very Korean experiences, precipitating a quid pro quo of mutual accusations. The Japanese sense of “mistakes” and Higashikuni’s call for ichioku so zange constitute an introspection into what went wrong for Japan, rather than what the Japanese did to Asia.159 This cognitive gap between Japanese elites’ shared memories of wartime, on the one hand; and their counterparts in the rest of Asia, on the other, reproduces sensitivities whereby Japanese elites are at loss to understand why Asia is not content with its leadership role, eliciting an impression in Tokyo that Asia is still backward and adamant, only interested in extracting compensation from Japan. The flipside of this argument is that the Japanese insistence on leadership without formal apology provides an image of unrepentant Tokyo adding to Asia’s enhanced skepticism of Japan.160 The next chapter focuses on the

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Japanese reconstruction of Korean otherness. Having made the case for continuing identity narratives amid varying performances, I now move on to an analysis of how this frame of reference reproduces the postcolonial relations between Tokyo and Seoul. I provide a brief historical overview of Japan-(South) Korea relations by tracing the attitudes of Japanese policy makers. By tracing Japan’s images of Korean otherness over the decades, we can see that the dominant narratives of self/other distinction also exhibits continuity within change.

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Japan-(South) Korea Relations in Historical Context

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he history of Japan-(South) Korea relations from the early 1870s into the late 1980s is also a history in which the common “lens” shared within the Japanese policy circle was reified into a social context.1 Japan’s condescending image of Korean otherness is a temporal construct, but the consistency in the way it is reproduced today suggests that Japanese elites continue to represent Korea (and the Koreans) as less than an equal, if not subordinate, to Japan (and the Japanese). Japan’s rapid modernization in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration and its rise to great power status enhanced Tokyo’s confidence on the international stage, enhancing negative images of Asian/Korean otherness within Japanese identity narratives. This confidence fused into a Japanese sense of “exceptionalism,” with its ultimate perversion presenting itself in the form of the Greater Far East Asian Coprosperity Sphere.2 Even the postwar narratives of heiwa- and shonin kokka conclude that Japan should maintain its “leadership” role as a harbinger of peaceful coexistence. During the cold war, Japan was preoccupied with maintaining its alliance with the United States effectively altercasting South Korea as a “junior partner.” Hence, it is useful to shift our focus on to the reproduction and reification of contemporary sensitivities in bilateral relations. In short, we complete the agent-structure dualism. I begin my analysis on the eve of the 1875 Kanghwa Incident, when Korea was considered a “buffer” against Japan’s perceived threat from the continent. The decades between the late nineteenth century and the end of the Second World War witnessed the slow but steady erosion of Korean sovereignty at the hands of the Japanese. After 1945, Japan’s focus shifted toward maintaining security alliance with the United States, allowing Tokyo to concentrate on its core economic competency. However, South Korea did not disappear from the Japanese gaze: just like in the pre-1945 era, South Korea remained a useful tool for Japan in realizing its interests.

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In the first section, I discuss early interactions between Japan and Korea in the 1870s by looking at how the Meiji oligarchs “rediscovered” Korea. Then, in the second section, I analyze the linguistic space between 1876 and 1910 during which Tokyo gradually liquidated Korean sovereignty in the name of Asian security. The third section traces the aftermath of the Japan’s annexation of Korea—how Japan still had to deal with the Korean otherness within the empire from 1910 to 1945. In the fourth section, the focus shifts to the postwar years up to the end of the 1980s. Even with the new narratives of the “peaceful merchant,” the South Korean other was not fundamentally altered. Finally, in the fifth section, I discuss how the admixture of a hierarchic worldview with the “peaceful merchant” became an established frame of reference in which Japan consistently acts toward (South) Korea throughout history. Needless to say, this chapter is not meant as a reappraisal of historical facts, nor does it reveal new findings. Rather, this chapter is an international relations (IR) intervention into Japan’s experience with Korea throughout the decades, exploring how history tempers the complexities and sensitivities of contemporary Japan-South Korea relations as situated at one end of the spectrum of a colonial relationship. Indeed, what is striking is the endurance and rearticulation of this particular mode of interaction between the two states into the contemporary era. Early Japan-Korea Interactions Historical interactions between Japan and Korea can be traced back to the fourth-century AD, when Japan maintained a military base in Mimana, which it maintained until the middle of the sixth century.3 Japan, unlike Korea, ceased kowtowing to Beijing courts in the seventh century in an apparent bid to proclaim autonomy from the Chinese sphere of influence. This became the hallmark of Japan’s purported exceptionalism buttressed by foundational myths; and when the idea was coupled with the strategic need to preserve autonomy after witnessing China succumb to Western powers, it reinforced hierarchy as a dominant worldview and a modus operandi. It is through this that the Korean otherness was reconstructed as a subject to be despised if not subordinated: the belief that Japan was a divine nation free from Chinese influence suggested that Korea, which remained under Chinese suzerainty until the 1890s, was too weak to fend for itself. It is within this context that the Meiji oligarchs sought to extend Japanese influence over Korea in the name of national security. Kaikoku (the opening) after 1854 was tantamount to exposing Japan to the realpolitik of colonialism. Maruyama Masao argues that kaikoku

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revealed Japan’s vulnerability to predatory Western powers, enticing Japan to embark upon its own program of continental expansion in the name of autonomy.4 This international reality was recognized as Japan’s predicament when a foreign ministry official, Yanaiba Sakimitsu, circulated a memorandum on July 28, 1870, stating that “Japan’s geographical position surrounded by sea makes its defense extremely difficult. The only way through which we can secure survival, therefore, is to expand into Korea and Manchuria [now that] the European and American expansion into Asia seems inevitable.”5 This paralleled a familiar worldview among the generations of Japanese policy elites since the failed Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century. George Alexander Lensen points out that “the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, though ultimately defeated by storm, left a lasting mark on Japanese thinking that natural forces had come to their aid both times gave the Japanese confidence and confirmed the traditional belief that theirs was a sacred land. That the onslaught had come by way of Korea instilled in the Japanese perennial fear that the peninsula might again become a springboard of attack against them.”6 Korea remained not as a direct threat, but as a conduit for Japan’s potential enemies. When the gaze turned on Korea, Japan was looking at threats beyond the peninsula. The image of Korea as symbolizing Japanese exposure to outside influences is fused with the notion of exceptionalism in legitimizing continental expansion in the 1870s. Even Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s failed campaign of 1592 was enlisted in the reconstruction of “superior” Japanese self in opposition to Korean otherness by the mid-eighteenth century. The “heroic” accounts of Japanese warriors were manufactured into a myth of Japanese superiority, which in turn fueled anti-Korean feelings.7 The “memories” of failed Mongol invasions constructed an elite myth through which they felt confident in proclaiming Japan as a divine nation, a fertile platform upon which the politicized kokutai emerged as a vehicle of legitimization. Korea as a “puppet” of China added to its image as a weakling, unable to fend for itself.8 When this was juxtaposed with the image of Korea as representing Japan’s susceptibility, it provided Meiji oligarchs with the justification that a “superior” Japan was duty-bound to exploit Korea for the safety of the Far East in general and Japan in particular.9 In the eyes of the Japanese leaders, Western colonialism was a pressing existential challenge for Japan, and the resolution of the “Korea problem” came to be seen as an imperative. The new Meiji government began seeking diplomatic relations with Korea. Until the Restoration, diplomatic intercourse between the two was conducted through the Tsushima clan, with the shogunate in Edo having no direct contact with Seoul.10 The nascent

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Tokyo government sought to inaugurate direct relations with Seoul and dispatched a communication from Emperor Meiji stating the government’s intention. However, Korea rejected it on the grounds that the seal of Japanese emperor was illegitimate and could not be recognized, arguing that the term “emperor” was reserved for China and that Japan had no business calling its sovereign an “emperor.”11 The Koreans saw the act as Japanese disrespect in appropriating a title reserved for the Chinese courts; but for Japan, the rebuff was arrogance in the face of a friendly overture from an emperor with divine ancestry. This accreditation incident was a significant embarrassment for the Japanese government. Foreign ministry service officer Sada Hakuchi noted in 1870 that Korean actions represented its “arrogance towards Japanese benevolence,”12 with the foreign ministry memo circulated in April 1870 speaking of Korean “rudeness” and concluding that “Korea as a backward country and lacking in resources” must accept the Japanese emperor’s credentials and that Japan had to eventually “ply open” Korea.13 Kido Takayoshi, a junior imperial counsellor, called Korea “arrogant,”14 and in his letter to a court noble, Iwakura Tomomi, he wrote that “if the Koreans did not acknowledge the error of their ways, Japan should condemn them publicly and launch an attack to establish influence in Korea.”15 These views soon paved the way for the seikan-ron (punish Korea) debate of 1873. There are extensive studies on the implications of the debate, both with respect to Japanese diplomacy as well as in terms of Japanese domestic politics, but I shall not dwell over the details here. Suffice to say, it was crucial in elaborating the construction of Korean otherness, legitimizing Japanese continental expansion by consolidating elite opinion. Marlene Mayo notes that “there had been much pressure both within the government and from outside, 1868–1873, to punish the Koreans for refusing to accept the official greeting of the Emperor and to acknowledge the change from Shogunal to imperial rule”16 and that the debate was not whether or not Japan should send expedition forces to Korea but when.17 Following the debate in February 1874, Home Minister Okubo Toshimichi and Finance Minister Okuma Shigenobu distributed a memo to the cabinet reiterating Korean “rudeness” and stating that a punishment was justified.18It materialized in the form of the Kanghwa Incident in 1875. Liquidating Korean Sovereignty The period between the Kanghwa Incident of 1875 and the annexation of Korea in 1910 coincides with Japan’s aspiration to become a great power after having defeated both China and Russia in 1895 and 1905, respectively.

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In the name of Asian security, Japan slowly but steadily eroded Korean sovereignty through a series of “treaties.” Throughout this process, the idea of “warding off the West” became the defining worldview through which continental expansion was conducted with the aim of “taming” Korea. Prior to the seikan-ron debate, the foreign ministry reported in 1870 the following: (1) Japan must open trade relations with Korea; (2) if the overture is rejected, military actions should then be sanctioned; and (3) Korea must also be “civilized” and “freed” from Chinese influence.19 The resolution of the seikan-ron debate in 1873 provided a rationale for implementing the above. In September 1875, the Japanese warship Unyo moored off the island of Kanghwa near Seoul, and a small contingent left the ship on a boat toward the island, ostensibly to ask for a supply of drinking water. After the contingent was fired upon by the Koreans, the Japanese navy retaliated, securing control of the island. Japan insisted on reparations for the attack, demanding treaty ports as part of the compensation, effectively mimicking Japan’s own obligation under the unequal treaties with the West, marking the moment when the subordinate Korean otherness became a reality. The Treaty of Kanghwa was signed the following year in 1876, with the preamble noting, “The Governments of Japan and Chosen [Korea], being desirous to resume the amicable relations of yore that existed between them, [seek] to promote the friendly feeling of both nations to a still firmer basis.”20 Here, the arrogant Korean other was reproduced into an object of desire, and the promotion of “friendly relations” was couched within the language of “liberation.” Domination in the name of “liberation” was born. Peter Duus argues that the early Japanese incursion into Korea must not simply be seen as Tokyo’s desire to “assert Japanese political control over the peninsula or to acquire territory there.”21 Even after the SinoJapanese War of 1895, Japan insisted on Korean “independence,” vis-à-vis China; and it was not until after the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 that outright annexation became an option. Instead, it was a “nurturing of a sense” that Korea was more important than the rest of the Far East,22 and the occupation of Korea was a necessary evil in order to maintain stability in Asia while Japan established its paternalistic role. The Korean expedition coincided with Japan’s urge to modernize, and the Japanese government felt that the inoculation of Korea against colonialism was the right thing to do. Duus notes that the Kanghwa Treaty marked a “major change in relations with Korea.”23 Coinciding with the signing of the treaty, Enomoto Takeaki of the foreign ministry argued in February 1876 that, as a most immediate passage into and from Asia, Korea was both a “political and strategic necessity” whose security is crucial not only for Japan’s well-being

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but for Asia as a whole. Enomoto stressed that Japan must station diplomatic agents and increase its influence on Korea.24 In effect, the Kanghwa Incident and the subsequent treaty symbolized an “arrogant” but “undeveloped” and “weak” Korea waiting to be tamed by Japan. While the late 1870s witnessed Japan’s reappearance on to the international stage, the 1880s saw Japan steadily enhance its influence over Korea, initially demanding domestic “reforms” in Korea, hoping that this would strengthen the kingdom. In September 1882, Inoue Kowashi argued in a memorandum to the cabinet that he likened Korea as “weak” and “barbaric” and that for the foreseeable future Korea will never be able to gain independence. He added, “If Korea falls into the western hands—just as India and Indonesia did—it will be as if a sword is suspended over our heads. . . . And if Russia takes hold of Korea, that would upset the balance of power in Asia. Hence for Asia’s sake, Japan and China must cooperate to maintain Korean autonomy and prevent southward invasion by Russia.”25 Inoue’s call for Japan to cooperate with China over Korea illustrates Tokyo’s worries that a further weakening of China can precipitate a domino effect in Northeast Asia. In an earlier memorandum, Inoue proposed Japan to enter into some form of an agreement with China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany to secure Korean “neutrality” in a status similar to Belgium and Switzerland. He further suggested that Korea be maintained as a protectorate of China, instead of it being a puppet mimicking Korea’s “freedom” from Chinese influence, thus minimizing the risk of Korea directly falling into the hands of the West if and when China lost its influence.26 Japan’s obsession with Korean autonomy led to the Treaty of Tientsing with China in 1885 designed to “divert both parties toward less troublesome methods of pressing their policies [over Korea].”27 The significance of the treaty, however, was that it allowed Japan to deploy troops on Korean soil, establishing Japan as China’s coequal, mollifying Japanese sense of injustice during the accreditation incident.28 Its status as China’s coequal was psychologically significant for the Japanese government, for it was tantamount to Japan being recognized as an independent Asian state capable of asserting national resilience. Developments in the 1880s on Korea coincided with the drafting of the Meiji Constitution. The 1880s was also a decade when, domestically, the nascent Tokyo government was consolidating its power by turning kokutai into a national ideology, via the 1889 constitution and the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education. The familial state imagery and the idea of Japan as a divine nation provided a lens through which the international environment was redefined into a hierarchy, such that the “protection” of Korea became an imperative for Tokyo. The “weak” Korea was called upon to

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reform itself, and Japan’s expansion into the peninsula symbolized a guiding hand. Kokutai became the underlying principle upon which the colonization of Asia was legitimized into a means to counter foreign pressures for the benefit of Japan and Asia in general.29 Japan sought to hasten “reform” by sponsoring a series of failed coup attempts in Korea during the 1880s, namely the Imo Mutiny of 1882 and the Kapsin Coup of 1884. However, Japanese assistance was insufficient to accelerate the pace of “reform” that it initially hoped would bring, provoking Tokyo’s sense of urgency in making sure that Korea was neutralized from the travails of realpolitik. By the beginning of the 1890s, Tokyo was impatient with what it perceived to be the slow pace of Korean “reforms.” The further weakening of China added to the anxieties that unless more fundamental changes were implemented in Korea, the peninsula’s independence would not be guaranteed, further amplifying the image of Korea as hopelessly weak and backward. Inoue Kaoru, as a minister to Korea in March 1895, called for “fundamental reforms” without which he thought Korea would remain an “easy prey, leaving Japan’s flanks dangerously exposed.”30 The Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to 1895 was an explicit ploy by Japan to wrest influence of Korea away from Chinese control. Japan’s victory meant China ceased to be its hypothetical enemy: Russia assumed that position. There was a psychological significance as well. Now that China was out of the way, Japan gained political leverage in influencing Korea without worrying about intervention from Beijing.31 Immediately after the Sino-Japanese War in October 1895, Japanese sympathizers (helped by Japanese troops) assassinated Queen Min in an effort at accelerating the “reform” process. Japan now turned its attention to another threat to Korean independence and hence Japanese security—Russia. Since cooperation with China in civilizing Korea was out of the question—a defeated China was too weak to be of any use to Japan—Tokyo felt it had to fend for itself against a Western power in “protecting” Korea. In April 1903, Yamagata, Ito, Katsura Taro, and Komura Jutaro congregated in Kyoto to reaffirm Japanese stance toward Korea in light of an imminent war with Russia. The four agreed that “however difficult the situation might become, Korea must never be surrendered,”32 fortifying the language casting Japan as the only civilized nation in Asia willing to stand up to Western colonialism. Immediately following the start of the war on February 23, 1904, Japan signed a protocol providing the Korean government to seek advice and consent from Japan on diplomatic, as well as military, affairs. Article 1 of the protocol stated that the aim of the agreement was to foster peace in the Far East, and in article 3, Japan pledged to guarantee Korean independence and respect its territorial integrity.33 The protocol was a significant step from the Treaty of Tientsing signed in 1885: now that it had no obligation

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toward China in respecting Korea as its traditional sphere of influence, Japan felt free to intervene directly in Korea in the name of restoring order, thus remanufacturing Korean otherness into an object of discipline. Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War and the Treaty of Portsmouth signed on September 5, 1905, further strengthened the Japanese case for establishing itself as the protector of Korea, with Russia recognizing Korea as a Japanese sphere of influence.34 Now that Japan gained an endorsement from Western powers, it moved to strip diplomatic rights from Korea and placed it under its full protection in the Protectorate Treaty (the Japan-Korea Convention) signed on November 17, 1905. In a letter of accreditation to the Korean government by the Japanese envoy to the negotiation, Ito Hirobumi, Emperor Meiji stated that the treaty was “essential for the maintenance of peace in the Far East,”35 establishing the Japanese residency-general as a Japanese colonial government in Korea. When Ito was appointed the first resident-general, he delivered a speech outlining Japan’s obligations toward Korea: “If [reforms] are neglected and no means devized for relieving it, this [Japanese] Empire will not only be violating its responsibility as protector of Korea, but will also itself have to suffer in the end.”36 Ito reaffirmed Japan’s intention of proactively influencing events on the peninsula for the benefit of Asia, imitating what the great powers did on the Asian continent. It was during this time that the Korean guerrilla movement intensified. Within the Japanese government, such uprisings reinforced the image of Korea as not only “weak,” but also “barbaric” and “ungrateful” of Japanese “benevolence.” Prime Minister Katsura Taro addressed a meeting of Japanese prefectural governors in 1908, suggesting that “there are not a few among the deeply suspicious Koreans who jump to the wrong conclusion and believe the Japanese are coming to steal their land. If such misunderstanding gets in the way of development, it will be a source of great difficulty.”37 There was a semblance of sympathy toward the “painful experience” felt by the Koreans, but this pain was seen as a necessary evil in the disciplining of Korea by a paternalistic Japan.38 Moreover, while the Korean sovereignty was steadily being eroded, numerous conservatives, both inside and outside the government, felt that the pace was still too slow. Conservative lobbyists with influence within policy circles, such as Uchida Ryohei (the founder of Kokuryukai and the Japanese adviser to the pro-Japanese Korean lobby, Ilchinhoe), repeatedly assailed the government for its reluctance toward outright annexation of the peninsula. Uchida recalled in 1932 that a swift annexation had been more beneficial to Japan since “unrest in the Far East always had its roots in Korea.”39 Yet, Ito was cautious. When he was urged by Ogawa Heikichi in 1907, he retorted that “since Korea had

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a longer history compared to Taiwan [which was annexed in 1895], rapid annexation of Korea is likely to pose problems.”40 Ito maintained his cautious approach, initially advocating Korean autonomy, but he began changing his mind toward the end of the 1900s. The cabinet of Prime Minister Katsura Taro identified on July 6, 1909, that the “annexation was the long-term goal of the imperial government,”41 with Ito finally succumbing to appeals by Katsura and Foreign Minister Komura Jutaro that the annexation was the only option available for resolving the “Korea problem.” By then, the situation in Korea looked hopeless in the eyes of the Japanese elites. The reforms, they thought, were too slow in coming, and the colonial government faced persistent guerrilla attacks against Japanese interests on the peninsula. To be sure, the Japanese residency-general had a hand in this tit-for-tat. Japanese high-handedness and the brutality meted out on Koreans in general turned “many innocent bystanders into active anti-Japanese guerrillas.”42 However, to the residency-general, “barbarism” of “unruly” and “ungrateful” Koreans had to be suppressed. By the time he resigned from the post in July 1909, Ito felt that the Korean reforms were hopeless.43 Immediately preceding the annexation, on August 16, 1910, army general Terauchi Masatake, who succeeded Ito, told the Korean prime minister that “Japan had fought on behalf of Korea and sacrificed many lives. But the situation is such that Japan sees no alternative but to unify the two countries in order to protect the Korean imperial household and its people.”44 The Treaty of Annexation was “signed” on August 22, 1910.45 The preamble to the treaty read, “The Emperor of Japan and the King of Korea, in recognition of the close and friendly relations between the two countries, have signed this Treaty to further mutual well being and happiness, and to aspire for eternal peace in the Far East.”46 Just thirty-five years since Japanese troops landed on the island of Kanghwa, the sovereignty of Korea was liquidated in the name of “protection” of Korea and “security” of the Far East. Dealing with the Otherness Within The steady erosion of Korean sovereignty culminated with the annexation of Korea on August 22, 1910. Now that the Korean peninsula was integrated into Japanese empire, the familiar name to which the country was then referred—Kankoku (or Hangguk in Korean)—was deemed inappropriate. The Japanese government instead chose an older rendering, Chosen (Chosun in Korean), to refer to the newly acquired territory. The name change seems trivial on the surface; but this presaged an emergence of a new set of language within which the Korean otherness was partially embraced by

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the emperor. I say partially since Korea retained its otherness perennially distinct from the Japanese self despite this colonial embrace: Korea duly became the subject of imperial rule, but never part of the Japanese nation. Chosen was designated in opposition to naichi (the inland or mainland) in a clear demonstration of hierarchy and ethnocentrism. Thirty-six years of colonization marked an era in which the Koreans became imperial subjects, but their perceived backwardness suggested they were not to be treated equally. This precarious cohabitation of “otherness within” was exemplified by the Japanese victory during the marathon event in the 1936 Berlin Olympics: the runner was Son Ki-jong, a Korean. Such awkwardness partially justified the brutality meted out on to the Korean population during the first decade of annexation. Ever since the stationing of Japanese troops in the peninsula following the Imo Mutiny of July 1882, skirmishes between them and the Korean guerrillas continued, reconfirming the authority’s image of “ungrateful” subjects oblivious to Japan’s “benevolence” in administering peace and order in the Far East. The governance-general felt its new colonial subjects as dangerously ignorant of the ramifications of international politics of the times; but Japanese efforts at quelling dissent resulted in a tit-fortat between the colonizers and Korean resistance, further encouraging the Japanese government to forcefully assimilate these “unruly” Koreans into becoming full-fledged subjects of the Japanese empire.47 The brutality employed in suppressing resistance was considered a necessary evil. General Terauchi, who succeeded Ito as governor-general following the annexation, imposed the so-called military governance (budan seiji), brutally quelling suspected Korean nationalists in the name of discipline. It was a logical extension of kokutai in which the “uncivilized” Koreans were coerced into accepting Japan’s paternal role. A similar defense was used three decades later in the Tokyo trials when defendants repeatedly asserted that the instances of brutality in the prisoners of war camps were not crimes against humanity, as they were disciplinary measures aimed at “improving the condition of the facilities” (shisetsu kaizen).48 The continuing skirmishes between the Japanese authorities and Korean resistance fighters constructed a vicious circle in which brutality was met with more resistance, only to be quelled by further brutality. The quid pro quo brought into question the Korean “level of civility” (mindo), used to justify tougher measures to mould them into true subjects of the emperor. The colonizers felt this gap between the anticipated gratefulness and the actual vengeance represented Koreans’ “low civility,” while the Korean resolve to resist Japanese heavy-handedness meant that the authorities feared them as well. After rounding up 123 Korean Christian leaders on charges of inciting riots in December 1911, Terauchi called it

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a demonstration of Tokyo’s resolve to tame dissent.49 For Japan, the protests confirmed Korean barbarity, reflected in Terauchi’s education policy implemented in August 1911. Here, the curriculum for Koreans was customized in order to accommodate their perceived level of civility, reflecting the idea that they were ill equipped with the quality and characteristics to become full-fledged imperial subjects.50 The official policy was reiterated in August 1911 by the chief of schools bureau of the governance-general, Sekiya Teisaburo, who suggested that “one cannot expect to apply the carbon copy of Japanese education system here”51 in an apparent recognition of the existence of otherness within. The irony of it all was that the more the Japanese tried to discipline the Koreans, the latter’s perceived lack of civility became even more apparent in the eyes of the colonizers. The end of the First World War and Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points—most notably in their call for national self-determination— encouraged nationalists in both China and Korea to stage major uprisings in March and May of 1919 in Korea and China, respectively.52 They came at a time when the Japanese delegation to the Paris Treaty Conference failed to negotiate changes in immigration quotas for Japanese migrants confirming Japan’s racialized worldview. The language of race and the racialized East-West rivalry provided the discursive background to the March 1 Movement that erupted on March 1, 1919. The initial preparations for the movement began around the time of the death of the former king of Korea, Kojong, on January 22, 1919, amid suspicions that the Japanese had poisoned him. Regardless of whether or not the allegations are substantiated, Chong-sik Lee notes that “in any event, the Japanese were blamed for his death, and anti-Japanese feelings flared high.”53 The official date for the funeral was designated on March 3, and the organizers, mostly students and Christian leaders, set the date for their mass demonstration on March 1.54 The plan went smoothly: Japanese officials were caught off-guard.55 Initially, the governance-general maintained calm, with Asahi Shimbun reporting on March 4 that “the Seoul government still reacted with confidence, regarding it as ‘empty disturbances.’”56 Governor-General Hasegawa Yoshimichi, who succeeded Terauchi in 1916, “reminde[d] the people that the sovereignty of the Japanese empire was now irrevocably established in the peninsula, [and] ‘the government,’ Hasegawa warned, ‘is now doing its utmost to put an end to such unruly behavior and will relentlessly punish anybody daring to commit offences against the peace.’”57 At home, Prime Minister Hara Kei urged the governor-general to portray the uprising as a “minor incident,”58 considering the unrest as “only temporary.”59 The Japanese authorities’ initial surprise at the movement derived from their image of Koreans with their low “level of civility” as incapable of politically mobilizing themselves.60 Simultaneously, it helped

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to reproduce the narrative demonizing the Korean other. In short, either the Koreans were too uncivilized to organize themselves; or the uprising confirmed their barbarity. As Dae-yeol Kim notes, “Naturally, the incident hurt the pride of the Japanese. They regarded the uprising as a manifestation of ungratefulness and insincerity, two characteristics they regarded as typical of Koreans, and dismissed it as a minor colonial revolt.”61 The coverage within Japanese newspapers of the riots by unruly Koreans helped amplify general Japanese resentment toward the Korean “mobs.”62 Hence, the uprising was depicted as a “minor” incident despite the brutalities meted out on suspected Koreans in the following months, with entire villages burnt down by Japanese gendarmes in some cases. Although the Japanese did have a modicum of sympathy toward the Koreans, the self/other dichotomy precluded any appreciation of why the Koreans were “vengeful” and “unyielding” despite the perceived larger threat from the West.63 Simultaneously however, the movement prompted subtle changes in the assimilation policies of the governance-general. From then on, the “unruly” Koreans were to be treated through “civil/cultural governance” (bunka seiji); a tacit recognition that “military governance” was ineffective and counterproductive. The colonial government decided to co-opt Koreans by curtailing official discrimination.64 Admiral Saito Minoru, who succeeded Hasegawa, sought to appease Koreans;65 but that inadvertently intensified the otherness within. While the Japanese were sympathetic, the very need for Japanese protection effectively reinforced Korean backwardness.66 Governor-General Ugaki Kazushige commented in the early 1930s that the poverty of Korean farmers were the “result of long years of exploitation which have deprived of them the spirit of diligence, frugality, and savings. They neither have hope for improvement nor make any effort toward it.”67 By the end of the 1930s, the assimilation of Korea was defined more explicitly in terms of kokutai, with Foreign Minister Arita Hachiro stating on July 29, 1940, that the aim of Japanese policies in Asia was to bring about “co-prosperity of the peoples sharing cultural similarities.”68 Following the proclamation of the Greater Far East Asian Coprosperity Sphere in August 1940, Governor-General Koiso Kuniaki enlisted foundational myths to argue that since the Japanese and Koreans shared common ancestry, the annexation was inevitable, considering it within the basic principle of kokutai ideology.69 The most explicit program of assimilation materialized in the form of a conscription order for Koreans in May 1942; but Koreans were looked on with suspicion by their Japanese cohorts, never treated as comrades in arms due to their subordination, deemed only fit for imperial sacrifice.70 Until the final days of the empire, Koreans constituted the otherness within, only to be dispensed as a useful pawn in Japan’s liberation efforts.

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The language of Korean otherness that proliferated since the 1870s posed challenges for Japan once the colonial relationship was liquidated after August 1945. The trauma of war—and the humiliation of becoming the vanquished—marked a significant shift in the psychological landscape to follow, but the language of hierarchy endured; and the process of normalization was fraught with invectives as Japan reencountered South Korean otherness. The Postwar Context of Interactions The defeat in the Second World War brought total devastation and the occupation marked a traumatic series of events precipitating changes in Japan’s psychological landscape signified by ichioku so zange (the mass recompense). Superficially, it was a rupture from the prewar pan-Asianism: the trauma sunk into the collective local Background of postwar elites such that heiwa- and shonin kokka became the primary mode for narrating Japanese identity. Yet, the hierarchy endured, facilitating the transformation across August 1945. When Prince Higashikuni first announced “mass recompense,” he implied regret for what was not accomplished rather than for what was already lost—the failure of the nation to deliver victory to the emperor, not for colonialism itself. Indeed, the recompense was atonement for the failures of colonialism that “forgot” Asian sufferings under the Japanese rule.71 As Lawrence Olson notes, “Decades of exploitation had built up a stereotype of Koreans as unruly children, to be punished or reasoned with according to one’s temperament, but to be treated paternalistically in any event; most Japanese found it almost impossible to regard them as autonomous equals.”72 The negative image of Koreans lingered even after August 1945, effectively precluding moral imperatives for recompense toward thirty-six years of colonial rule, and instead, easily manufacturing ethnic Koreans in Japan into “criminals” and “mobs” exploiting the postwar mayhem and therefore needed to be repatriated as soon as possible. It was as if the prewar “Korea problem” began haunting the Japanese government. The linguistic space of nonregret also meant the preservation of Japanese superiority: the official view of the colonial experience was “that upwards of 80 percent of the rural property in Korea had been created by Japanese and still rightfully belonged to them,”73 justifying Japan’s claims to assets on the Korean peninsula. As the governor of Nagasaki Prefecture asked in 1955, “Japan developed Korea. We built dams and bridges and power plants, just as English did in India, may be even more extensively. Why can’t the Koreans feel towards Japan as the Indians feel toward Britain?”74

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Such colonial imaginary legitimized the image of Koreans as “unruly” reinforced by the activities of certain Koreans involved in the black economy. Simultaneously, the unilateral demarcation of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by the South Korean government in 1950 resurrected Japanese spitefulness toward its neighbor, juxtaposing Tokyo’s fury with the prevalent public hostility. The interpenetration of negative images was facilitated by the memories of mutual acrimony from the prewar era. The proliferation of black markets involving ethnic Koreans gave the impression that they were exploiting war-ravaged Japanese. Ethnic Koreans in black markets were often associated with organized crime,75 whose images were further tainted by the racialized view of Japanese elites, illustrated by the drafting of the Nationality Act. The act stipulated that citizenship should be granted exclusively to Japanese nationals, putting ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese in Japan within a legal conundrum. The government manipulated the legislation to limit eligibility by exploiting the ambiguity in Japanese language between the “people,” the “race,” and “ethnicity.” In Japanese, the terms “race” and “ethnicity” are almost indistinguishable; and the government effectively categorized non-ethnic Japanese (e.g., those not belonging to the Yamato race) as non-Japanese.76 The Act represented Japanese ethnocentrism at its core.77 The Nationality Act implied that, while the ethnic Koreans were previously the subjects of the Japanese empire (shinmin), they were no longer considered to be Japanese nationals (kokumin). Tokyo insisted on legal minutiae. Since Korea and Taiwan were annexed within the empire, the government argued that the Koreans did not fall under “liberated nationals” who would otherwise enjoy same privileges as the nationals of Allied states. Instead, the government devised the term dai-sangoku-jin (third country nationals) as a special category for ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese. In doing so, Nishimura Kumao, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) treaty bureau chief in April 1951, stated that “if the Koreans are granted status as a national of an Allied nation, then we are concerned with the social problem it is likely to cause.”78 With the defeat, otherness within immediately became an otherness to be alienated. The image of arrogant Koreans in black markets brandishing their purported special status as Allied nationals was enough to compel Japanese authorities to expel them.79 Yukiko Koshiro claims that “Japanese government officials as well as mass media saw them as a social burden, adding to food shortages, unemployment, housing problems, and other ills.”80 Minister of Justice Suzuki Yoshio accused Koreans in a Diet committee meeting on May 1948, admonishing that they were “starting systematic riots, despite the generous governmental policy. . . . He even went so far as to praise Japan for its generosity in allowing them to remain in Japan.”81 Prime Minister

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Yoshida Shigeru wrote to Douglas MacArthur in the summer of 1949 to complain that it was unfair that the Koreans were given food aid from the United States, when, “in fact,” they were criminals who should have been repatriated.82 Such hostility toward the otherness within was further exacerbated by diplomatic events between Japan and South Korea. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) sought to protect Korean fishermen from their technologically advanced Japanese counterparts by delineating what was known as the “MacArthur Line.” A decision was taken to abolish the line once the peace treaty between Japan and former Allies came into effect in April 1952. The Republic of Korea (ROK) president, Rhee Syngman, reacted by announcing in January 1952 to establish its own EEZ, effectively preserving the MacArthur Line in what was to be called the “Rhee Line,”83 threatening to arrest Japanese fishermen caught fishing within the zone, something that they eventually did. The Japanese government was incensed by this unilateral decision refusing to recognize the line, interpreting it as a proof of South Korean high-handedness and arrogance, and denouncing it as unjust and illegal.84 Ironically, just as Japan started to reengage with the international community, (South) Korea posed a challenge to Tokyo’s legitimacy, reminiscent of the accreditation crisis of 1870 as Japan’s Asian reality eighty years on. The delineation of the line was fuelled in part through mutual skepticism between the two states. On the one hand, Rhee—as a former antiJapanese activist—nurtured anti-Japanese sentiments within South Korea through its new postwar education system, and his decision to instigate the line and to arrest Japanese fishermen was seen as his punishment for Japan’s past wrongs. Japan, on the other hand, retaliated to what it perceived to be a South Korean provocation by enacting the Nationality Act, labeling the Koreans as criminals.85 Insofar as the Japanese government was concerned, South Korea remained troublesome and barbaric, still obsessed with forestalling Japan’s efforts at reentering the world stage. Rhee was seen in Japan as the “very incarnation of outraged [Korean] nationalism.”86 Normalization talks between Japan and the ROK began in October 1951 amid disputes over the Rhee Line.87 South Korea demanded apologies from Japan within a formal legal framework, officially declaring earlier treaties, including the Annexation Treaty, null and void; and to institute an official compensations scheme. Japan, on the other hand, initially wanted relations to be normalized through a joint declaration by leaving aside the issue of old treaties,88 rejecting any need for apologies, let alone compensation, for past actions deemed legitimate. Tokyo

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reiterated its position on restitution suggesting that the old treaties were signed between two sovereign states thereby validating the annexation, pointing out that if South Koreans had a right to compensation, then so did Japan. One Japanese official stated ten years after the start of the negotiations that “Korea has never been Japan’s enemy [in the Pacific War], nor a signatory to the San Francisco Treaty, so there was no legal justification for Korea to demand compensation from us.”89 Negotiations over restitution became deadlocked over the infamous “Kubota Remark” of October 1953, in which Kubota Kanichiro, the chief of the Japanese delegation, stated that colonialism had positive aspects as well. The South Korean delegation walked out in protest, suspending the process for four years.90 His remark was first reported in Asahi Shimbun on October 22, 1953, in which it was alleged that Kubota commented that “if Japan did not go into Korea, then either Russia or China would have done so instead.”91 Kubota further testified to the Fisheries Committee of the House of Councillors (the Upper House) on October 27, telling the chamber that “although I admit that the Annexation had some negative aspects, it cannot be said that all of them were bad,”92 pointing out that Japan made infrastructure investments in colonial Korea.93 Japanese reaction to the Korean uproar reaffirmed its reluctance to apologize. The official Japanese statement suggested that “the Koreans had brought an un-related issue [of formal apologies] to the Panel on Restitution. Also they had taken words out of context. Our demands are justified, but the Korean action in unilaterally breaking-off the talks is wholly unjustified. The responsibility lies with the Koreans.”94 Kubota’s remarks were supported by Foreign Minister Okazaki Masao, who added that “[Kubota] said what was blatantly obvious (atarimae),” a statement he reiterated at the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives (the Lower House) on October 28.95 The media supported Kubota, invoking the language of obstinate and ungrateful South Korea that can never accept Japan’s side of the story, in an effort at casting Japan as the ultimate villain.96 Negotiations resumed in 1957, but it was not until Rhee Syngman was replaced by Park Chung-hee in 1961 that a rapprochement was reached. Park, contrary to Rhee, was sympathetic to Japan, and he was quoted by Asahi Shimbun on June 2, 1961, as stating that “it is anachronistic to demand apologies from Japan. We must put the past behind us and move forward to normalize relations.”97 The Japanese government also sensed an opportunity in Park’s dictatorship given that the South Korean government was short of hard currency and was desperately seeking foreign aid.98 This encouraged Tokyo to provide economic assistance to the ROK in order to accelerate the normalization process. An internal MOFA document of 1960 recognized that economic assistance was a “contribution towards the

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future of the ROK,” rather than restitution, otherwise, “forging [Japanese] domestic consensus would be extremely difficult.”99 Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke considered Park as a bulwark against communism, recognizing the practicality of concluding normalization talks with an authoritarian regime.100 Here, Korea is recast as a useful tool for Japanese security in an apparent rearticulation of the familiar image of Korean otherness. Back in 1958, the vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Ono Banboku, stated that “ultimately, the emphasis of Japanese diplomacy would be given to close cooperation with America. In order to do this, the ROK and Formosa will have to be closely related. If feasible, it would be nice to form the United States of Japan with the ROK and Formosa.”101 Such optimism reappeared during the final stages of normalization talks, when Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato stated in 1962 that “Japan should penetrate Korea by following the example of Ito Hirobumi.” Takasuki Shinichi, the chief of Japanese delegation to the Seventh Conference in 1965 remarked that “it would have been better had Japan ruled Korea twenty more years. Even though it was a colony, Japan did good things.”102 Foreign Minister Shiina Etsusaburo wrote in his book Dowa to Seiji (Fairy Tales and Politics) that “if annexation was a form of colonialism, then it was a glorious imperialism.”103 Prime Minister Sato Eisaku reiterated the point as he signed the Basic Treaty in 1965, noting that the “Annexation Treaty, being a treaty, was established through mutual understanding,”104 adding that “if we dwell too much into the past, there is the danger that future relations will lose the feeling of freshness (assarishita kibun).”105 Sato, in response to questioning by MP Kuroyanagi Akira of Komeito in November 1965, replied, “It is sufficient for me to say that at the time, the Japanese Empire and the Korean Empire both signed the Treaty on equal terms, and as such it is redundant for me to say that the Treaty was indeed legitimate.”106 This position was reiterated in a briefing by the MOFA Treaty Bureau suggesting that the official Japanese understanding was that the Annexation Treaty became void on August 15, 1948, when the ROK was established.107 For the Japanese government, the Annexation Treaty was void now because it was valid then. This is reflected in article 2 of the Basic Treaty, which states that the Annexation and Protectorate Treaties are “already null and void.”108 The Basic Treaty, signed on June 22, 1965, normalized relations across the Tsushima Strait. However, as Brian Bridges notes, the treaty was effectively a “marriage of convenience” between Tokyo seeking to expand business opportunities, on the one hand; and Seoul in dire need of hard currency, on the other109—suggesting that the psychological hurdles remained. Lee Chung-sik argues that the relations remained emotionally charged,110 and

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even when the official channels were reinstated, Japanese policy elites’ condescending views of Seoul remained intact. This was particularly so on the issue of technology transfers and the widening trade gap between Japan and the ROK. Trade imbalance was driven by the Japanese business community identifying South Korea as a springboard for expanding its share of the international market.111 Moreover, South Korea was dependent upon “both Japanese plants as well as raw materials,”112 creating a vicious circle whereby increased direct investment in South Korea resulted in its further dependence on Japan.113 Its unfortunate side effect was the reification of “backward” Koreans perennially dependent on the Japanese economy. Japanese economic recovery accelerated in the late 1950s, and by the time the Basic Treaty was signed, Japan was in the midst of rapid economic growth, with the South Korean dependence on its economy further lending credence to Japan’s international confidence. The MOFA report of June 1968 stated that “Japanese money was already participating significantly in a wide range of industries [compared with other donors].”114 The pro-ROK caucus within the LDP proclaimed, “Japan knows the ROK better and is really familiar to it than any other nations; Japan is a reformed country that has no desire to recolonize Korea and is able to contribute economically in rebuilding the ROK; therefore Japan should be invited to play an active role in the ROK, rather than merely being a supplier of American aid and goods to [the] ROK.”115 Lawrence Olson argues that “Japanese negotiators [to economic talks] sometimes jibe at the Korean counterparts: if the trade imbalance was so serious, they asked, why did Korea keep on buying Japanese machines?”116 South Korean dependency on Japanese economy reinforced the hierarchic worldview of the Tokyo elites. The events of the 1970s did much to confirm this view—the kidnapping in 1973 of Kim Dae-jung from a Tokyo hotel involving a South Korean embassy official; the assassination of Park Chung-hee in 1979; the subsequent military coup in 1980 led by Chun Doo-hwan and the Kwangju massacre of the same year; and the Chun regime’s persecution of dissidents and the rearrest of Kim Dae-jung for “inciting violence”—all reinforced Korea as backward and barbaric, uncivilized to the ways of modern democracy.117 Seoul’s request for $6 billion in aid from Japan in the early 1980s further rearticulated this image. Seoul’s insistence on tying aid to the security of the Korean peninsula posed an obstacle for the Japanese government, prompting Prime Minister Suzuki Zenko to state that “the economic cooperation of Japan, in principle, is intended to help the recipient countries stabilize the livelihood and improve the welfare of their people. We cannot extend military aid to any country.”118 Heiwa kokka could not countenance assistance to a military government of Chun Doo-hwan. Furthermore, Seoul’s demand for aid

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in lieu of restitution only exacerbated Japan’s image of ungrateful South Korea. The Japanese view, on the contrary, was that the $500 million it paid in 1965 resolved all claims,119 with Foreign Minister Sonoda Tadashi stating in August 1981 that he saw no obligation for the past wrongs. Indeed, he added, given the history of Korean aggression against Japan in ancient times, mutual obligations should be canceled out.120 Sonoda’s view parallels Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei’s claim in 1974 that the annexation “contributed spiritually” to the lives of Koreans.121 Kim Yong-seul notes that the relationship between Japan and South Korea was never a dialogue, but instead, it has always been an exchange of monologues.122 He argues that Japan considers its leadership role as natural and thus incapable of understanding why others do not accept its initiatives.123 Once Nakasone became the prime minister, Tokyo acquiesced to Seoul’s demands for aid, agreeing to disburse $4 billion. He recognized that the agreement was “motivated in part by Japanese appreciation for the contribution South Korean defense efforts were making for Japanese security,”124 the flip-side of which was that South Korea was simply contributing toward the defense of Japan in which the MSA still played a significant role. The aid was a reward given to this junior partner for helping Japan play its leadership role.125 The Textbook Controversy of 1982 was another diplomatic incident in which Tokyo encountered a boisterous neighbor. The controversy began with a newspaper report on June 26, 1982, that the Ministry of Education’s censors directed the authors of high school history textbooks to delete the word “invasion” (shinryaku) from its discussion of Japanese incursion into northeast China. The ministry promptly urged authors to substitute the word “advance” (shinshutsu) instead, purportedly in order to soften the expression and inoculate pupils from a “wrong idea” that the Japanese experience in Asia was solely one of aggression and oppression.126 The reaction to the newspaper report was immediate. Both the Chinese and South Korean governments protested, but Japan apologized to Beijing immediately after the incident, while Tokyo was reluctant to approach Seoul.127 Tokyo’s official apologies to China, South Korea, and other Asian states was finally issued on August 26, 1982,128 but as Chung Dae-kyun notes, this initiated a round of “apologies diplomacy” in which Japan sought to duck the issue by simply uttering contrition hoping that the furore will subside.129 The “apologies diplomacy” (owabi gaiko) became an inflammatory issue to the extent that it backfired among the Japanese policy circles. But the repercussion is also a potent indication of the enduring trivialization of Korean otherness as an integral factor within Japanese identity narratives, a reminder that Japan’s Asia existence is consistently unforgiving. Prime

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Minister Suzuki Zenko was quoted in Mainichi Shimbun on August 24, 1982, as telling the reporter that “we must await the judgement of history” before anyone could decide whether the Japanese experience in Asia in the 1930s and 1940s was indeed one of aggression.130 This ambivalence toward past deeds suggests Japan amid wanting to move forward with the so-called future-oriented diplomacy (mirai-shiko gaiko), on the one hand; with the “forgetting” of the sufferings of Korean otherness from the late-nineteenth century until August 1945, on the other. The usual Japanese refrain that “the $500m it paid to South Korea in 1965 extinguishes all claims” testifies to this view.131 Stability versus Disjuncture in Japan’s Narratives of Korean Otherness The narratives of Japanese self throughout August 1945 casts Korean otherness as an ambivalent partner—almost an equal, but somehow subordinate. Ethnic Koreans in Japan, despite their historical legacy, are still not granted citizenship rights,132 and comments by policy-elites reminiscent of the immediate postwar period abound to this day. The term “third-country persons” reappeared in April 2000 when the governor of Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro, spoke to the Ground Self-Defense Forces (SDF), warning them of unruly and criminal behavior by foreigners and third-country persons (gaikoku-jin and sangoku-jin) during natural disasters.133 While denying that it was directed against ethnic Chinese and Koreans in Japan, the very distinction between foreigners and third-country persons not only illustrates latent ethnocentrism, but it is also reminiscent of the immediate postwar criminalization of Korean otherness. In a similar vein to the way Koreans in black markets were juxtaposed with the purportedly “arrogant” South Korean government, Koreans today, along with Asians in general, are depicted as only interested in exploiting Japan’s guilt complex.134 As Victor Cha argues, “The primary determinant of outcomes has come from the necessity of material factors in ideational ones. In other words, historical antagonism and enmity are clearly the established negative ideational templates that inform the relationship between Japan and Korea, but at the certain moments compelling material forces can propel outcomes in a direction different from these cultural biases.”135 Taewoo Kim makes a similar claim when he posits that there are “psychological barriers” between the two states.136 The continuity in the way Korean otherness has been represented despite the superficial changes throughout the decades is influenced to a significant extent by the international environment. Transformations in the international surroundings reproduce Korean otherness as an object of desire and

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otherness within, into a quasi-partner that is nonetheless boisterous and perpetually demanding. I say quasi partnership, since Tokyo’s perception of the South Korean role in the Asia-Pacific is to help Japan realize its leadership as a peaceful merchant. Thus, Seoul is a “partner” insofar as they need to be cajoled and enlisted for the purposes of peace and prosperity in East Asia. However, Tokyo’s heartfelt appreciation of its neighbor is still short in coming: the enduring hierarchic identity means that Seoul’s retrospection into, and the associated criticisms of, the Past is regarded in Tokyo as a proof of South Korean Backwardness and ungratefulness. The emergence and elaboration of contemporary Japanese identity, as explored in the previous chapter, are tantamount to the reification of a particular lens through which the generations of Japanese policy elites cast their collective gaze upon the Korean otherness. While much of the ongoing discussion can be explained superficially by reference to exogenous factors, for example, the changing international environment, and examination of the ideational milieu help us to appreciate the deeper, emotional, aspects of international politics in this corner of Northeast Asia since the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, by taking changes and continuity in identity seriously, we can begin to appreciate that political and diplomatic relations can be recalibrated into a macro-level social sphere. Once this recalibration is acknowledged, we can begin to understand and appreciate the very nature of Japan-South Korea relations tinged with a specter of colonial hierarchy that is still lurking in the conceptual background. This is one more reason why it is crucial to take resilient identities seriously by moving beyond the existing postpositivist IR literature. It is through the enduring identity narratives of hierarchy that Japanese policy elites constantly recalibrate the country’s role in the AsiaPacific, as well as its Korea imaginary. Moreover, the emergence and elaboration of temporally specific identities—the “liberator” versus the shonin-/heiwa kokka—do take on a life of their own to legitimize Tokyo’s presumed position in the region. This was the case before the war, and continues to be the case today, reinforcing the idea that taking changes as well as continuity seriously is crucial in an effort at further appreciating the particularities of present-day bilateral relations. Unraveling the way Japanese narratives consistently reconstruct Korean otherness provides a propitious vantage point from which the evolution of a colonial relationship can be observed. Indeed, without this insight, the further implication of this evolving intersubjective relationship, let alone the recurrence of politics of memory, cannot be appreciated. In short, understanding the conceptual tripod—the Past, the Future, and Backwardness—in contemporary bilateral relationship needs an explanation via the resilience of reified identity and otherness.

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Conclusion This chapter provided an exploration into the evolution of a colonial relationship between Japan and (South) Korea, a process that has been ripe with changing narratives of Japanese self in opposition to Korean otherness. However, the evenements (events) particular to the international circumstances on both sides of August 1945 need to be conceptualized within la longue durée of Japan’s enduring Korea imaginary in which the Korean otherness continues to be necessarily defined as subordinate to the Japanese self. This hierarchy has been the primary mode through which Japan’s relationship with its most immediate neighbor has been consistently narrated over the centuries. From the earliest days of the Meiji Restoration in which Korea was seen as a security threat, the steady erosion of Korean sovereignty culminating with the annexation of 1910 was conducted in the name of Asian security. Even the postwar experience exhibits similarities: in the closing days of the normalisation talks, South Korea was depicted as a bulwark against communism; and now South Korea is a quasi ally in addressing perceived threat from North Korea, among other things. These changes are the result of transformation in the international environment, showing how successive Japanese governments have adapted to various challenges over the decades. However, as the various remarks by policy makers suggest, there is a “common thread” in representations of (South) Korea. The reconstruction of Korean otherness as “backward” and “barbaric” seems as if the prewar kokutai had interpenetrated the narratives of heiwa- and shonin kokka. Meanwhile, the physical inevitability of the Korean peninsula lying between Japan and the Asian continent is an obdurate physical fact that Tokyo cannot wish away. The geographical fact symbolizes Japanese vulnerability today as it did during the failed Mongol invasions of late 1200s—the perceived threat of missiles from North Korea refocusing Tokyo’s nervous gaze on the peninsula is a case in point.137 The primacy of U.S.-Japan alliance means that South Korea remains a minor, but not a trivial, factor in the equation. The lack of formal security alliance between Japan and the ROK seems to illustrate this point. Hence, the contemporary manifestation of the (post)colonial relationship between Japan and South Korea seems to endure into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This dynamic is played out in the ongoing politics of memory, as well as in the more mundane diplomatic relations. The familiar hierarchy is there; so is the occasional condescension. At best, South Korea’s overtures to Japan are received with skepticism, if not suspicion. Any South Korean recognition of Japan’s future-oriented diplomacy is not adequately appreciated as it is derided in Tokyo as being

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obvious.138 At every opportunity, Japan’s Korea imaginary rears its head. This is testament to the endurance of hierarchy and the residues of colonialism surviving into the present day, notably in the form of the Past, the Future, and Backwardness: the Past because the history is omnipresent; the Future as a potential escape from this predicament; and Backwardness as a reified image that reaffirms the difficulty of Japan’s Asian existence. I capitalize the Past, the Future, and Backwardness to denote their reified status, since they are imbedded with certain sets of images. The contemporary bilateral relations—at least from Tokyo’s perspective—are an admixture of these three images. They also attest to the durability of Japanese identity narratives as a resilient historical construct.

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Part III

The Narrative Tripod in Contemporary JapanSouth Korea Relations

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art III explores the “narrative tripod” of reified Japanese identity narratives, and how it reinforces Japan’s negative images of Korean otherness in contemporary bilateral relations. The tripod consists of the Past, the Future, and Backwardness. The Past refers to the persistence of history as an omnipresent signifier of the difficult relationship. The issue here is not whether Japan whitewashes history, but rather, what is remembered and forgotten within the official narratives. The Future is a backlash to the Past: the “reality” of the Past compels policy elites in Tokyo to clamour for mirai-shiko gaiko, expecting Seoul to look toward the Future rather than lingering on the Past (e.g., apologies and restitution). Yet, the very necessity for the Future bounces back to reinforce the idea within Japanese policy circles that the Korean counterparts are adamant about the Past, reifying Backwardness as a predominant mode of representing Korean otherness against which the Japanese self needs to reassert its legitimacy. Chapter 5 explores the politics of memory across the Tsushima Strait that characterizes the Past. Japan’s resilient “leadership” identity remembers that the Second World War was an inevitable outcome of realpolitik in the early twentieth century, and Japan’s mnemonics of the Past as “liberation” effectively forgets the sufferings of the Asian others during colonialism. Furthermore, Tokyo’s confidence since 1945 as heiwa- and shonin-kokka conflate the sufferings of Asian people with the memories of Japanese “victimization” effectively legitimizing an ethnocentric interpretation of the Past. This “remembering and forgetting” is represented within various narratives, ranging from school textbooks, Japanese government’s stance on “comfort women,” and the 1995 Diet Resolution on war. As such, the South Korean calls for restitution are interpreted in Tokyo as a nuisance. Chapter 6 analyzes the narratives of Future that is recurring within the series of bilateral summits from the 1990s. The end of the cold war was

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understood through the hierarchy inherent in Japanese worldview as an opportunity for it to embark upon mirai-shiko gaiko with South Korea, but Seoul’s incessant calls for apologies and their constant skepticism toward Japan’s intentions “puzzles” Tokyo who is confident of its leadership role. The diplomatic quid pro quo reifies the Future into a diplomatic imperative while, at the same time, reinforces the Backwardness of Korean otherness intent on discrediting Japanese self. Chapter 7 focuses on economic relations across the Tsushima Strait as a locus for the reification of Backwardness. The bilateral economic relations revolves around Seoul’s constant calls for technology transfers from Tokyo, and the concomitant demands for it to address South Korea’s current account deficit with Japan. The repeated allegations by Seoul that Tokyo is reluctant to right the wrongs are reinterpreted by Japanese policy makers as misrepresentation of the government’s role. Likewise, the Japanese business community, which is situated at the forefront of bilateral trade relations, provides the forum with the perception of South Koreans as “lazy” and “undisciplined” thereby resurrecting the familiar image of Korean otherness as backward and solely interested in exploiting the Past. In response, the Japanese self understands that its legitimacy is at stake, further reifying Backwardness as an obdurate reality of diplomatic relations.

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The Politics of Memory

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apanese identity narratives and the associated Asia imaginary legitimized colonial policies in which the implied hierarchy of kokutai whittled away Korean sovereignty from 1875 onward. Even when the “colonial” relationship ceased in August 1945, the anti-Korean sentiments during the Allied occupation (1945–1952), as well as the exchange of invectives during normalization negotiations reproduced the familiar hierarchy: the Japanese self “forced” into war with Western colonial powers re-encounters a “boisterous” Korean otherness single-mindedly determined to exact revenge for the thirty-six years of annexation. The psychological dynamics of colonial relationship persisted as a residue in bilateral relations even if the international context of bilateral relations changed. The narratives of Korean otherness continued to be remanufactured in August 1945, with the images of backward and ungrateful Koreans reified into an obdurate diplomatic fact for Tokyo.1 Put differently, if it were not for the ambivalent relationship between continuity and disjuncture within Japanese self throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the near-permanence of rivalry cannot be explained. In short, this ambivalence tempers the contemporary bilateral relationships in which the colonial residues remain an obstinate reality. Hence, the contemporary narratives of Japanese identity and Korean otherness is akin to a déjà vu—while the circumstances behind the mutual exchange of invectives are specific to the particularities of time and space, the reified self/other dichotomy provides a point of reference for contextualizing contemporary interactions. It is through these series of interactions that the past images inform the present. The ensconcing of Korea into a backward-looking otherness that needs to be nurtured—if not disciplined—into accepting Japan’s postwar role reproduces Japan’s Korea imaginary that is reminiscent of the colonial era. Indeed, it is tempting to treat the current diplomatic relationship as a refurbishment of the colonial relationship into a contemporary mould, particularly when the mutually

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irreconcilable “memories” are considered. Korean accusations of Japanese whitewash threaten the legitimacy accorded to Japan’s heiwa kokka narratives; and in an effort at regaining legitimacy, Japanese identity narratives enlist historically constructed images of Korean otherness as a means for trivializing their claims to suffering.2 Not only is the hierarchy of the colonial relationship replayed in this process, but also the Past poses itself as a contemporary problem. This is what is meant by the “nowness” of the Past as an integral element in the politics of memory. This chapter focuses on the politics of memory and Japan’s reaction to it. It is tempting to subsume all other factors—diplomatic and economic— into this realm. While the inclination is justified, the politics of memory alone cannot fully capture the Korea imaginary being reproduced through diplomatic and trade relations. Indeed, despite the overlaps, Japan’s identity narratives and the resultant Korea imaginary are products of a multifaceted bilateral relationship of which the politics of memory is just one element. Thus, it is pertinent to explore the politics of memory before discussing other dimensions of this contemporary “colonial” relationship. The politics of memory provides a unique context on two accounts: first, memories as historical constructs suggest that they are products of social emergence and elaboration through time and space. The reconstruction of identity narratives and self/other dichotomy, as discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, inform the present generation of policy elites. Second, memories as historical constructs nevertheless involve actors who experience them concurrently, indicating that memories about yesterday entail memories being recalled today—what I call the “nowness” of memory. It is the ethnocentric attitude of Japan that interprets South Korean’s objections to Tokyo’s narration of the Past as “evidence” of Korean hostility. Such hostilities should not be seen merely as a starting point of analysis— they need to be dissected. This chapter is divided into four sections. The first section discusses how the Japanese accounts of past wartime as a factor in the reconstruction of identity narratives and in facilitating the emergence of the politics of memory today. When Tokyo’s narration of the war as legitimate, if not inevitable, confronts South Korean opposition, the Korea imaginary is reproduced, precipitating a further round of mutual mudslinging. In the second section, I shift the focus on to the representation of Japanese collective memory in school textbooks, exploring how the memories sustain their nowness through them. Textbooks are potent tools for the Japanese government in proclaiming the last war as inevitable, and therefore legitimate, suggesting that the government considers any counterargument to overlook Japan’s rightful place in history. The depiction of the war as inevitable in textbooks is also an indication of how Japan’s identity

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narratives seek to neutralize the darker side of history, while refocusing Japan’s gaze on to the trauma of war. The third section looks at how the Japanese government dealt with the issue of comfort women—a recurring theme throughout the 1990s and beyond. Trivialization of the plight of former comfort women represents another facet of collective remembering and forgetting by Japan: remembrance of the inevitable war is established through the forgetting of the sufferings of the Korean other. The Japanese way of remembering and forgetting is an emotive process and it must be pointed out that the domestic debate itself remains caustic. Simultaneously, though, such divisions also point to the essence of Japanese identity construction: the conflation of sufferings by the people in both Japan and elsewhere, resulting in the trivialization of the claims to sufferings by Asian others. This is a potent reminder of the nowness not only of the Past, but also of the hierarchy nurtured over the centuries. Finally in the fourth section, I trace the debates surrounding the 1995 Diet Resolution on the war. The significance of the resolution lies in it being a product of retrospection by Japanese policy elites rather than through a more familiar prodding by external pressures, per se. The process of negotiations over the wording of the resolution shows how the differing memories within Japan were eventually crowded out to produce a domineering narrative. The politics of memory tells us that the Japanese self is not simply a discursive construct that is fleeting in nature, but a reified entity that policy elites are constantly consuming and remanufacturing, incorporating a convenient set of symbols that they can utilize to legitimize the nation’s historical existence. It also constitutes a linguistic structure through which policy makers “make sense” of Tokyo’s policy options. In other words, the politics of memory provides us with an ideal platform from which we can observe the interaction between an agent and the structure. The Politics of Memory The postwar decades presaged a reconstruction of the “colonial” relationship, albeit in a distinct manner: hierarchy remained intact, and the language of “inferior” Korean otherness was rife. The unilateral declaration of the Rhee Line in the early 1950s became a hallmark of “unruly” Korea, and the postponement of normalization talks between 1953 and 1957 following the infamous Kubota Remarks reified the negative images of Korea within Japanese policy circles. Even in the aftermath of the South Korean coup d’etat that installed Park Chung-hee in 1961, Tokyo was reminded of its war responsibilities in the final negotiations leading to the 1965 Basic

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Treaty, with the South Korean government’s calls for yen-loans in lieu of restitution. Despite South Korea’s turbulent years—the assassination of Park in 1979 and another coup in 1980 ushering in Chun Doo-hwan as the new president—South Korean demands on the Past became a familiar aspect of bilateral relations: demands for atonement was implicit in Chun’s insistence on yen-loans and technology transfers. To be sure, the postwar climate is distinct from the prewar version: the great power rivalry superseded by the cold war entailed increased American interest in minimizing Japan-South Korea tensions.3 Thus, one can expect the relationship to have improved somewhat, but this was hardly the case. Indeed, Japan’s hierarchy remained intact, legitimized in part through the Yoshida Doctrine and the American nuclear umbrella posing themselves as evidence of Japan’s peaceful intentions, and hence, the proof that the Past is behind it. Tokyo sought to consolidate its leadership position both as heiwa- and shonin kokka, but Seoul’s demand for full apologies was a puzzle since Tokyo considered that the Basic Treaty resolved all compensation claims, and it was entitled to exercise its selfprofessed role unencumbered.4 Not only did the Korea imaginary maintained a life of its own through the postwar era, the persistence of difficult and backward-looking Korean otherness reinforced the need for Japanese self to seek further legitimization. The reification of difficulty meant that Japan needed to take further initiatives in resolving it. The resultant narrative by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) was the “future-oriented diplomacy” (mirai-shiko gaiko) with South Korea, reflecting Tokyo’s understanding that the socalled post–cold war “New World Order” entitled Tokyo to exercise its full potential, while recognizing that the Past is an intractable problem. The narratives of Future had been repeated like mantra within the pages of MOFA’s Diplomatic Blue Book,5 and the Korea-Japan twenty-firstcentury committee—a gathering of MPs from both Japan and South Korea—realized in 1988 that “there still exists a wide gap in the mutual perception. While the Koreans have deep-rooted antipathy toward the Japanese deriving from the colonial past, most Japanese are indifferent to Korea and its peoples.”6 This indifference, or ambivalence, across the Tsushima Strait constitutes the obdurate reality for Japanese policy makers in which the politics of memory became ever more potent. The Japanese government felt it reasonable that Tokyo had a significant role to play on the post– cold war world stage, and the hierarchic worldview trivialized South Korean demands as nothing but a nuisance. It was a puzzle, therefore, to see South Koreans clinging on to the bygone days of the war. Yoshida Yutaka notes that Tokyo’s urge to proclaim its self-professed role and its perceived need to appease its Asian neighbors indicate

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a fundamental lack of transformation in Japan’s perception of its own track record.7 The centrality of MSA with the United States and a series of technology transfers over the decades represented the very speech act of Japan’s identity narratives, and the taken-for-grantedness of such deeds reinforced Tokyo’s trivialization of South Korea’s worries over Japan’s military potential as another tactic in the politics of memory. The potency of politics of memory compels Tokyo to reaffirm its confidence, precipitating a familiar exchange of invectives that contextualizes the reproduction of bilateral relations since 1945.8 In sum, the perception persists that the Past is always an issue between Tokyo and Seoul, however much the former wants to push bilateral relations on to a new plane. Despite Tokyo’s hopes for miraishiko gaiko, South Korean reminders of the unresolved Past drag the relationship down to the familiar exchange of accusations and remonstrations. As Asahi Shimbun puts it, the insistence on the Future implies persistence of the Past.9 Japan’s contemporary Korea imaginary is predicated upon the “forgetting of Korea.” Japan’s memories of the war—from the carpet bombings of large cities, the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the deaths of combatants as well as civilians—are traumatic memories lending credence to heiwa kokka narratives, with the resultant nowness of the suffering silencing the plight of Japan’s neighbors. Ian Buruma argues that “while [Asia] is hardly remembered at all, old Japanese do, however, remember the occupation, the first foreign army occupation in the national history.”10 The overarching narrative of war is one of trauma; but within it, the sufferings of the Japanese and Asians are conflated into a general sense of victimhood,11 such that the mnemonics of “our uniqueness [enabling] us to surpass the West economically”12 coexists with the victimhood in the war. The former prime minister, Tanaka Kakuei, said in the mid-1970s that the “union” between Japan and Korea “has been rather long, but during this period, [Japan] has taught [Korea] how to harvest sea weeds, and our education system is still in use today. Therefore, our legacies are not confined to economics, but also on spiritual levels as well.”13 Colonialism as a whole is trivialized as something Japan had no choice but to undertake in its evolution from a weak, semicolonial, state to a formidable power emulating what the West had done to Japan’s “backyard.” This implies that in order not to repeat the same mistakes of the Past, Japan must take initiatives in promoting peace and interdependence in Asia.14 Hence, the emphasis is on Japan’s suffering on behalf of Asia, while the details of what Japan did in Korea and elsewhere are silenced, completing the forgetting and the nowness of an ethnocentric Past. The call for ichioku so zange (mass recompense) by Prince

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Higashikuni on August 30, 1945, had the effect of cleansing the nation of guilt—guilt for losing the war, guilt for not being able to deliver victory to the emperor, and guilt for the failure to liberate Asia. This “cleansing” makes it “obvious that the issue of restitution is taken care of back in 1965,”15 and therefore any criticism to the contrary is perceived as puzzling at best, if not outright annoying. The emergent narratives of politics of memory are elaborated within both diplomatic and economic spheres. Japanese diplomatic narratives preach the need to look into the Future. MOFA’s Diplomatic Blue Book in 1990 states that the visit to Tokyo by President Roh Tae-woo in May 1990 effectively “put history behind with an eye toward the twenty-first century.”16 In the following year, MOFA again stresses the need for a “futureoriented Japanese-South Korean relations.”17 While it is not easy to discern hierarchy and leadership from mirai-shiko gaiko alone, they often appear within Japan’s role-prescription. For instance, Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi spoke to the Diet in 1992 stating that “Japan-South Korea relations need to be seen in the context of Asia and the wider world” within which states ought to play a leadership role.18 Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo—in his May 2008 address to the International Conference of Future of Asia— reiterated Tokyo’s peaceful intentions in a “new era for Japan and South Korea” (Nikkan shin-jidai) in which Tokyo is ready to play the role as a “peaceful and cooperative state” (heiwa kyoryoku kokka).19 His successor, Aso Taro, reiterated the point during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 2008, identifying South Korea as an important partner for Japan in pursuing international peace in East Asia and the wider world.20 The economic sphere entails a similar mechanism, with the private sector actively engaged in propagating the narratives of Japanese self and the Korean other. Here, the politics of memory emerges in two steps: (1) when the Japanese business community encounters South Korean accounts of “memories”; and (2) when the Japanese companies lobby Tokyo to negotiate with the South Korean government over difficulties in conducting business deriving from shared perception that Koreans are not only ungrateful, but backward-looking. South Korean dependency on Japanese technology derives partly from its colonial past;21 and the South Korean demands to tip the (im)balance inevitably touch upon the legacies of annexation. As South Korea moved up the ladder from a developing economy to a developed one in the 1990s, the economic narratives altercasted South Korea as a “junior partner.” The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) stated in 1990 that the South Korean promotion meant that the role for Japan was to absorb increased intra-regional trade,22 and in 1991, MITI further argued that Tokyo’s role

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was to provide an integrated regional economy.23 The leadership designation became more apparent by the mid-1990s: MITI noted in its Trade White Paper for 1995 that Japan was called upon to dictate international trade rules, rather than being dictated by them.24 Japan’s push for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) from the mid-1990s was another speech act in the self/other dichotomy.25 However, as Tokyo pursued this role throughout the 1990s, the South Korean need for further technology transfers became more apparent, and every time Seoul pressured Tokyo to do so, the Past was reinvoked as the root cause of the problem.26 The demand for technology transfers was not considered convincing in Tokyo: being a member of the rich countries’ club, Tokyo saw no need to spoon-feed its “junior partner,” and South Korean invocation of the Past was seen as an excuse by Seoul to pressure Tokyo. While the politics of memory seems omnipresent within the diplomatic and economic realms, I now turn to the most explicit manifestation of nowness of the Past, starting with the infamous textbook case followed by another blot on Japan’s treatment of history, the issue of comfort women, before I move on to the 1995 Diet Resolution. The first two are intertwined—the issue of comfort women is partly about how it is to be narrated in textbooks as an instrument of national inculcation, if at all; and the Diet Resolution is closely related to the above due to its emergence just as the politics of memory exploded in the 1990s. The triumvirate illustrates how the nowness of Past simultaneously constitutes a forum where the language of hierarchy and Japanese self are narrated, along with its reification into an obdurate social fact for Japanese policy elites. Representing Memory through Textbooks Narratives of the Past in Japanese school textbooks constitute one of the most potent representations of the nowness of memory, involving selective mnemonics in highlighting particular aspects of history while forgetting others. It is this form of remembering and forgetting that come under constant scrutiny by Japan’s Asian neighbors accusing Tokyo of whitewashing history. The 1982 Textbook provides a notable example.27 While the media focus is usually cast on its effects vis-à-vis the SinoJapanese relations, it is nonetheless pertinent to suggest that the very dynamics are also displayed in Japan-South Korea relations. Perhaps the issue is more toxic here given that the issue of comfort women is inevitably linked to the textbook case. Simultaneously, though, the textbooks signify the reification of Korean otherness into an officially sanctioned narrative of Japan’s difficult Asian existence.

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Textbooks are crucial factors in the reproduction of dominant identity narratives, representing the official mnemonics as they narrate them in a particular manner filtering out noises from substance. It is an inherently subjective process masqueraded as an objective exercise in delineating proper national history. As Donald Hundt and Roland Bleiker note, “While narratives of nationhood create boundaries between self and other from the very beginning of the education cycle, secondary school education plays a particularly crucial political role. It is at this level that historical narratives are first taught in detail, thereby providing interpretive and factual foundations for the previously established way of promoting particular form of political socialization.”28 Not only are textbooks important in constructing a national narrative, they are indispensable in reproducing collective identities. Through the dominant narratives of “accepted” history, the dominant identity narratives of the nation become embedded “so that the past thus becomes vivified in shared presents; and social groups thence ‘naturally’, ‘intuitively’ march toward inherited futures.”29 Textbooks are tantamount to a “library” of nationalist symbols that can be readily accessed and utilized in the process of national legitimatization,30 and through a particularized narration of the Past, the postwar heiwa- and shonin-kokka signifiers are justified. In June 1982, Asahi Shimbun reported on the vetting of high school textbooks by the Ministry of Education in preparation for the following academic year. In its report on June 26, the paper argued that the ministry was trying to dilute history by changing references to Japanese “aggression” (shinryaku) into northeastern China between 1935 and 1937 as a mere “incursion” (shinshutsu).31 In response to Chinese criticism in Renmin Ribao that the Japanese government was distorting history, Education Minister Ogawa Heiji retorted on July 20, saying that the issue of textbooks is an internal affair (naisei mondai).32 South Korea joined the criticism, accusing Tokyo of whitewashing Japan’s atrocities between 1910 and 1945, eliciting similar rebuttals from Japan. Director General of the Land Agency, Matsuno Yukiyasu, told reporters on July 23 that “the South Korean textbooks depict annexation as Japanese aggression. But taking into consideration [Korean] domestic situation at the time, it is difficult to ascertain which version of events—the Japanese or Korean accounts—are correct,” adding that Seoul’s demands for changes in Japanese textbooks constitutes an intervention into Japanese domestic affairs.33 A short description of the inspection regime (kentei-seido) is needed. The regime, which is held every four years, consists of four steps: (1) issuance (hakko); (2) editing (henshu); (3) inspection (kentei); and (4) acceptance (saitaku).34 Textbooks themselves are edited publishers, one of the grounds upon which the Japanese government denies any direct

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involvement in the “censorship” of manuscripts.35 During the inspection process, the Ministry of Education reviews submitted drafts, and issues a written comment outlining its objections. The outcome of the inspection can range from outright “rejection” (fu-gokaku) to a “pass” (gokaku); but in most cases, the “pass” comes with various conditions (joken-tsuki gokaku). There is also a decision to “refer” (ryuho) any draft text, postponing final decision until a revision is made.36 Kimijima Kazuhiko observes that the possibility of rejection at the “referral” stage compels publishers to satisfy inspectors during the resubmission phase,37 and the fact that a “rejection” implies the publisher potentially losing a share of the textbook market until the next inspection round means they are under extreme pressure to second-guess the government position.38 The lessons of the 1982 Textbook case was not lost on the Japanese government, making it more determined to portray an “objective” account of the past by balancing Japan’s “past glories” with the darker side of history.39 The resultant narrative solidified the official stance that the last war was an inevitable outcome of realpolitik in Asia and Japan alone cannot be accused of wrongdoing. In May 1990, the Education Ministry announced its official position on Japan’s historical relations with Korea, stating that: (1) the ministry seeks to maintain friendship through mutual respect and understanding by nurturing correct understanding of modern and contemporary history; and that (2) the ministry encourages “appropriate instructions” (tekisetsu na shido) for the people of Japan and South Korea in an effort at deepening mutual understandings of the history of Japan and the Korean peninsula.40 The ministry remained adamant that the existing system for appraising textbooks constitutes an “appropriate [set of] instructions,” restating its position that “[manuscripts] are deemed fit for publication following a thorough inspection.”41 Hence, the government insinuates that the textbooks comprise an official narrative, given that it is in accordance with the national curriculum; but the purported “hands-off ” approach in the inspection process is used as a justification to connote its function as merely to monitor, not to determine, the actual content. As Kimijima Kazuhiko notes, to the extent that the ministry has a decisive role in determining the success or failure of a manuscript, it is misleading to suggest that the government has no role in effecting their content.42 The series of textbook inspections epitomizes the process whereby Korea imaginary is reified into an officially sanctioned worldview that depicts Asia as a hostile neighborhood for Tokyo to exercise its purported role. Chung Dae-kyun argues that the Japanese memory of aggression has been superseded by the trauma of war privileging the sufferings over violence meted out on the Asian population.43 This parallels the

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common feeling among the Japanese public in the immediate postwar period that they have been “deceived” (damasareta) by the prewar military clique, reifying a particular aspect of war that concentrates on national pain; and all the “wrongs” committed on the Asian continent become subsumed under the collective injustice of militarism.44 This idea is replicated within the policy circles. For instance, Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato in August 1963 stated that “without the fallen heroes, there is no Japan today,”45 referring not to the militarist regime, but rather to the conscripts—the pawns of misguided adventurism. In a similar vein, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, Tanaka Kotaro, stated in May 1952 that “criticisms against the war need to be distinguished from our gratitude to the fallen.”46 This strong ethnocentric-pull within the dominant Japanese mnemonics can only be constructed upon forgetting the significant aspects of Japan’s Asia experience. The irony, of course, is this is precisely the discursive platform upon which the postwar narratives of peace state identity stand. Right-wing groups, such as the Association for the Creation of a New Textbook, proclaimed in December 1996 that “to construct a historical perspective to accommodate the views of Asian neighbors would be tantamount to surrendering Japan’s own, legitimate, history.”47The political establishment reiterates this view. The Parliamentarian League for a Bright Japan (Akarui Nippon giin-renmei) states in its founding declaration in June 1996 that it “cannot condone self-flagellating history [that identifies Japan] as an aggressor state, nor can we agree to an ‘apologies diplomacy’ (shazai gaiko). We endeavor to reclaim what we lost after the defeat in nurturing healthy Japanese citizens.”48 Furthermore, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sakurai Yoshio, commented during a public lecture in September 1996 that “while the textbooks mention things such as invasion and Comfort Women, [in my view] it wasn’t [a war of] aggression, but rather something that the country was drawn into.”49 Two things can be gleaned from these narratives: (1) the denial of aggression marks an enduring hierarchy in which the war is seen as an accident of history rather than an act of commission by Japan; and (2) the critique of “self-flagellating” history is a flip side of an urge to “move forward” and pursue future-oriented diplomacy. Takahashi Tetsuya calls this the “narcissism” of a “benevolent Japan” that is constructed on silencing any counter-claims denigrating them as “anti-Japanese” sentiments.50 To be sure, not all of the official narratives whitewash history. ThenChief Cabinet Secretary Kajiyama Seiroku stated in January 1997 that “we have been blind to history. We were not confident enough . . . we need to be brave enough to teach the truth,”51 though commenting later in the month

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that “we need to be mindful of the social background of the prewar prostitution system in order to discuss the issues related to comfort women.”52 History textbooks of the 1990s are careful not to replicate the 1982 fiasco, but the accusation of whitewashing nonetheless survives. Contemporary textbooks simply reiterate facts without delving into the details of what decisions prompted Japanese aggressions in the first place, to say nothing of the criteria for weeding out “facts” in the first place. They are, on the main, silent on the political background to various events. For example, Shosetsu Nipponshi, published by Yamakawa Shuppan, touches on Kanghwa Incident of 1875—Japan’s first incursion into the Korean peninsula—in such a way that “after the Kanghwa Incident of 1875, Japanese government pressured (sematte) Koreans to sign the Treaty of Kanghwa, and opened (kaikoku) Korea.”53 The narrative is descriptive telling what happened but not how and why. Kimijima argues that while the incident is treated here as an aggression of sorts, it is not clear from the text why it happened, nor can school children discern how the decision to invade emerged.54 Put differently, the narratives are potentially devoid of context, as if to suggest that Japan’s encroachments on the Korean peninsula since the late nineteenth century “just happened.” With respect to Japan’s steady erosion of Korean sovereignty in the first decade of the twentieth century, both Shosetsu Nipponshi, mentioned above, and Shin shosestu Nipponshi (also published by Yamakawa), state that “by 1905, Japan signed an agreement with the United States, as well as having amended the Anglo-Japanese Treaty with the United Kingdom. This implied that both the U.S. and the UK effectively recognized Korea as Japan’s sphere of influence, paving the way for Korea to become a Japanese protectorate.”55 The way in which the narratives represent the erosion of Korean sovereignty overlooks the actual processes, and the children are left unaware of Japanese pressure on the Korean delegates in the run up to the signing of the agreements and protocols.56 Resistance movements in postannexation Korea face similar treatment: demonstrations like the March 1 Movement in 1919 are mentioned simply under the general rubric of Korean “resistance” or that the Koreans “resisted” (teiko shita). This vague treatment simply tells the readers that Koreans were “unhappy,” when what was played out on the Korean peninsula was a bloody battle between Japanese authorities wielding excessive force and Korean guerrilla fighters, not to mention the sufferings of ordinary Koreans.57 While the slow, but steady process of annexation is depicted as an inevitable by-product of the power politics of the late-nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, the issue of comfort women proved to be extremely awkward for Tokyo: if the former can be argued with relative ease, the sheer embarrassment of Japan’s alleged involvement in sexual slavery makes the

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latter an extremely emotive case. I shall deal with the development of the comfort women issue in little more detail later, but it will suffice in this section to take a snapshot into how this aspect of memory is represented in the textbooks. The official stance evolved from outright denial of the issue in the early 1990s to admitting that the army had indirect control over brothels by the mid-1990s.58 By 1995, the government had to concede that more documents suggesting direct involvement by the army emerged, prompting Tokyo to establish a quasi-official compensation fund in July of that year.59 In a conservative backlash to this embarrassing admission, a movement to create a new textbook free of “self-flagellating history” was founded in December 1996. The group—The Group to Publish a New Textbook (Atarashii rekishi kyokasho wo tsukuru-kai: hereafter the Group)—sought to “preserve” Japan’s past “glory,” lobbying the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and calling for the government (namely the Ministry of Education) to glorify the past rather than to paint a masochistic view of it.60 One prominent issue on the agenda was to exclude any reference to comfort women. Even without the group’s boisterous opposition to the inclusion of any reference to comfort women, the Education Ministry’s inspection regime effectively filtered out draft texts, distilling the narratives into an officially acceptable language of memory. Kuboi Norio documents various instances of changes “recommended” by the ministry. The publishers were “encouraged” to make alterations such as the following: •

References to the military’s direct involvement in the recruitment of comfort women were changed to read that no documentary evidence has been found.61 • “Abduction” (rachi) of young women became “women being remanded” (kyosei renko).62 • Allegations that up to one hundred thousand women were forced into becoming comfort women changed to “a large number.” (tasu)63 Similar changes were demanded of middle school textbooks. Kuboi argues that the draft prepared by Tokyo Shoseki stated that “a large number of young women were sent to the front lines in the name of teishintai (people dedicating themselves to the war effort),” but the ministry suggested that the reference to women being sent in the name of teishintai is imprecise.64 It is impossible to fathom the intentions of the inspectors; nor to ascertain whether this was done advertently or inadvertently, only that we are witnessing the reproduction of a sanitized version of a controversial history. The dismissal of texts on the pretext that they lacked evidence portrays the trivialization of claims by Korean otherness as a

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familiar legitimization move, a dynamic reminiscent of the prewar colonial relationship. One textbook simply states that “conscription came into effect in Korea in 1943 and in Taiwan in 1945. And as for women, some were made to work at comfort facilities,”65 while others simply make note of women working in these “facilities”—”some women from Korea and Taiwan were made to work at comfort facilities” or that “conscription came into force in both Korea and Taiwan. Some women were made to work as comfort women.”66 The issue of comfort women is mentioned only in a matter-of-fact way—as a policy for maintaining troop morale— illustrating Japanese remembering as the forgetting of Korean women, not to mention the denigration of claimants’ dignity by portraying them as willing prostitutes. Objections by the Group centered on their altercasting of the “socalled” comfort women as mere “prostitutes”; and that the brothels were businesses with no direct link to the imperial army thereby denying any Japanese wrongdoing.67 The Group claimed that “prostitution” had no place in school textbooks, stating that “there is no justification for focusing on the darker side of human life. Instead, we must focus on the brighter aspects [of our history] to nurture our children.”68 The Group was also “worried” about how teachers would answer questions from pupils “if they asked for more details about it [the ‘prostitution’].”69 The Group sought to turn the issue of comfort women away from Japan’s moral responsibility, and instead, recast it as an issue of when (and whether) it is appropriate to discuss “prostitution” with children.70 The Group lobbied the Ministry of Education in January 1997 demanding administrative guidance on textbooks to delete references to comfort women, claiming that there are “serious questions about facts.”71 The Group’s protestation that comfort women be recast as prostitutes shifts the focus away from the harm done to them, and into an issue about their moral character in an ultimate delegitimization move that trivializes the claimants’ dignity. The efforts of the Group were successful to a certain degree, finally publishing its own version in April 2001, albeit with 137 corrections.72 As expected, the issue of comfort women was omitted from the text;73 and the Ministry of Education insisted that the publication was a matter for the publisher to decide, not the government.74 While not an outright collusion by the government, to the extent that the ministry screened the text itself suggests that it has no compunction against the narrative reconstruction. It is easy to dismiss the Group as a right-wing fringe group trying to portray its extremist version of history. The Group’s raison d’être is to “recover” the “lost sense of glorious national history,”75 arguing that it is natural to have one’s own account of history contradicting other peoples’ accounts; but to acquiesce to their viewpoints is

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tantamount to surrendering one’s own national identity.76 This is the reason why the Group’s lobbying of the government is noteworthy: a political project promoting “glorious past” as a dominant identity narrative finding the government as its sympathizer. This implies that the politics of memory is a national process, not just as a product of fringe groups. LDP’s Itagaki Masahiko of the Upper House urged the government in December 1996 to force publishers to dilute any reference to forced prostitution of comfort women since “it is not a fact,” condemning textbooks for depicting Japan as evil saying that “the parents are worried about [such depiction].”77 Its success in having persuaded the Education Ministry represents the conflation of ideas driving the Group and the government’s aspiring, collective, narrative.78 While it is the case that the government did not directly write these textbooks, to the extent that the drafts of these books needed to pass the inspection regime suggests that the policy elites’ interpretation, if not understanding, of the Past is reflected in these narratives. The school textbooks provide a platform upon which the forgetting, as well as the remembering, of Japanese collective memory are reproduced and officially sanctioned. Remembering and Forgetting Comfort Women One vexing issue haunting contemporary bilateral relations is the controversy over the so-called comfort women. The Japanese government consistently denies direct involvement by the then-imperial army and disclaims its liability for compensation, repeating the position that the 1965 Basic Treaty extinguished all legal claims against it. As the earlier discussion on textbook controversies shows, the issue of comfort women focuses on the way official narratives rationalize it. Textbooks provide one narrative, but the quid-pro-quo between the claimants calling for official compensation, on the one hand; and the government adamant of its legal position, on the other, constitutes another facet of the controversy. Admittedly, there are debates within Japan on how the nation as a whole should face up to this, but the resultant muddle is also representative of Japan’s memory construction in general. The contention over comfort women lies in the extent of Japanese official involvement with the argument centering on the interplay between the following two points: (1) whether, and to what extent, the imperial army had any direct control over the recruitment of comfort women; and (2) whether or not the comfort women were sex slaves.79 Clarification of these two points is important for Tokyo as part of postwar

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legitimization: if the allegations that the comfort women were indeed sex slaves forced into slave labor by the imperial army are affirmed, then the constant refrain of heiwa- and shonin kokka will be discredited. Yet, unless it acknowledged the existence of sexual slavery, the Japanese government knows full well that the issue will constantly damage its relations with Seoul, let alone the rest of Asia. Tokyo’s efforts at warding-off criticisms represent this dilemma. Furthermore, some instances of official denial—most recently in early 2007 by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo who effectively called claimants “liars”80—highlights the emotiveness of the issue for both sides of the argument. Suspicions about Tokyo’s historical role in comfort women are not new. As early as 1962, an investigative reporter for Mainichi Shimbun, Senda Kako, reported on Japanese wartime experiences in Asia, where he came across a photograph depicting two women swimming in a stream overlooked by Japanese soldiers. He was told that the women were “comfort women,” noting that it was the first time that he came across such a phrase.81 South Korean accusations at the time were muted; but as if to foreshadow the diplomatic wrangling of the 1990s, an increase in Japanese sex tourists visiting South Korea in the 1970s reminded South Koreans of Japan’s wartime impunity. Local resentment at the perceived arrogance of Japanese men exploiting Korean women reminded them of the memories of sexual exploitation during the war.82 A stage was set for further confrontation in the 1990s when researchers from both Japan and South Korea launched investigations into allegations of sexual slavery.83 Along with the research into wartime prostitution, the wave of democratization in South Korea throughout the 1980s led to the emergence of women’s organizations. For instance, the South Korean Church Women’s Alliance set up a Committee for the Study of the Voluntary Service Corps to investigate allegations of forced prostitution by the Japanese imperial army,84 encouraged partly by a general sense of disgust at incessant Japanese sex tourism in South Korea, as well as through heightened awareness of women’s rights in general.85 The steady democratization of South Korea throughout the 1990s coincided with Japan’s efforts at reasserting its selfproclaimed international role following the 1991–1992 Gulf War impotence, and the revelation of Japanese sex slavery during the war became an embarrassment: a disgraceful counter-narrative to the legitimacy of the Japanese self. The issue of comfort women had an uncanny effect of replaying the very colonial relationship that pre-existed August 1945 by directing Tokyo’s efforts into delegitimizing the claims to sufferings by the Korean other as a tool for legitimizing the Japanese self. By the time of May 1990 visit to Tokyo by President Roh Tae-woo, the issue became a constant source of headache for the Japanese government.

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Pressures were mounting in Seoul and the inclusion of comfort women on the agenda now seemed inevitable, and on the eve of the Roh visit, the South Korean survivors’ group called on the Japanese government to issue an official apology otherwise urging Roh to cancel his trip.86 Such pressures were puzzling for Tokyo: its repeated apologies should have absolved it of any responsibility including comfort women. Tokyo’s logic is that, given the necessity of maintaining troop morale in a war of liberation brought about through the vagaries of realpolitik, it did not amount to a moral issue. However, to the extent that it was sexual slavery, negative publicity was inevitable compelling Tokyo to resurrect its self-professed leadership position in danger of being discredited. Tokyo’s struggle to contain the fallout from comfort women shows how the identity of Japanese self has been reified as a role-prescription for Japanese policy makers to reproduce; while simultaneously requiring hierarchy as the dominant worldview in rationalizing such an imperative. The subsequent diplomatic row between Tokyo and Seoul centered on the second point: whether comfort women were prostitutes who followed the imperial army, or whether they were forced into it.87 Shimizu Norio, Director of Employment in the Ministry of Labor, testified to the Upper House Budget Committee in June 1990. He noted that “from the interviews we had with former soldiers, our conclusion thus far is that the so-called “Comfort Women” were prostitutes working in brothels, whose owners took them around wherever the imperial army went. To this extent, the Ministry of Labor cannot conduct any further investigation into the matter, as it falls outside our remit.”88 Shimizu’s testimony fails to fully engage with the issue of whether or not the comfort women were “forcibly recruited,” only to imply the existence of wartime “prostitution.” In the end, the Labor Ministry concluded that the issue itself fell beyond the remit of its ministerial responsibilities. In October 1990, South Korean organizations calling for full investigation into the matter delivered a letter to the Japanese prime minister via the Japanese embassy in Seoul. A response was issued by the embassy in April 1991, stating that the Japanese government could not find “any evidence of the forced drafting of comfort women and [asserted] that all compensation claims of any sort had been settled by the Japan-South Korea Basic Treaty of 1965.”89 Here again, the Basic Treaty was enlisted as a pretext for trivializing the claims to violence by the Korean otherness. The issue re-emerged in August 1991, when Kim Haksoon identified herself as a former Comfort Woman; and in December 1991, she and thirtyfour others took the Japanese government to court.90 As Jane Yamazaki notes, “Despite government denials—the government maintained that

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these were privately operated establishments—the existence of government-supported brothels in war zones was well known. . . . The slowness with which the comfort women’s cause was addressed may be attributed to sparse documentation. However, the lack of interest in pursuing the type of war crime as (and is) also related to attitudes toward women and especially prostitutes.”91 The initial reluctance was superseded by frantic reiteration of apologies once documents purporting to show evidence of official involvement emerged. According to Onuma Yasuaki, Asahi Shimbun carried a headline suggesting direct army involvement in establishing “comfort facilities,” as well as in the recruitment of “comfort women” and the establishment of an inspection regime. . . . Following the Asahi scoop, Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi repeatedly apologized when he arrived in South Korea in January 1992 amid a torrent of anti-Japanese protests; and in July of the same year, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Kato Koichi, published the first official report into the issue, followed by a second report published in August 1993 [by Kato’s successor, Kono Yohei].92

This came in tandem with denials and counter-accusations from within the Japanese establishment, characterized by denials as well as counternarratives couched within the context of prostitution as an instrument delegitimizing claims by former comfort women. As discussed earlier, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kajiyama argued in January 1997 that “those who are making a lot of fuss about comfort women are not aware of the prostitution system during the war.”93 Following a spate of criticism from the South Korean government, Kajiyama “clarified” his point, telling Sankei Shimbun that his original intention was that it is justifiable for textbooks to refer to comfort women, but it must be contextualized within the prostitution system of that era.94 Kajiyama’s skepticism was pre-empted by MP Tamura Hideaki of Shinshinto (The New Frontier Party) who suggested in January 1997 that there is no evidence of sex slavery, and by MP Katayama Toranosuke of LDP who alleged that the term “comfort women” was a fiction.95 Skepticisms from other LDP MPs abound: Takaichi Sanae argued that pressures over the issue amounts to foreign intervention, while Ono Shinya suggested that they are part of an international conspiracy, and Shimomura Hirofumi blamed the Ministry of Education for disseminating lies.96 When Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi visited Seoul in January 1992, he issued an “apology” referring to the issue of comfort women. In it, he stated,

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I sincerely feel the pain of suffering upon hearing such gruesome accounts of former comfort women from the Korean peninsula. I have reviewed documents alleging direct involvement by the imperial army, and it looks as though the involvement cannot be denied. We have said in the past that we regret such enormous sufferings, but I would like to say, once again, how deeply shocked we are. And I hereby issue my sincerest apologies and regret. My government will endeavour to construct a peaceful state (heiwa kokka wo kochiku suru), and pledge to continue with the investigation.97

It is striking that Miyazawa’s use of heiwa kokka in his apology marked Tokyo’s preoccupation with the Future in favor of encountering the Past. Now that Tokyo had admitted there was sex slavery, it was stuck in a conceptual cul-de-sac: the legitimacy of Japanese self was at stake, and it had to face up to an embarrassing revelation that is damaging to Japan’s international position. In an effort at salvaging its reputation, the MOFA agreed to establish a quasi-governmental fund to dispense compensation. Hence, the Asia Exchange Center was established in July 1994, evolving into the Asian Peace Fund for Women set up in July 1995, the fiftieth anniversary-year of the end of the war.98 Its remit was to “take moral responsibility” for the sufferings of comfort women,99 but the status of the fund reflected Japanese government’s official position that legal obligation toward individuals was extinguished back in 1965. This is reflected in the funding arrangements, whereby the Japanese government provided ¥490 million toward the dayto-day operation of the fund, but the fund itself had to rely on donations for payouts. By the end of September 1995, donations amounted to just under ¥51.4 million.100 The aims of the fund were outlined in its “Appeal” for donations: Fifty years have elapsed since the war came to an end. The war caused enormous horror and ravaged the people of Japan and many other nations, especially those in Asia. Particularly brutal was the act of forcing women, including teenagers, to serve the Japanese armed forces as “comfort women,” a practice that violated the fundamental dignity of women. No manner of apology can ever completely heal the deep wound inflicted on these women both emotionally and physically. Yet we should, by whatever means, do our best to appreciate their pain and make the greatest possible effort to salve their suffering in any way we can. We believe the obligation to do so today hangs heavy over Japan, the country that inflicted the suffering. . . . Support will be given to the establishment of a fund that (1) invites the people of Japan to atone for the institution of “comfort women.” (2) The Government will contribute funds to the welfare and medical care of these women. (3) The Government will express remorse and apologize.

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(4) Historical documents and materials will be collated that will help make this a lesson to be drawn on.101

Superficially, given the aim of national repentance (kokkat-teki na tsugunai),102 the project resembled an admission of past wrongs. Indeed, a “letter” that was distributed with the payments stated, • •

As the Prime Minister of Japan, I (Hashimoto Ryutaro) sincerely apologize for the pain; We must look directly at the past, and pledge never to repeat the mistakes by educating the future generations to respect the dignity of women.103

However, notwithstanding the skepticism within the policy establishment, the detractors among the civil society organizations and the political Left criticized the fund as a ploy by the government to pretend as if it had officially admitted responsibility.104 Indeed, Kuboi Norio accuses the nation as a whole for its inability to come to terms with the past.105 Yoshikawa Haruko of the Japan Communist Party argues that the government’s claim to institute the project in the name of “moral responsibility” only seeks to absolve itself of any “legal” responsibility.106 In response, the supporters argue that the time is running out now that the former comfort women are getting older; and that if this opportunity is missed, Japan will never be able to show the world that it can be responsible for the Past.107 Onuma Yasuaki, one of the founding members of the fund, argues that a formal restitution (kokka hosho) is impossible, given the domestic political climate.108 Onuma has a point in suggesting that the fund was made possible precisely because the coalition government at the time the fund was established was headed by a socialist prime minister, Murayama Tomiichi. Putting aside the issue of efficacy, the domestic debate over the fund’s legitimacy exposes the highly contested nature of the politics of memory, notwithstanding the reified nature of dominant identity narratives that seeks to marginalize domestic calls for restitution as unpatriotic. Hence, the ambiguous status of the fund reflected Tokyo’s preoccupation with the Future and the concomitant reluctance to privilege the sufferings of Korean otherness. The quasi-official status of the fund suggested that the embarrassment superseded any notion of moral responsibility, trivializing the gruesome experiences of women forced to work in brothels. Tokyo is now satisfied that the fund addressed its moral responsibility as reflected in the ruling by the Tokyo High Court in December 2000 stipulating that the “period

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for payouts [to former comfort women] has expired.”109 Shrouded in legalese, the dominant narrative reaffirms legitimacy of Japanese self precisely by skirting around the moral responsibility over comfort women treating it as a mere legal issue. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo reiterated this sentiment in March 2007 by questioning the claims made by former comfort women, citing a “lack of evidence”110 despite his assertion that “he sticks by a 1993 admission from the then chief cabinet secretary, Yohei Kono, that the imperial army ‘was directly or indirectly involved’ in setting up and managing wartime brothels.”111 The trivialization of Korean otherness is an ongoing process. The 1995 Diet Resolution The fiftieth anniversary commemorating the end of the war in 1995 provided an opportunity for Japanese policy elites to repoliticize the dominant mnemonics. It is noteworthy that there was no domestic consensus over the appropriate language to be used. Indeed, the political haggling over the wording of the Diet Resolution suggests that a consensus was far from achievable, highlighting the omnipresence of contradictions within the narratives of the Past. Yet on aggregate, the contestations suggest an emergence of a dominant narrative that “atones” for the Past, albeit in a very particular manner, while simultaneously privileging Japanese self over Korean otherness as the familiar process of reification. In other words, the debate over the wording of the resolution provides an interesting insight into the linguistic sphere prescribing the politics of memory. It must be noted, though, that the framework for the resolution preexisted 1995: initial calls for some form of a formal, Diet, statement was made by the chairwoman of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) back in 1988.112 Hence, the 1995 debate became a test bed for assessing Japan’s ethnocentric mnemonics amid repeated calls to put sengo (postwar) behind and embark upon miraishiko gaiko.113 The debate over the resolution ensued once the coalition government led by Prime Minister Murayama agreed to proceed with the drafting of a Diet Resolution as an instrument reaffirming Japan’s peaceful intentions. Just as in the case of comfort women, this was made possible precisely because of LDP’s electoral defeat in 1993. The coalition members—the LDP, the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ), and Sakigake—signed an agreement in June 1994 to “adopt a parliamentary resolution reflecting upon the past war and [to express] our resolve for peace in the future.”114 A former prime minister, Hata Tsutomu, reiterated the need for such a resolution on July 20, 1994, suggesting that MPs reassert Japan’s peaceful intentions,115

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but the conservatives felt uneasy about the prospect of any further apologies. On August 12, the Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency, Sakurai Shin, stated that Japan had never waged a war of aggression.116 His statement is not an isolated incident: already in May 1994, the Justice Minister, Nagano Shigeto, issued a similar statement.117 A conservative group, the Parliamentarians’ League on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the End of World War II, led by MP Okuno Seisuke, was formed on December 1 in an effort at rejecting further apologies and any reference to aggression.118 The Parliamentarians’ League was joined by another group of MPs, this time calling for a “correct version of history” led by former Welfare Minister, Ozawa Tastsuo. In its founding document, the group argued that “Japan’s integrity as a sovereign, independent, state implies that the issue of restitution has been completed. To apologize yet again is tantamount to diminishing the dignity of the war-dead and to dishonour them, and to pretend that we are an inhuman nation instead. . . . Our obligation is to honour the war-dead; to atone for the past; and to understand why the War happened so that we do not have to repeat the same tragedy.”119 The interesting thing about this is the cohabitation of remorse and Future along with the denial of aggression. What was to be a year of introspection began with a reiteration of ethnocentricity that came close to forgetting events more than remembering them. In January 1995, Prime Minister Murayama explicitly stated that he felt Japan was partly responsible for the division of the Korean peninsula,120 raising an alarm throughout the political establishment prompting an official rebuttal with the government disclaiming any legal responsibility.121 As expected, Murayama’s statement elicited criticisms from both the mainstream politicians as well as from the MOFA. Later, Murayama backtracked, stating that: “I did not mean that Japan ‘divided’ Korea; only to say that the division lies on a longer historical process.”122 To a certain degree, such a daring statement was a significant departure from the familiar set of previous denials, providing a valuable window of opportunity for a critical insight into the nation’s past in the aftermath of the death of Emperor Showa in January 1989. The resultant uproar also made clear that the nowness of memory was intact, and the haste with which Murayama recanted his statement was noteworthy, suggesting that the language of victimhood is still very real. Reactions from the conservative base to the resolution gathered momentum once the full-fledged negotiations started. Ironically, it was the familiar pressure from South Korea that concentrated the minds, reinforcing Japanese determination to pass the resolution amid intervention by a foreign government. Put differently, what began as a domestic initiative, for example, an introspection fifty years after the defeat, was transformed

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into the very politics of memory in which South Korea was again depicted as exerting undue pressure. The perceived meddling by the Korean other made it an imperative that Japanese self must deploy all the narrative tools available to reaffirm is legitimacy. Throughout the negotiations, the mainstream conservatives objected to the inclusion of any mention of apologies, or even regret, effectively reiterating the language of the inevitability of the last war. The Parliamentarian League, mentioned earlier, stated its objection to the resolution, arguing that “regret and apology do nothing. Instead, they only seek to establish the distorted postwar historical understanding, and as such it only amounts to confusing our future generations.”123 Okuno claimed that “Japan did not fight the Asians, but rather, we fought against the Americans and the British. They are the ones who waged a war of aggression. I do not know why we are the only ones to be blamed for our actions.”124 Negotiations between and among the various narratives were evident by the early part of 1995, with Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporting in November 1994 that the resolution represents how the Japanese populace as a whole settles its historical “debt.”125 The coalition government led by Prime Minister Murayama sought explicit reference to Japan’s atrocities, while hardliners, mainly from the LDP, opposed it. In March 1995, the chairman of the Parliamentarian League, Okuno, reiterated his belief that the war was fought in the name of Asian liberation,126 and in April, LDP SecretaryGeneral, Mori Yoshiro, avowed that his party would not approve draft texts that include apologies or “the renunciation of war.”127 Hence domestically, the debate centers on how the Past is to be narrated—whether to emphasize Japan’s remorse, or to reaffirm the inevitability of the last war. Either way, the dominant narrative reinforces a zero-sum view in which the admission of guilt necessarily diminishes Japan’s legitimacy. It is noteworthy that both the conservatives and liberals within the policy circles recognized that the year 1995 was a significant milestone on which Japan needed to make a collective statement on its future as an homage to the trauma of war. Here again, the forgetting of the Korean otherness became an integral aspect of narrating the Japanese self. Contestations continued into May. The wording of the resolution was still hotly debated and disagreements persisted within the coalition government. The vice chairman of the SDPJ, Uehara Kosuke, stated that “references to colonialism and aggression must remain in the text,” while LDP legislator, Torashima Kazuo, reminded Uehara that “it is impossible: if that were the case, there is no way the LDP would adopt it.”128 The chairman of the resolution project team within the center-right New Frontier Party (Shinshinto), Hatoyama Yukio, also let it be known that his

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party had reservations on the inclusion of words such as “war renunciation” and “apologies” adding that the resolution should “refrain from using those terms and instead look toward the future.”129 In an effort at trying to diffuse tensions, MP Arai Satoshi of Sakigake proposed that the resolution should refer not to “acts of aggression” (shinryaku koi) but rather, to “acts of aggressive nature” (shinryaku-teki koi). This satisfied the SDPJ, but the LDP still insisted that an intra-party consensus had not been reached.130 Superficially, it seems that a mere rhetorical flourish would have sufficed; but the zero-sum discursive space precluded such parsimony. Diet deliberations in the first half of 1995 witnessed an emergence of a dominant narrative of atonement. Due to its significance, the resolution remains a benchmark for contemporary apologies; and its reification into a ready-made signifier of national remorse reinforces the vacuity of its content. On April 27, 1995, the Parliamentarian League met with the representatives of the Association of the Bereaved Families of the war dead (Izokukai) along with the association of Shinto shrines (Jinja honcho) to discuss concerns over the resolution, arguing that the group must “oppose the one-sidedness of the condemnation against Japan’s participation in the last War.”131 Furthermore, on May 29, the mainstream MPs against the resolution held a “Festival of Asian Cohabitation” (Ajia kyosei no saiten) to “commemorate all war victims in Asia who dedicated their lives during World War II to liberate Asian Nations.” Twenty Asian heads of states were invited, including the presidents of China, South Korea, and Taiwan, all of whom declined to attend.132 The resolution was adopted on June 9, 1995. During the final stages of negotiations, references to “who” committed the aggression, let alone terms such as “aggression” and “colonialism,” were omitted from the final draft. Instead, the resolution referred to aggression and colonialism as merely “events” within world history, not something that was peculiar to Japanese wartime experience.133 The New Frontier Party had originally planned to table its own version of the resolution, but decided to issue a statement instead. It read: “we regret the sufferings and the pain inflicted on the people of Asia during our [wartime] acts.”134 Just as the draft resolution failed to explicitly mention Japan’s aggression, the New Frontier’s statement likewise omitted the adjective “aggressive” in describing “acts” committed in the 1930s and 1940s. In short, the debate that started in June 1994 reinforced the collective belief that the last war was an inevitable war of liberation. The resolution (“Resolution to Renew the Determination for Peace on the Basis of Lessons Learned from History”) states,

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The House of Representatives resolves as follows: On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, this House offers its sincere condolences to those who fell in action and victims of wars and similar actions all over the world. Solemnly reflecting upon many instances of colonial rule and acts of aggression in the modern history of the world, and recognising that Japan carried out those acts in the past, inflicting pain and suffering upon the peoples of other countries, especially in Asia, the Members of this House expresses a sense of deep remorse. We must transcend the differences over historical views of the past war and learn humbly the lessons of history so as to build a peaceful international society. This House expresses its resolve, under the banner of eternal peace enshrined in the Constitution of Japan, to join hands with other nations of the world and to pave the way for a future that allows all human beings to live together.135

Superficially, the resolution looks sincere enough: the reference to Japan’s wish to “join hands with other nations of the world” (para. 4) reaffirms heiwa kokka. Yet elsewhere, the familiar remembering/forgetting crops its head. The reference to colonialism in terms of “many instances of colonial rule and aggression in the modern history of the world” (para. 2), and Japan’s condolences to the victims “of war and similar actions all over the world” (para. 1; emphases added), outline Japanese memories of the “inevitable” war. Furthermore, colonization is represented here as a widespread phenomenon that Japan had no choice but to address. It was tantamount to suggesting that colonialism was a prewar norm to which Japan subscribed. The politics of memory is more explicit when the resolution talks of the need to “transcend the differences over historical views of the past war” (para. 3), alluding to the existence of different views on history interfering in Tokyo’s effort “to build a peaceful international society” (para. 3). Given the generalized Asian otherness that blurs Japan’s responsibility, it is evident that the trivialization of Korean otherness is a necessary component to legitimizing Japanese mnemonics.136 The forgetting of Korean otherness in the process of remembering the war trauma continues apace. During the final stages of negotiations, the former foreign minister, Watanabe Michio, suggested that the Treaty of Annexation in 1910 was not signed under duress.137 It is striking that the year in which Japan became introspective about its Past subsequently reified the “inevitable” struggle to “liberate” Asia as a language of collective mnemonics. The 1995 theme of introspection was completed by Prime Minister Murayama on August 15, 1995, when he remarked that the last war needs to be seen as a war of aggression.138 This so-called

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Murayama remark seemed, at first, to be more forthright on Japan’s war responsibilities than the resolution itself, recognizing the sufferings of the Asian others under Japanese colonialism, and pledged to reject any “self-satisfying nationalism” (dokuzen-teki na nashonarizumu).139 Yet, the Murayama Remark maintains that the trauma of Japanese self needs to be privileged over the sufferings of Korean others by subsuming the latter into the sufferings of Asian nations in general—including Japan itself.140 The soul-searching of 1995 essentially reinforced the ethnocentricity of Japanese mnemonics, remanufacturing the zero-sum attitude that only by forgetting Korean otherness can the Japanese self be legitimized. The politics of memory, both within and without Japan, exposes Japan’s familiar condescension of Korean otherness as a stubborn hangover from the colonial practice that is reified into an inevitable reality of Tokyo’s relationship with Seoul. Conclusion Much of the issues about bilateral relations as reported in the media often center on the politics of memory. This is understandable given the familiar set of events that are highlighted—Japan’s purported whitewashing of history; the textbook rendition of Japan’s wartime experience; the recurring protests by former comfort women, to mention just a few. These events remind us how the endurance of memory presents itself as a highly politicized factor in the reproduction of contemporary bilateral relationship. Simultaneously, whenever the Past is mentioned, it seems that the familiar, ugly, face of colonialism rears its head, reminding us that the Japanese condescension of Korean otherness is still very much intact. This is not to say that the current relations between Tokyo and Seoul are one of subjugation, but rather, the familiar language of hierarchy in the discursive reconstruction of Japanese self and the Korean other is a contemporary phenomena and not simply a historical artifact. The politics of memory reminds us that dominant Japanese strategy to legitimize Tokyo’s international position rests on trivializing the claims to suffering by the Koreans. In short, the dominant narrative of mnemonics is constituted on forgetting the plight of Korean otherness. I am not suggesting that the bilateral relations today is identical to the ones between 1875 and 1945; but the fact remains that history is such a “familiar” contemporary issue between Tokyo and Seoul that the recurrence of sensitivities and mutual mud-slinging becomes an obdurate social fact for the policy elites in Tokyo. Yet, while the politics of memory poses itself as an obdurate social fact for the observers and the policy makers

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alike, there is nothing to suggest that the relationship between the two neighbors is bound to be difficult, per se. The politics of memory is an accident of history that is borne of particular relationship, however unfortunate, between Japan and (South) Korea over the centuries. It is that the caustic nature of the politics of memory touches upon the most emotive aspects of identity construction: self is a historical construct in which a denial of one’s memory by the other necessarily threatens the legitimacy of the self. This pertains to Japan as well as to South Korea; but in any case, the dominant narratives of Japanese identity are constructed upon legitimacy accorded to a particular story about the Japanese self; and the repeated rejection of Japan’s version of history by the Korean other is encountered by an emotional response in Tokyo that seeks to fundamentally delegitimize the counter-narrative through trivialization. Thus, the persistence of acrimonious relations between Japan and South Korea derives not from the inevitability of the two states entering into this particular politics of memory; but they do so, partly, from the way the Japanese memory at present provides Tokyo with a particular worldview—what I call the “nowness” of memory. Memory is a hallmark of continuity even if the narratives themselves do not correlate directly to the events in question. The recollection of “who we were” takes place in the present to the extent that memory represents an enduring narrative of identity, and the juxtaposition of “who we are today” with “who we were yesterday” is an important process in the rearticulation of collective self. The remembering and forgetting of events is an integral part of legitimization strategy, reflecting how the narratives and their proprietors experienced transition and change through time and space, as the recollection of contemporary events recede into the collective local Background. Tokyo’s remembering of the “glorious past” and the consistent forgetting of wartime atrocities provide a cozy refuge for the dominant identity to reclaim legitimacy through the narratives of heiwa- and shonin kokka. Reducing identity representation to discourses about the past alone fails to illustrate how the continuous self in the form of “remembering and forgetting” the pre-1945 era is played out as part of the contemporary politics of memory. It is as though the “glorious past” alone is being experienced today, a potent clue as to the persistence of particular construction of Japanese self. The politics of memory is an important driver in the current Japanese foreign policy. The centrality of politics of memory in the bilateral relations cannot be denied. However, given its particular trajectory, other aspects of Tokyo’s relations with Seoul cannot be subsumed into it. Put differently, while the Past is prominent in the relationship, and hence its “nowness,” the dominant identity narratives of Japanese self and the Korean otherness are

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reproduced in diplomatic relations as well as through bilateral economic ties. To the extent that diplomatic events such as summit meetings, the 2002 World Cup, and trade disputes cannot be analyzed solely through textbooks and comfort women, it is pertinent to explore other aspects of the bilateral relationship. By revealing the various narrative constructions of diplomatic and trade relations, we can begin appreciating the ingrained nature of the politics of memory, as well as the potency of Japanese resentment toward Koreans that is conceptually reminiscent of a colonial relationship.

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6

The Politics of Future in Bilateral Summitry

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he previous chapter explored the reproduction of Japanese self and Korean otherness through the politics of memory. The textbook controversies; the waffling over comfort women; and the 1995 Diet Resolution, were all utilized to narrate the Past as one ineluctable facet of bilateral relations that cannot be wished away, but instead, returns to haunt generations of policy elites in Tokyo. The Past is an integral part of Japan-South Korea bilateral relationship replicated throughout the 1990s and into the twentyfirst century. The recurrent demands for apologies from the Republic of Korea (ROK) constitute a familiar landscape for Tokyo in which a Japanese prime minister issues an “apology” to be “accepted” by a South Korean president, followed by a debate over the wording of recompense. Simultaneously, though, the Past entails the Future as another set of signifiers, often in the form of “future-oriented diplomacy” (mirai-shiko gaiko), as if the very nowness of the Past necessitates Future as a viable solution for what Japanese policy elites consider to be the problem: the onus of history. In a nutshell, mirai-shiko gaiko means simply that: Tokyo’s call for a forward-looking diplomatic relations not held hostage by wartime memories. But the way in which the Future is reiterated in various summit meetings suggests that it has evolved into a linguistic device for Tokyo to try to “feel good” about its diplomatic position amid a torrent of criticisms from Korea, ranging from allegations of historical whitewash to the territorial dispute over Takeshima (Dokto in Korean). Consequently, the future-oriented diplomacy becomes a useful signifier for Japanese identity entrepreneurs to refer to the nowness of the Past without explicitly mentioning history—a device ensconced within an ambiguous language neutralizing the sensitive reality of bilateral relations. This chapter focuses on the various narratives surrounding bilateral summits from the early 1990s onwards to explore how mirai-shiko gaiko

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as a linguistic space has been reiterated within Tokyo’s relations vis-à-vis Seoul. The first section provides a short discussion on the background to Japan-South Korea summitry, tracing the mechanisms through which the diplomatic context from the 1990s is reconstructed. Here, I explore the ideational depths from which these narratives emerge, rather than treating them as mere starting point of analysis. The second section discusses the narratives of Future by focusing on its significance—both explicit and implicit. Here, we see that the Past is lurking in the background, as well as the instance of familiar alter-casting of Korean otherness as backward-looking. These signifiers are more implicit than explicit. In the third section, I analyze the various diplomatic contexts from the early 1990s showing how mirai-shiko gaiko as a linguistic tool elaborated Japanese self, partly explaining how the rapprochement during the Kim Dae-jung visit to Tokyo in October 1998 soon gave way to the sense of “business as usual.” Finally, in the fourth section, I explore how the cohosting of the 2002 World Cup provided further impetus for the propagation of Future as a defining language in Tokyo’s approach to Seoul. Bilateral Summitry as a Linguistic Space The series of summit meetings between the Japanese government and its South Korean counterpart throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first century helped to reaffirm the reality of difficulty as the defining element of bilateral relations. On the one hand, Tokyo’s perception of South Korea changed to a certain degree: a previously authoritarian country had now become a representative democracy. On the other hand, liberalization was insufficient to dispel the age-old construction of Korean otherness as backward given the persistence of the Past. If anything, Japanese political elites were repeatedly dismayed by the exploitation of anti-Japanese sentiments for Korean domestic consumption.1 Hence, Tokyo consistently views its relations with Seoul as a source of diplomatic frustration. Simultaneously, the end of the cold war and the North Korean nuclear issue hoisted Korean peninsula on to Japan’s security agenda reminiscent of the familiar, historical, perception of geography as a source of danger. Within this context, South Korea is considered a partner in a trilateral relationship along with Japan and the U.S.,2 implying that the Past needs to be acknowledged in order for the current security concerns to be addressed. The narratives of Future provide an opportune language within which Japan’s security and international ambitions can be couched, and hopes for future-oriented relationships with Asian neighbors to emerge. This linguistic device allows the Past to be addressed without explicitly outlining

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the list of the infamy, effectively echoing Tokyo’s hopes that the enunciation of Future will neutralize the Past. Future as a Language The historical construction of Korean otherness as backward looking was not confined to the issues of the Past. While the Past and the concomitant apologies became the centrepiece of bilateral relations throughout the decades, the purported difficulty in dealing with Seoul was established as an obstinate reality for Tokyo since the end of the war, as discussed in Chapter 4. The September 1984 visit to Tokyo by the then-president of South Korea, Chun Doo-hwan, and his demands for apologies from Emperor Showa presaged an era in which Tokyo’s negative images of South Korea were congealed into the 1990s and beyond. The 1984 summit coincided with Japan’s efforts at reasserting its international role as a coequal in the U.S.-Japanese alliance. The Japanese prime minister at the time, Nakasone Yasuhiro, felt that it was a fortuitous moment to entice South Korea into endorsing Japan’s “leadership” position in the Asia-Pacific region. For Tokyo, it was a chance to put the Past behind and prepare itself for an enhanced international presence; and the emperor’s atonement was depicted as a valuable tool for placating the neighbor. Hirohito’s “apology” in which he “regretted the existence of an unfortunate period between Japan and Korea in the past” was considered by Tokyo as sufficient given the constitutional constraints. Yet, contrary to Japanese expectations, Seoul accused Tokyo of obfuscating who did what to whom:3 as Jane Yamazaki argues, the “naming of the offense is extremely vague and nonspecific.”4 This gap in perception became emblematic of the reality of difficulty for Tokyo, which in turn encouraged Japanese policy elites to reiterate miraishiko gaiko as a language of legitimization.5 The prioritization of Future while silencing the Past became an official mode of representation. Ikeda Tadashi, the former director of the Asia Bureau in the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs (MOFA), commented in October 1992 that Asia is tantamount to an “electoral constituency”6 for Tokyo, hence the need to repackage apologies into a diplomatic tool. While a “correct view of history is needed,” Ikeda argues that “as Japan’s relative power increases, that in turn invites resentment from neighbors.”7 This parallels Tokyo’s collective sense of predicament: Japan’s potential as a major Asia-Pacific power is undeniable; but the Korean skepticism makes this realization onerous. Hence, recourse to apologies while preaching future-oriented diplomacy becomes the sole, viable, alternative. As Financial Times notes, “A bigger overseas profile for Japan looks inevitable”;8 but short of going it alone, it is still very

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unlikely unless incorporated into a security triumvirate with the United States and ROK9 compelling Tokyo to leverage the language of Future for the time being.10 End of the cold war rearticulated Korean peninsula as a source of existential threat for Japan—a familiar security consideration reminiscent of the late nineteenth century.11 Japan Defense Agency (JDA) argued that the peninsula posed grave risks to Japanese security in its series of Defense White Papers throughout the 1990s,12 prompting Tokyo to further promote its mirai-shiko gaiko with its neighbor.13 The 1990 edition of the Diplomatic Blue Book published by the MOFA stated that Japan was being called on to bring about “peace and well-being of the world through [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum], the Uruguay Round, and foreign aid to developing countries,”14 but it also implied enhanced military involvement in such forum as the United Nations-sponsored peace keeping operations.15 As such, South Korea was depicted this time as Japan’s junior partner. For instance, a former JDA official, Kawamura Sumihiko, argued in a report commissioned by the JDA in 1997 that it is imperative to enhance South Korean naval capability to match those of Japanese Maritime SDF,16 stating that “the mutual distrust nurtured as a result of differences in historical perceptions” stands in the way of improved communication between Tokyo and Seoul,17 adding that he is “unsatisfied with the level of cooperation between the two states.”18 Identifying MSA as evidence of Japan’s heiwa kokka status, he insists that closer cooperation between the two is necessary in augmenting the role of the United States in the region.19 Kawamura’s ideas are also reflected in Japan’s willingness to renegotiate the 1978 security guidelines with the U.S. This was agreed during the April 1996 summit between Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro and President Bill Clinton.20 This follows the September 1995 visit to the ROK by JDA Director-General Eto Seijuro, when he stated that “the stability of Korean peninsula is inextricably linked to the security of Japan.”21 Tokyo’s enthusiasm to renegotiate defense guidelines represented its confidence in exploiting its purported new role for the 1990s, reflecting calls by MP Ozawa Ichiro arguing in 1993 that Japan needs to become futsu no kuni (a “normal country”): “it has to undertake what normal countries normally do as members of international society,”22 invoking the Future as a policy alternative, not an ideal. The current dynamics dictate that Tokyo’s desire to “trumpet Japan’s manly contribution” in the new world order encounters a hostile reception from its neighbors;23 but precisely because of this, the language of mirai-shiko gaiko became indispensable. Hence, mirai-shiko gaiko manifests itself as Tokyo’s language for doing things vis-à-vis South Korea. As a language, it prescribes what Japan should do to placate its neighbor through the diplomatic reiteration of “apologies.”

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Simultaneously, though, the Future helps to instill a feel-good factor for Japanese policy elites in two ways: (1) given the ritualized recompense, the dominant identity discourse proceeds to confer legitimacy on Japanese ambitions in the international sphere; and (2) the Future then helps Tokyo to focus on existential problems without dwelling on the Past. In essence, the Future constructs a linguistic space within which the Past is recognized while it is silenced. The former MOFA official, Sasae Kenichiro, argues that “unless the present issues are addressed, there is no progress; resolving the “past” (kako) nor constructing a vision for the “future” (mirai) will not help. Only when we have cast light upon three dimensions—kako, genzai (the “present”), and mirai—can we deliver a message that relegates the issues of the twentieth century to the dustbin of history and instead look toward the twenty-first century.”24 Hence, mirai-shiko gaiko is an omnipresent signifier in Japanese diplomatic narratives. Its definition is usually unspecified, suggesting its ambiguity, if not malleability; but it acts as a convenient device for Tokyo to address the difficult bilateral relationship and yet feel confident about its international position. In short, the Future alludes to the familiar hierarchy of Japanese worldview. The Politics of Future The particular linguistic space of Japan’s relations with South Korea, as represented through the Future, is effectively a flip side to the taken-forgrantedness of the Past as an ineluctable reality. The official literature reiterates this conceptual framework. For example, MOFA’s Diplomatic Blue Book in 1990 stresses the importance of future-oriented diplomacy such that “[Japan and South Korea] need to put history behind, and forge new relationships with a world-wide perspective toward the twenty-first century.”25 Yet, there is also a tacit recognition that Tokyo’s relations with Seoul are held hostage to history. A former foreign minister, Nakayama Taro, echoed this sentiment during the May 1990 visit to Tokyo by the then-South Korean president, Roh Tae-woo. Nakayama commented that “in order to forge new relations for the future, we must resolve all historical differences (kako no wadakamari). The onus is on us to solve the problems of the heart (kokoro no mondai).”26 From the Japanese perspective, while the onus is on Tokyo to reiterate recompense, Seoul is duty-bound to put the past behind. This sentiment is reflected by the Director of the Asia Bureau in MOFA, Tanino Sakutaro. He argued in 1990 that “the current public opinion in South Korea is still not conducive [to Japan]. . . . We need people who understand the difficulties in nurturing good relations and to rid bad feelings [between the two countries],”27 adding that “Japan-South

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Korea relations had so far been one of reactionary ‘crisis’ management. . . . The two countries must now cooperate to take initiatives in both Asia and the wider world. . . . Yet, when we say such things, the South Koreans bring out the issues of the ‘past.’”28 The reiteration of mirai-shiko gaiko within the pages of Diplomatic Blue Book reflects Tokyo’s frustrations at being unable to forge amicable bilateral relations.29 The Korea-Japan Twenty-first Century Committee, a gathering of MPs from both Japan and South Korea, admitted in its joint statement in 1988 that “there still exists a wide gap in the mutual perception. While the Koreans have deep-rooted antipathy toward the Japanese deriving from the colonial past, most Japanese are indifferent to Korea and its peoples.”30 From this, the purported imperative is clear: the pursuit of Future is the only solution to this conundrum. Prime Minister Miyazawa discovered in January 1992 that the toughness of the relationship confronted him as a fact of Japanese-South Korean relations.31 In the previous year, Miyazawa’s predecessor, Kaifu Toshiki, sought to overcome this taken-for-grantedness using the language of Future. He maintained that “our main policy goal with regards to the Korean peninsula is to forge more friendly relations with South Korea,”32 reiterating this in a speech to the Diet in October 1990, saying that “good relations with South Korea is the basis upon which Japan’s policy toward the Korean peninsula is founded.”33 References to the Korean peninsula, vis-à-vis the North Korean nuclear program, often enlist the narratives of Future to legitimize Japan’s motives and to placate Asian neighbors. The end of the cold war recast Japan’s gaze upon North Korea as a threat to the stability of the peninsula as well as Northeast Asia, reviving the prewar image of Korea as an existential concern for Tokyo. Thus, the purported dawn of a new era effectively emphasized, yet again, the relevance of mirai-shiko gaiko as a diplomatic language for enticing South Korea into accepting Tokyo’s anxieties. In short, Tokyo’s desire for ontological security became intrinsic to what the Future signifies. Foreign Minister Nakayama told the Diet in January 1991 that the two neighbors need to “break ice”34 in order to address international security concerns, but the onus is on South Korea to acknowledge Tokyo’s enhanced international role in the post–cold war era. The former vice minister for Foreign Affairs, Kuriyama Takakazu, wrote in 1991 that “for some time now, postwar Japan has been successfully integrated into the international environment. But now that the world has changed, Japan must actively participate in the reconstruction of the world order,”35 effectively declaring that the Past needs to be shunted aside in favor of the Future. Miyazawa noted in an interview to a right-of-centre magazine that “if the international community wants countries with [peace] constitution like ours to fight for world peace, then it can only be done under the auspices

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of the United Nations”;36 and, in the words of JDA, this needs to be pursued within the framework of the MSA. It notes in its 1991 Defense White Paper that the role of the United States in the Asia-Pacific is to connect Japan with South Korea.37 The MOFA’s Director of Asia Bureau, Ikeda Tadashi, noted in 1992 that “if Japanese-U.S. relations deteriorated, then so will the relationship between Japan and South Korea.”38 The enlargement of Japan’s defense periphery since the 1998 new defense guidelines tacitly recognizes the need to become internationally proactive. The narratives of “surrounding areas” superseding the “Korea clause” reflect this change; and Tokyo realizes that neighbors need to be reassured in the process, with the 1993 Defense White Paper already calling for “dialogue with the neighboring countries.”39 The reemergence of Korean peninsula as a danger reinforced the defense triumvirate despite the possibility that the Past can conflict with the Future, which in turn, can threaten its coherence.40 The persistence of difficulties between Tokyo and Seoul reified Future as a linguistic infrastructure suitable for deflecting attention away from the Past to a shared sense of threats posed by North Korea. In other words, Tokyo’s international ambitions, as well as its anxieties, refocused mirai-shiko gaiko as a primary frame of reference.41 Narrating the Future The narratives of Future enshrines a familiar set of symbols tacitly recognising the nowness of the Past and evoking the urge to move forward, while simultaneously reconstructing Korean otherness as perpetually critical of Japanese self. The very necessity of Future is a potent reminder of the Past that constantly dogs the bilateral relations. In short, mirai-shiko gaiko constitutes the language through which policy makers in Tokyo reify, and comprehend, this diplomatic social reality. Similarly, the recurrence of Future suggests that for Tokyo, this admixture of the Past and Future needs to be taken for granted in order to overcome diplomatic challenges. Indeed, it is within this taken-for-grantedness that the Japanese self is reproduced in opposition to the perceptively stubborn Korean otherness whose Backwardness is reified into a starting point for Tokyo in implementing Asia’s policies. This explains the ease with which future-oriented diplomacy repeatedly emerges from a series of official pronouncements. Even the short-lived rapprochement following his visit to Tokyo by President Kim Dae-jung in October 1998 during which his conciliatory language was interpreted in Tokyo as a reiteration of the “obvious”—the sort of legitimization Tokyo felt was long overdue—belied Japan’s Korea imaginary. Superficially, Kim’s soothing words were a pleasant surprise; yet the

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content was taken as endorsing Japan’s postwar leadership. Hence the visit was initially proclaimed by Japan as a landmark event commemorating the beginning of a new, closer, relationship; but, to the effect that the message was soon interpreted as an admission of the “obvious,” it was immediately back to “business as usual.” In short, the visit was a surprise precisely because Kim said what Japan wanted to hear—a momentary hopefulness confounding Tokyo’s familiar expectations of Korean otherness. Exhorting the Future Mirai-shiko gaiko remains the prevailing theme of the 1990s.42 While counterintuitive, the emperor’s apology on Roh’s visit to Tokyo in May 1990 provided significant impetus to the emergence and elaboration of mirai-shiko gaiko as a linguistic device in bilateral relations. In his apology, Emperor Akihito recognized the “pain and sufferings of the Korean people under Japanese colonialism,” a less-ambiguous statement on who did what to whom as compared to the apology by his father, Emperor Showa, in September 1984.43 In the 1984 apology, Hirohito simply referred to the “existence of unfortunate past between the two nations,”44 and that “it will not be repeated again.”45 While Hirohito’s contrition expressed regret for the Past, the only tacit reference to the Future was the pledge not to repeat the “unfortunate past.” Hence, it can be seen that Akihito’s speech seeks to propel the apology forward with a longer-term implications in mind. The wording of the May 1990 apology emerged as a result of internal haggling by the then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as a product of bargaining between the moderates and the conservative wing of the party. However, it is noteworthy that the emperor’s statement was pronounced in the way it did in constituting a uniform Japanese speech act by the symbolic head of state.46 Now that a forthright apology has been issued, Tokyo felt vindicated: it was time to “move on.” Prime Minister Kaifu repeated Akihito’s apology when he stated that “I would like to apologize for the sufferings of the Koreans under Japanese colonialism,”47 adding that “Japan and South Korea must cooperate in order to take initiatives in constructing a new world order” now that “we have addressed historical issues.”48 The narratives of mirai-shiko gaiko reify hopes of a new beginning. The end of the cold war fuelled this optimism, and as one conservative news weekly, Sekai Shuho, puts it, the Roh visit heralded a “true starting point for bilateral relations.”49 This was echoed by Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) commenting that the “theme” of the May 1990 summit was the “past.”50 Kaifu also stated that the “past is now absolutely behind us (kako no koto wa issai owari),”51 reiterating Tokyo’s confidence that future bilateral relations will be free of

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the difficult issues such as the Past, and along with it, the perceived South Korean boisterousness. Given the tacit recognition of the Past within the narratives of Future, the Roh visit elicited countervailing responses from within the political establishment. MP Fujio Masayuki of LDP observed that “[Japanese colonialism] was not all done in bad faith. We did want to maintain good relations with Korea. We need time and effort to forge good relations.”52 While Fujio’s remark evokes a familiar image of conservative whitewashing of history,53 it incorporates an element of mirai-shiko gaiko as well. For one thing, even when Fujio trivializes Korean experiences in stating that not all things Japan did were bad, he also urges new and better relations in admitting that the sensitive and difficult bilateral relationship needs to be taken for granted, thereby nurturing mirai-shiko gaiko to supersede the Past as a diplomatic imperative. This was echoed by Kaifu toward the end of Roh visit when he declared that “we have entered a new era” of bilateral relations.54 Throughout the early- to mid-1990s, mirai-shiko gaiko was established as a symbol of legitimized Japanese self. Kaifu told the Diet on January 25, 1991, that “relations with South Korea are the basis for Japan’s policy toward the Korean peninsula, and as such, we must forge future-oriented relations.”55 Foreign Minister Nakayama, on the same day, told the Diet on the same day that there is a need to “break ice” between the two states.56 The following year, Prime Minister Miyazawa spoke to the Diet on January 24, 1992, stating that “the relationship between Japan and South Korea forms the basis for stability on the Korean peninsula. To this end, miraishiko gaiko is an imperative.”57 Foreign Minister Watanabe Michio told the Diet on January 22, 1993 that bilateral relations form the basis upon which Japan can take initiatives in maintaining peace and security in Northeast Asia, and its is through mirai-shiko gaiko that this leadership needs to be exercised.58 The following year, Prime Minister Hata Tsutomu addressed the Diet on March 4, 1994, that the relations with South Korea must be seen as a “wide-ranging relationship toward the future,”59 a sentiment reiterated by Foreign Minister Kono Yohei when he noted on January 20, 1995, that “the Japan-South Korea relations is crucial for Japanese foreign policy. We must learn from the past and nurture stable relations for the future.”60 The language of Future permeates the policy circles. The Director of MOFA Asia Bureau, Ikeda Tadashi, notes in 1992 that “while it is important to have a correct understanding of history, we must be confident in saying that what we are seeking to do now is fundamentally different from the past,”61 with the Director of MOFA Economic Bureau, Ogura Kazuo, reiterating in 1993 that “Japan must face up to its past. But at the same time, in order for Asia to reassert its ‘substance’ those who suffered

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at the hands of the Japanese must also look to the future free from the brace of the ‘past.’”62 A remark made by Prime Minister Murayama on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war (August 15, 1995) is seen as the benchmark in Japan’s admission of its contrition. In it, Murayama stated that “we have, in the not so distant past, made mistakes in our policy and went to war, inflicting immeasurable suffering and pain to all those who were subjected to Japanese colonialism in Asia.”63 Despite this admission of guilt, the Future reemerges, with Murayama adding that “we need to learn the lessons of the past and construct a peaceful future.”64 Murayama’s remark in August 1995 was, on the surface, a rather belated recognition of the past wrongs; but it was also couched within the language of mirai-shiko gaiko as the only viable platform upon which Tokyo and its Asian neighbors can forge better relations. Despite, or because of, Murayama’s remark, the MOFA statement issued in June 1996 argued that—with respect to accusations that Japanese school textbooks whitewash history—there is the need to “let historians decide on it, and only then should the findings be reflected in the textbooks.”65 The mid- to late-1990s under the leadership of President Kim Young-sam and Prime Minister Hashimoto was eclipsed by the increased perception of mutual threat from the North Korean missile program that should have turned Future into a viable theme for Tokyo and Seoul; but the territorial dispute over Takeshima/Dokto cast a shadow over bilateral relations. Yet, the two leaders maintained a semblance of cooperation, and it was within this context that the proposal to cohost the 2002 World Cup was discussed, with Hashimoto noting that “the World Cup is an opportunity for us to realize the dreams and our responsibility for the future.”66 The irony of the mid-1990s was that, while Tokyo and Seoul seemed to share common interests in the form of concerns over alleged North Korean missile program and the agreement to cohost the 2002 World Cup, the Past never disappeared, effectively reinforcing the imperative for mirai-shiko gaiko. Despite the initial surprise at the Kim Dae-jung visit in October 1998, the Future remained elusive. The Surprise of the Kim Dae-jung Visit Kim Dae-jung’s visit to Tokyo in October 1998 was part of a routine shuttle diplomacy, but Kim’s willingness to “appreciate Japan’s position”67 made both the policy elites and media in Japan hopeful for a breakthrough in fostering a better relationship. Nikkei hailed the visit as a beginning of a “new era” between the two neighbors.68 Other media also considered the

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occasion as a landmark event, celebrating it as a turning point in bilateral relations.69 The MOFA, too, issued a statement saying that the “visit marked a grand design for the twenty-first century,”70 further noting that Kim’s acceptance of the customary official apology by the emperor was “more forthright than we expected.”71 Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo reminisced the following year upon his return visit to Seoul that “ever since [the visit] last year, the domestic atmosphere [in Japan toward South Korea] has drastically changed (garatto kawatta),”72 a sentiment reflected in the MOFA’s Diplomatic Blue Book stating that Japan and South Korea had grown “closer together” after October 1998.73 Superficially, the amicable approach adopted by Kim was interpreted in Tokyo as a significant departure from the familiar image of South Korea, as if Tokyo had “rediscovered” its neighbor. For example, Kim mentioned that “Japan needs to be the ‘locomotive’ for Asia’s economic recovery,”74 exactly the sort of words that reinforces Japanese self as a harbinger of peaceful coexistence. Yet, Kim’s overtures simultaneously endorsed Japan’s self-professed legitimacy to the effect that the initial surprise soon gave way to the sense of “obvious.” The 1998 edition of the Diplomatic Blue Book was subtitled “conducting diplomacy with leadership for the new century”75: it is evident from this that the leadership identity was revitalized, and in 1998, the former prime minister Miyazawa stated in an interview that “Japanese economy is the most sophisticated economy [in Asia],”76 referring again to Japan’s duty to “take initiatives” during the Asian financial crisis. Even Prime Minister Obuchi, who was “pleasantly surprised” by the positive change argued that “Japan is responsible to Asia and the rest of the world in bringing its own economy to order,”77 suggesting that the Future can now be realized, thanks to Kim’s recognition of this “obvious” role for Tokyo. Despite the general welcome Kim received during his Tokyo visit, there were skeptical voices. MP Abe Shinzo (LDP) remarked that “while the tone of President Kim’s address to the Diet was future-oriented, he nevertheless touched upon past Japanese invasions [such as the 1592 invasion by Toyotomi Hideyoshi]. As such, we have missed the chance to put aside the issues of the past for good. From now on, Japanese prime ministers must make clear that we are not going to deal with this issue of the past any more.”78 Prime Minister Obuchi himself admitted that “I was struck by [the President’s] address to the Diet. His suggestion that the problems of the twentieth century should be resolved within this century emphasizes his resolve to forge Japan-South Korea relationship for the future.”79 Nakasone echoed Obuchi’s sentiment when he said that “the problems of the twentieth century should be resolved before the dawn of a new one.”80 More explicitly, the secretary-general of the LDP, Mori Yoshiro stated that

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“the concerns over the past would never go away. The issue now is how to put that behind us.”81 Hence, the reiteration of mirai-shiko gaiko, along with the cohabitation of surprise with the “obvious” during the Kim visit, had the effect of reifying Future as a particular linguistic space within which a tacit recognition of the Past was made and the legitimacy of Japanese self reaffirmed. The narratives of Future emerged as a timely impetus for revitalizing JapanSouth Korea shuttle diplomacy; and its success manifested in the cohosting of the 2002 World Cup games. Even then, mirai-shiko gaiko maintained its narrative infrastructure for Tokyo to muffle the darker side of history. The 2002 World Cup and Beyond Cohosting of the 2002 World Cup by Japan and South Korea posed an opportune moment for Tokyo to emphasize, yet again, the Future. Despite the initial haggling over the name—Japan-Korea or vice versa—Financial Times reports that the “one advantage of the bubbling tension is the healthy competition it has engendered between the two nations to be a better host.”82 To mark the occasion, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro delivered a New Year’s Day message to the people of Japan and South Korea in June 2002, celebrating the opportunity for the two nations to “deepen friendship and [cultural] exchange.”83 In it, Koizumi reiterated official “hopes for Japan and South Korea to become true partners (shin no patona),” pledging to devote much effort into “further developing Japan-South Korea relations (Nikkan kankei no isso no hatten).”84 Elsewhere within the Japanese officialdom, a similar message was enunciated. The Ministry of Education (MEXT) mentions in its “World Cup Information” Website that there is a need for the people of two countries to cooperate in order to make this national project a success.85 Rather euphemistically—and in an apparent trivialization of the Past—the MEXT states that the reason for cohosting the event was due mainly to the unprecedented enthusiasm from both countries,86 in an apparent privileging of Future over the issues of the Past. The ministry recapitulates on the heiwa kokka narrative to point out that this World Cup is the first Word Cup of the twenty-first century, designating the games as a forum “to pray for further international peace and friendship.”87 Returning to the Past, the MEXT elaborates on the darker side of history to admit that “there had been an unfortunate time in the past,” but because of this, there is an imperative for Japan “to strengthen friendship toward the future.”88 The swiftness with which the Past melts into the Future is noteworthy; and this message is replicated when it acknowledges that “both Japan and Korea had influenced

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one another in history, and there had been an unfortunate period as well. It is for this reason that the people of Japan and South Korea need to forge future-oriented relationship and to foster Asia’s future.”89 Here, the Future effectively becomes shorthand for acknowledging the awkwardness of the Past in a familiar process of reproducing the ethnocentric Japanese self. Following the “success” of the World Cup, Prime Minister Koizumi and President Kim issued a joint communiqué in July 2002 stating that “the cohosting of the World Cup proved to the world the resilience of Japan-South Korea friendship. The fact that this event has passed peacefully amidst mutual cooperation means that it has become a crucial asset (zaisan) in enhancing Japan-South Korea relations. The governments are obliged to nurture this friendly atmosphere (Nikkan yuko no kiun) to further strengthen bilateral relations.”90 Not surprisingly, the emphasis on “success,” “cooperation,” “friendship,” and crucially the Future in the form of nurturing this goodwill, is celebrated But the success also bolstered Tokyo’s confidence vindicating mirai-shiko gaiko as Tokyo’s modus operandi. For a while, the success of the World Cup felt as if the goodwill can last. The fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Basic Treaty capitalized on the celebrations of 2002 with the launch of Japan-South Korea Friendship Year in 2005. MOFA prepared a briefing Web site aimed at children; and one of the Web pages was titled “Forward to Future; Together to the World [Susumo mirai e; issho ni sekai e].” In it, the Prime Minister’s Office declared that “the lessons of the past need to be learned so that further friendship can be nurtured, and to pursue good relations into the future in fields as diverse as politics, economy, culture, arts, sports, and others.”91 Prime Minister Koizumi’s address at the opening ceremony of the Friendship Year in Tokyo elaborated on the Future, stating that “person-to-person exchanges will help to enhance future-oriented relations [mirai-shiko no kankei].”92 In a Web site prepared by Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation as the organizer of the festivities, Foreign Minister Machimura Nobutaka littered his statement with references to the Future, emphasizing the beginning of the basis for future interactions between the two countries.93 The political establishment seized on this opportunity to “feel good” about the future-oriented relations, rearticulating the language of mirai-shiko gaiko as a discursive sphere within which the seeming contradiction between the issues of the Past and the hopes for the Future are resolved. This penchant for Future was exacerbated by the deterioration in Tokyo’s relationship with its neighbors over Koizumi’s insistence on visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.94 A columnist for Nikkei, Suzuoki Takashi, argues that “the revisit to the ‘past’ via Yasukuni potentially opens a significant chasm between the two countries”95—an ironic

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assessment in light of the official proliferation of the Future. The “revisit to the past” is seen as detrimental even by the conservatives, given Yasukuni’s potential to derail mirai-shiko gaiko. Nakasone pointed this out, when he accused Koizumi of being a populist lacking in “goals for the future.”96 Indeed, Koizumi’s visits to a shrine commemorating the war dead, including former Class A war criminals, was seen in Seoul and other Asian capitals as symptomatic of Japanese whitewashing of history. This illustrates the power of the Past over Future, so much so that despite policy makers’ efforts at pursuing mirai-shiko gaiko, the Past can never be exorcized, consistently returning to haunt the political establishment. Simultaneously, though, this indicates the degree to which the Past, and the Future as its repercussion, has sunk into the collective local Background to inform Japanese policy elites’ preferences in the twenty-first century. What is striking about Koizumi’s tenure is the speed with which the initial euphoria and hopes for a better relationship gave way to the familiar quid pro quo over the Past. Given the magnitude of symbolism inherent within Yauskuni, may be it was inevitable; but the exposure to the Past in such an explicit, if not controversial, manner reinforced the imperative of Future. Indeed, Koizumi’s distaste for prewar military had been known for some time; and his assertion that his visit represents remorse for the Past and a pledge of peaceful coexistence unwittingly reaffirms the narratives of Future despite the superficial symbolisms to the contrary.97 Hence, Koizumi took an unprecedented step of explicitly utilising the Past as a tool for elaborating on the Future. Here, Yasukuni was enlisted not for its vindication of Japan’s wartime past, but as a symbol of the lessons, the postwar Japan claims to have learnt. The summit meeting of June 2003 reiterated the hope: the communiqué identified cultural exchanges as the basis for enhancing the relationship into the future,98 with Koizumi himself adding that he and President Roh Moo-hyun had a “frank discussion” on forging bilateral relations conducive to the future.99 The July 2004 summit was more muted on the theme of Future, with Koizumi focusing mainly on cultural exchanges, as well as threats from North Korea.100 In an allusion to criticisms over Yasukuni, Koizumi reiterated his position during the December 2004 summit, suggesting that “what needs to be learned from the past needs to be learned . . . and it is important for the two countries to forge future-oriented relations.”101 Thus, the Future is used as a discursive framework within which the Past is acknowledged while discriminating about what is remembered and forgotten. It might be that Koizumi and his Yasukuni visits were an aberration. Indeed, the rejoinders from the likes of Nakasone mentioned earlier indicate that there was something peculiar about Koizumi. Yet, it is also necessary to bear in mind that Koizumi does not occupy a social vacuum. Rather, he is a product of the political

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establishment. What was unconventional about him is his determination in visiting Yasukuni, not his depiction of the shrine as embodying both Japan’s controversial Past and heiwa-kokka. In other words, Koizumi’s numerous visits to Yasukuni during his premiership was an aberration; the Past being collapsed into the narratives of Future is not. Koizumi’s successors, Abe Shinzo and Fukuda Yasuo, both employed similar language of Future as shorthand for admitting the Past. Abe insists in his October 2006 statement that both Japan and the ROK share basic values of democracy; and the task now is for the two countries to establish and strengthen “partnership for the future” (mirai-shiko no patonashippu).102 Likewise, Fukuda reiterates the position in April 2008, observing that the governments need to upgrade bilateral relations into a mature partnership in pioneering a new era in Japan-South Korea relations (Nikkan shin-jidai).103 It is tempting to dismiss these as mere lip service. Indeed, Abe’s trivialization of comfort women in March 2008 provides a counterweight. Nevertheless, the recurrence of such narratives needs to be taken seriously, precisely due to their omnipresence across time and space. The Future cohabitating with the Past is the consistent social reality facing policy makers in Tokyo. Conclusion If the overarching theme in the politics of memory is the nowness of the Past, then the bilateral summitry can be interpreted through the prism of the politics of future. While the politics of memory reproduced Korean otherness as backward-looking, the narratives within the Politics of Future are more subtle, with the focus on improving bilateral relations in light of perceived threats form North Korea, as well as the cohosting of the 2002 World Cup games. Indeed, mirai-shiko gaiko provides the discursive sphere within which the Past is forgotten, portraying the relationship as futureproof, constantly forward-looking, and above all, history as irrelevant. Hence, the identity narratives of Future center less on Japanese self in opposition to Korean otherness, but rather in terms of Japanese self alongside Korean otherness as a partner in which differences are shunned in favor of similarities in their mutual aspirations. Yet, the ethnocentric tendencies remain. While the Future is interspersed with concepts such as “cooperation” and “cultural exchanges,” mirai-shiko gaiko remains a dominant diplomatic narrative corroborating Japan’s historical identity construction. Tokyo’s self-professed role as one to take initiatives on the eve of the twenty-first century reconstructs a worldview through which South Korea is seen as a junior partner whose role is to

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help Japan achieve its leadership ambition. This task involves legitimizing Japanese self in opposition to the possibility of criticisms from the Korean otherness. In short, the reality inherent within the politics of memory makes the politics of future an imperative; and the inevitability of the Past necessitates Future as an antidote to the venomous effects of Japan’s identity narratives in general. It is Japan’s increased confidence in the post– cold war era that is represented through the narratives of future-oriented diplomacy. Tokyo feels comfortable in propagating it as a diplomatic tool, hoping that Seoul will appreciate its efforts. Here, Japan is depicted as the locomotive and South Korea as the carriage, chugging along the track into the new century, as it were.104 The possibility of Korean challenges to Japanese legitimacy collides with the hierarchy inherent in Japanese identity narratives. Combined with the politics of memory, the Future reconstructs the intersubjective sphere within which Tokyo seeks to counteract accusations of amnesia while simultaneously enhancing its international prestige. The narratives of Future provide a cozy linguistic space within which this contradiction is resolved. The utility of mirai-shiko gaiko, the tacit image of the South Korean Backwardness within the Politics of Future, the surprise of Kim visit, and the cohosting of 2002 Word Cup all point back to the existence of the reified structure of tough and difficult bilateral relationship. It is precisely the revelation of the Past as a persistence feature in the bilateral relations that elaborates on the reality of Future as a linguistic space. This taken-forgrantedness of difficulty is shared by generations of Japanese policy elites in the 1990s and beyond such that the Future sinks into the collective local Background through which Japan’s policy preferences are elaborated. The following chapter explores the narratives of economic relations. While shared economic interests between Tokyo and Seoul might cancel-out the usual dynamics, it nevertheless reproduces the familiar identity narratives of Japanese self. This reproduction is particularly striking given that it is in the realm of economic relations that Japanese identity narratives find legitimization as less controversial. It is also the case that economic relations constitute a sphere within which the Backwardness of Korean otherness becomes real, yet again, to Japanese policy elites.

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The Political Economy of Identity Backwardness Revisited

H

aving explored the Past and Future as two narrative modes in Tokyo’s diplomatic relations with South Korea, I now turn to the narrative reconstruction of Korean otherness within economic relations. The aim of this chapter is not to regurgitate trade figures; but rather, to trace how the image of Korean Backwardness is reified through various economic narratives, including those from within the business community. Trade is not only a vital source of sustenance for Japan, but it also provides policy elites with an indispensable linguistic infrastructure within which the “merchant state” (shonin kokka) identity is enunciated. We need to delve into the narratives of business community, along with the policy circles, due to the inextricable link between the two sectors in realizing Japan’s overall economic ambitions.1 The constant feedback loop between them provides a platform for the emergence and elaboration of an economic discursive space on which Japanese self is legitimized again in opposition to Korean otherness. Despite hopes for mirai-shiko gaiko, it is ironic that the economic relations reinforce Korean Backwardness, particularly given the ease with which the hierarchy and shonin kokka narratives are reproduced, indicating that Japan’s ethnocentric worldview is more vivid where trade is concerned. Japanese elites’ dismissal of Korean demands for technology transfers and the trivialization of Korean apprehensions over current account deficit with Japan unwittingly reconstruct a contemporary version of a “colonial” mindset whereby Japanese government and the business community altercasts Korean otherness as a subordinate. This is not to suggest that Japan exploits Korea; but it does mean that the hierarchy

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inherent within Japanese worldview remains intact. I begin this chapter by recasting Japan’s foreign economic policy as a discursive sphere through which Japanese identity speech acts are represented, and shonin kokka is performed. Second, I explore the evolution of economic relations between the two neighbors throughout the postwar era as a conceptual background to the emergence and elaboration of the identity politics of economic relations in the 1990s and beyond. Such characteristics are reminiscent of the hierarchy of the earlier decades, since the South Korean dependency on Japanese economy can be traced back at least to the end of the Second World War. This is the backdrop in which the familiar, mutual, accusations are exchanged: South Korea accuses Japan of being reluctant in providing technology transfers, recasting capital flows across the Tsushima Strait as an integral part of postwar restitution, on the one hand; and Japan claiming it had provided adequate, if not generous, economic assistance since 1965, dismissing South Korean contentions as groundless, on the other.2 For Japan, South Korea is a useful vehicle for expanding its international market share, making it an imperative for the Japanese government and business community to maintain relations with the neighbor. But in doing so, the Backwardness is reexposed. Finally, the exchange of invectives—“reluctance” versus “ungratefulness”—provides another recipe for the reproduction of acrimony that boomerangs back on to Tokyo as a fact of tough bilateral relations. Japan’s confidence in being the largest economy in Asia—confidence buttressed by postwar economic success— provides a rationale for Japanese policy makers to treat South Korea as a junior partner in pursuit of peaceful interdependence. Simultaneously, however, Seoul’s constant complaints over its current account deficits with Japan and the incessant demands for technology transfers reconstruct the image of South Korean otherness as backward, exemplifying the very process through which the Japanese self is legitimized at the expense of Korean otherness. In short, we trace the emergence of the political from the economic. Narrating Shonin Kokka The 1990s was the decade in which the Japanese government felt compelled to enhance its political involvement in the international arena. This urge to be internationally visible was prompted by various factors, including the Gulf War fiasco of the early 1990s; the North Korean nuclear program first detected in 1994; and the decision to send peacekeepers to Cambodia in the mid-1990s. The ratification of new defense

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guidelines in September 1997 heralded Japan’s further engagement in the security of Northeast Asia by redefining the Japanese sphere of interest to encompass a more “situational” notion of what constitutes “surrounding areas.” As Foreign Minister Ikeda quipped in 1997, the “what happens” determines the “where” of it.3 This did not mean that an important facet of Japan’s foreign policy tool lost its significance. Rather, the expansion of political involvement magnifies the importance of economic power to assuage Asian skepticism toward Japanese rearmament, as evidenced by reactions to the New Guidelines.4 Put differently, heiwa kokka is legitimized by emphasizing Tokyo’s commitment to shonin kokka. Meanwhile, its economic strength also represents Tokyo’s hierarchic worldview and the associated leadership role prescription, with economic power remaining Japan’s most influential diplomatic tool.5 As William Nester puts it, “Throughout the postwar era, Tokyo has concentrated on developing Japan’s economy and achieving predominance in East Asia and the world economy,”6 illustrating the emergence of confidence within the Japanese leadership of its “rightful” economic role in the region.7 Japan’s confidence in its economic influence is not only the centerpiece of its foreign policy, but it also provides a linguistic sphere within which the legitimization of shonin kokka takes place. A former ministry of affairs (MOFA) official, Okita Saburo, suggests that Japan’s economic assistance is indispensable for the maintenance of international security; and that it is a crucial factor in its promotion.8 Kojima Kiyoshi notes that, for geographical reasons, Japan has leverage in Oceania rather than in Europe, arguing that it is Japan’s “destiny to participate in establishing political and economic systems in the Asia-Pacific.”9 C. K. Yeung suggests that the intention behind the 1987 proposition by a former minister of international trade, Tamura Hajime, to establish the New Asian Industrial Development Plan was aimed at reaffirming Japan’s leadership role in the region.10 Within this imaginary, the process of normalization between Tokyo and Seoul entailed “generous financial assistance and economic cooperation” as a “lubricant.”11 Even the oft cited “mercantile realism”12 implies that when “tradeoffs must be made between military and technoeconomic security values, the latter frequently take precedence” in Japanese foreign policy thinking,13 with the MOFA noting in 1990 that “Japan and the ROK agreed to cooperate for the peace and well-being of the world in APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] Forum, the GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] Uruguay Round, and aid to developing countries.”14 Tokyo’s willingness endured even during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–98: the New Miyazawa Initiative of December 1998 is a case in point.15 Another example of this is the significance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)

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to Japan. ADB was founded in August 1966 “to facilitate economic development of Asian nations.”16 Its membership is drawn from the members of United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, along with developed economies from outside Asia, bringing the membership to fifty-five by May 1995.17 The foremost significance of the ADB lies in it being “the first international institution created and led by Japan,”18 providing a unique forum within which Tokyo is able to play a leading role in two ways. First, it satiates Japan’s desire to assume responsibility in international community: ADB being a United Nations-affiliated international institution adds boost to Tokyo’s UN-oriented diplomacy. Second, it satisfies Japan’s mercantile confidence in an Asian forum within which Tokyo can exercise its leadership. Superficially, Japanese recourse to Asia seems to imply that Tokyo favors regionalism over multilateralism. Its campaign for Free Trade Agreement (FTA) seems to underline this point. As Inoguchi Takashi argues, the Japanese government increasingly prefers regional arrangements to multilateral regimes as they better allow Japan to enjoy economic leadership.19 Japan’s FTA negotiations with South Korea “[see] bilateral trade deals as a way of burying historical differences with Korea, of speeding up deregulation of its economy, and of asserting itself more boldly in Asia.”20 Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) policies are similar in scope. As the Financial Times puts it, “Bilateral aid has become one of Japan’s most effective diplomatic tools, developing from an instrument to promote Japanese exports in the 1960s to being used to ensure regional stability and enhance Japan’s influence overseas.”21 As the former foreign minister, Ikeda Yukihiko, puts it, “As for Japan, it is undeniable that it is well advanced in the world, let alone in Asia. What we must do, then, is to strengthen institutions such as ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], APEC, and ASEAN+3 [ASEAN plus Japan, the ROK, and China] as a step towards multilateralism. That is, ASEAN+3, for example, needs to become more integrated like the EU and NAFTA as a step towards multilateralism, not simply to foster regionalism.”22 In effect, regionalism lies on the same continuum as multilateralism; and for Japan, it is a way for perfecting its core competency of the purported leadership role in Asia before moving on to the wider international arena. In pursuing this, the Ministry of International Trade Industry (MITI) Vice-Minister, Hatakeyama Noboru, stated in August 1991 that “Japan had been the recipient of rules which have been made by others. From now on we would like to contribute to the formulation of new rules.”23 Courtney Purrington notes that while postwar identity is effectively a backlash to prewar militarism, the overall project is similar: Tokyo is seeking a “respected place in the world” through economic assistance.24 In the words of Barry Gills, “Japan was re-established as the

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regional industrial and financial center” after the war25 with the prewar bureaucratic structure remaining intact—one manifestation of an organic continuity on both sides of August 1945.26 Mark Beeson provides a useful model for explaining Japan’s economic leadership in the Asia-Pacific region. He argues that “Japan’s external expansion has occurred with the extensive involvement and oversight of public officials” through collaboration between the state and the business community;27 and while Japan’s economic integration with the region “has been a central element in East Asia’s economic takeoff, the impact of Japanese investment remains controversial.”28 Motoshige Itoh parallels this view when he suggests that Japanese “foreign investments not only changed the industry structure of the host countries, but also changed the pattern of international division of labor.”29 This is symptomatic of Japan-ROK trade. As Fukagawa Yukiko notes, given that the bulk of Korean imports from Japan consists of capital equipment, an increase in capital investment by Korean firms translates into rising current account deficit with Japan—a contentious issue at the center of FTA negotiations.30 While Japan’s trade relations with South Korea constitute a useful platform on which shonin kokka identity is reiterated, the concomitant trade imbalance and Korean dependency on Japanese technology effectively reproduces a contemporary variation on a colonial theme: Korea that is technologically dependant on Japan. This relationship satisfies and enhances shonin kokka narrative while simultaneously legitimizes Japanese self as heiwa kokka. The unfortunate by-product in this process is the resilience of Backward Korean otherness. The “Reality” of Korean Dependency Korea has been firmly within Japan’s gaze not simply as a source of threat, but also as an object of desire as a channel for natural resources from the Asian continent. We can discern economic motives behind Yamagata Aritomo’s justification in the late nineteenth century for Japan’s expansion into Asia, with his designation of “interest line” revealing the permanence of Japanese gaze on Korea.31 The pragmatism of Shidehara Kijuro in the 1920s and his noninterventionist attitude toward China argued for the necessity of Asia as a breadbasket for Japanese economy, implying that while politically Japan should not intervene with China, economically it had to secure its interests,32 seeing commerce as a vital tool in realizing this goal. Peter Duus argues that “The natural market for [Japan’s] manufacturers lay . . . in Asia and the Pacific, when there was little or no indigenous industry and a growing demand for manufactured products,

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and when proximity enabled Japan to deliver its products at prices competitive with the West. It was here that Japan could sell the products of its growing light industry sector—cotton yarn, cotton cloth, flannel, canned goods, and the like.”33 The geographical proximity of the peninsula, coupled with Japan’s need to trade with the continent, meant that Korea was an obvious destination for Japanese capital. This continued into the postwar era, providing an ample leverage for the emergence and elaboration of a peaceful shonin kokka that is interested in economic interdependence, not dominance. Hence, Korea had historically been an important market for Japanese economy and colonialism further strengthened the link. In one respect, South Korea’s postwar dependency on Japanese technological expertise derives from the annexation. Timothy Lim argues that “Japan’s development of Korea’s physical and human resources during the colonial era resulted in (1) an extreme distortion of Korea’s economic system, in which a handful of large-scale, relatively modern industrial enterprises were thrust on a still primarily agrarian economy; and (2) a highly skewed distribution of entrepreneurial and (high-level) managerial ability among native Koreans.”34 The end of colonialism meant the exodus of managers and skilled technicians35 and the “extreme concentration of entrepreneurial and managerial ability among a handful of native Koreans.”36 By the 1990s, chaebols, or family-run conglomerates, dominated South Korean economy and their dependency on Japanese technology reproduced a vicious circle of trade imbalance with Japan that became endemic.37 South Korea was dependent on its former colonial power from the initial stages of independence, and Rhee Syngman’s lament in 1949 illustrates their feeling at the time. Upon reviewing the state of the economy, he said that “all we have are machines left by the Japanese. We have to purchase new machines as well as parts for them from the Japanese, meaning we will never be free of Japanese influence.”38 The South Korean foreign minister admitted in 1949 that “it is prudent for South Korea to learn from the Japanese. . . . It is necessary for us to import the know-how and technology for nation-building and develop our infrastructure.”39 From the Japanese perspective, while the country was itself recovering from the ruins of the war, it had the basic infrastructure and skills, making it seem natural for South Koreans to look to it for examples; and the surge in demand during the Korean war between 1950 and 1953 provided much needed jump-start to the postwar Japanese economy. Simultaneously, though, South Korean dependency on Japan meant that bilateral economic relations were also linked to the issue of restitution and economic assistance.40 Herein lies the basis for the elaboration of the dominant economic narrative: Korean dependence and the attendant Backwardness.

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The normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965 was agreed partly due to Park Chung-hee’s decision to prioritize trade relations with Japan, as Seoul was in dire need of technology and hard currency, which eventually materialized in the form of $500 million grant from Tokyo.41 Lee Chung-sik notes that the Japanese businessmen also found it easy to conduct business since their South Korean counterparts at the time were willing to learn from them, and above all, many of them were fluent in Japanese.42 Twenty years after the end of the war, dependency reminiscent of the familiar “colonial” relationship was reconstructed, albeit in the name of normalization. The narrative of shonin kokka was reiterated in the process, with both the Japanese government and the business community promoting their willingness to help its “junior partner.”43 This discursive space of economic relations nurtured a fertile ground for the reproduction of Backward Korean otherness in the decades to follow, conferring legitimacy on Japanese self by providing an economic platform on which policy elites reaffirmed hierarchy as a familiar modus operandi. A vicious circle of dependency ensued following the normalization. South Korean economy—already dominated by chaebols—absorbed technology from Japan in an apparent imitation of Japanese-style economic management. The export-oriented economy culminated in South Korean manufacturers—already heavily dependent on Japanese technology— becoming further “dependent on the Japanese for components and for equipment. . . . The more one export[ed], the more one had to purchase from Japan.”44 This vicious circle of dependency, coupled with rapid South Korean economic development in the 1980s, resulted in Seoul’s widening trade deficit with Tokyo. The Japanese government had been aware of this. Yamamura Koichi, an official at the MITI, noted in 1986 that South Korea’s export policy has been inextricably linked to the pattern of trade with Japan, “most specifically [in] Japan’s one-sided tech[nology] exports and the flows of Japanese investment into the country.”45 South Korean trade deficit with Japan was on top of the agenda when President Roh Taewoo visited Tokyo in 1990; and Prime Minister Miyazawa realized in 1992 that the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) current account deficit with Japan was another facet of difficult relations.46 During the initial stages of economic development, it was cost-effective for South Korean firms to import technology from Japan rather than opting for homegrown innovation.47 However, the more advanced the technology became, the lack of accumulated know-how in South Korea translated into having to import more advanced skills from Japan, further widening the trade gap and encouraging dependence.48 Kaneko Itsuo, Momose Shigeo, and Okamoto Yoshihiro argue that the primary reason behind the persistence of this vicious circle derives from the “lack of inventiveness”

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on the part of South Korean businesses.49 The South Korean automobile industry is seen as an example of this. Ono Junko notes that research and development (R&D) figures in the 1990s show that South Korean automobile manufacturers spent 5 percent of their capital for that purpose. The nominal figure compares well with Japanese manufacturers that spent roughly 5 to 7 percent on R&D, and American competitors’ 5 percent. Yet, Ono points out that South Korean R&D expenditures are directed at land purchases for setting up research institutes, a questionable practice in view of cost-efficiency,50 meaning that an increase in R&D translates into more imports, illustrated by the experiences of car makers Kia and Hyundai. Upon entering the automobile industry in 1985, Kia was reliant on Mazda for the design of facilities and worker training;51 and when Hyundai “developed” Pony, it had to rely on Mitsubishi for engineers and consultants.52 The image of difficulty became more real during South Korea’s membership bid to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in December 1996: Tokyo signified this as a move from a developing state to a developed one. Thus, while Seoul identifies trade barriers as the main source of its current account deficit with Japan, Tokyo counters by arguing that it has done all it could to increase imports from its neighbor, arguing that the ROK as a developed state should not complain.53 It is an emotive issue, since by 1990, the aggregate South Korean current account deficit since 1965 reached $23.5 trillion, most of it with Japan.54 Simultaneously, South Korean demands for further technology transfers continued. Hattori Tamio argues that this “ultimately leads to more imports by the ROK, and is therefore, counterproductive.”55 Furthermore, the 1990 White Paper published by the MITI states that South Koreans are finally “catching up,”56 adding that the role for Japan, as South Korea and Taiwan become mature economies, is to “absorb increased intra-regional trade.”57 Unwittingly, Korea’s dependence on Japanese technology emboldened Japanese self to put the past behind in the name of promoting interdependence. In other words, the Japanese self is dependent on the existence of Korean otherness, whose dependency reinforces heiwa- and shonin kokka signifiers. The irony is that the narratives enhance mirai-shiko gaiko, only to reexpose Korean Backwardness. Backwardness Revisited One aspect of Japan’s foreign economic relations is that we need to account for the nexus between the public and private sectors.58 Inoguchi notes that “the Japanese society is business-centered, and yet in order for it to carry out its activities, it needs to be regulated through laws and directives

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governing them,”59 adding that in Japan, “the government is more than willing to acquiesce to the corporate demands.”60 This is particularly the case given Tokyo’s frequent insistence that the question of who buys what from South Korea is beyond the purview of the Japanese government. As Fukawgawa argues, the perception gap between Tokyo and Seoul over trade imbalance derives partly from repeated claims by the Japanese government that there is only so much it can do to entice the business community, on the one hand; and the Korean expectations of direct government involvement in private sector investment decisions.61 Tokyo uses “administrative guidance” (gyosei shido) to urge, if not coerce, corporations into adopting macroeconomic policies. Yet, the fact that it is the corporations themselves that implement Japanese economic policies suggests that the relationship is not a one-way street but one of symbiosis. Indeed, the business community lobbies the government—or more precisely the political parties, namely the LDP—which in turn lobby bureaucrats. To be sure, this implies that the Korean demand for forthright involvement by Tokyo is justified to a certain degree; but it also highlights the organic linkage between the business community and the policy elites in elaborating the Backwardness of Korean otherness as a counterimage to the “diligent” Japanese self. It is therefore pertinent to unearth the various renditions of Korean otherness within the business community, as well as the policy circles, as this intersection constitutes the locus for the politicization of economic relations. In short, we encounter the political economy of identity. The role of the private sector in the day-to-day management of Japanese macroeconomic policies is exemplified through economic assistance. While the agreements are reached by governments, their implementation is left in the hands of the private sector such as trading houses. Likewise, in the case of Japan-South Korea relations, technology transfers are conducted primarily through the private sector, such as ship builders, steel producers, and automobile manufacturers. The Japanese government is mindful of business activities and the resultant images of South Korea as an investment opportunity, not to mention labor relations between Japanese firms and South Korean unions. In a September 2008 briefing document prepared for the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), Yamazawa Ippei of Waseda University suggests that “ever since the normalisation in 1965, bilateral trade, investment, and personnel exchanges (jinteki koryu) had expanded dramatically”; and quotes President Kim when he made his October 1998 visit to Tokyo: “the issues of the twentieth century need to be resolved within this century, and we should, instead, forge bilateral partnership for the twenty-first century.”62 Yamazawa notes that Prime Minister Obuchi responded in March 1999 by proposing to establish “Japan-Korea Economy Agenda 21” as an improvement on existing

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framework for economic cooperation.63 Indeed, METI suggests hat the two governments agreed in March 1999 to cement new partnership for the twenty-first century through enhanced economic cooperation and policy coordination, including the establishment of an FTA.64 The late 1990s into the twenty-first century was an era of optimism. Kim’s visit had nurtured the atmosphere of goodwill and helped jumpstart the FTA negotiations between Tokyo and Seoul in November 1998. This optimism was also shared among the business community, identifying the agreement as an indispensable tool for historical reconciliation.65 It is this optimism, on the one hand, interspersed with the experiences of Japanese businesses, on the other, that reexposes the image of Korean Backwardness. We start with the elaboration of such narratives in the private sector. Imagining Korean Backwardness in the Private Sector South Korean’s endemic trade deficit with Japan and its repeated calls for technology transfers are usually coupled with Korean complaints that the Japanese government is reluctant to alleviate the problem. Such a censure from South Korea is a familiar sight for the Japanese business community who are at the forefront of bilateral trade relations. The reified difficulty of doing business with South Korean partners is reminiscent of the familiar, negative, image of Korean otherness manifesting itself within the narrative of the Past: the Korean insistence that Japan is imbued with moral duty to assist its economy, in turn, precipitates a longing for Japan’s mirai-shiko relationship. Such images are reproduced within the business community and fed into policy circles. Nishioka Tsutomu, a journalist for a conservative newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, chronicles various grievances by Japanese expatriates in South Korea. For instance, Nishioka notes a complaint in which “the Korean media is completely silent on Japanese economic assistance. The Korean government never invites Japanese ambassadors to ceremonies commemorating the opening of highways or dams built with Japanese money,” quoting a business man bemoaning the fact that “the Korean clients bring us difficult demands, which we nevertheless accomplish, but in the end they never say ‘thank you’ for all the trouble we took to completing the project.” Another businessman is quoted by Nishioka as filing a report to the headquarters in Tokyo recommending pulling out of South Korea altogether “because the workers are not willing to work hard enough.”66 While Nishioka’s findings are anecdotal, to say nothing of the journalist’s own conservative bias, and thus need to be taken with caution, what is striking even then is the cacophony of similar narratives from a

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confluence of businesses and government. The official Japanese explanation for chronic trade imbalance in the 1990s identifies the inability of South Korean government to stimulate domestic demand. Matsumoto Koji, a former MITI official, observes that “the South Korean Government does thank Japan for [the technology transfers], but unfortunately the Korean media does not seem to appreciate it, consistently complaining of ‘Japanese reluctance.’”67 The more entrenched the trade imbalances become, the more the narratives of Backwardness are reproduced. Sato Katsumi, the editor of Koreainterest journal, Gendai Koria, notes in 1992 that the Japanese in general are “fed up with the Koreans constantly demanding apologies. . . . How many times do we have to say sorry? We are at a loss, and that makes us less sympathetic to their cause,”68 illustrating the processes in which the business community also recognizes the obdurate nature of the Past. Momose Tadashi, a former president of Tomen Korea, a subsidiary of Japanese trading house, laments that South Koreans are not willing to learn from Japan’s postwar economic experience,69 which, he claims, translates into chronic trade deficit. He writes that the Koreans fundamentally lack macroeconomic “vision,”70 and their workers lack “initiative,” being “less diligent, if not lazy.”71 For Momose, South Korea is “behind Japan by at least 20 years,”72 criticizing South Korean business leaders for being “loathe to admit their mistakes, always searching, instead, for scapegoats.”73 Sekai Shuho quotes one Japanese trading company in the midst of recession in 1998 that even if the Japanese economy did improve, anti-Japanese feelings within the ROK discourage firms from investing in the country again, fearing accusations of “economic imperialism.”74 Japanese business community claims that South Koreans lack innovation, reiterating the language of Korean Backwardness in contrast to Japanese diligence and confidence. While it is comfortable basking in Japan’s postwar legacy as the driving force behind the creation of the largest economy in Asia, resentment toward the Korean other is amplified when it perceives that the benefits of Japanese economic assistance are ignored.75 This gap between Japanese expectations of gratitude, on the one hand; and the reality of South Korean “laziness” and their “unwillingness to innovate,” on the other, backfires and reify the familiar difficulty of operating within the ROK. Ono quotes one Japanese engineer deploring the state of South Korean automobile industry, accusing it of “not being very systematic in investing in new capital and lacking the willingness to improve them.”76 She quotes another businessman stressing that “the transfer of specific technology is basically over,” and it is time now for South Korean firms to innovate on their own.77 Another engineer is quoted as saying, “It is too rich for the Koreans to accuse us of being reluctant to transfer technology, when in fact

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they have import restrictions on finished Japanese cars.”78 Okatani Naoaki of Mitsubishi Research Institute echoes this when he writes in 1992 that South Korean dependency is primarily due to its unwillingness to innovate and instead turning to Japan for everything.79 The sense of ungratefulness is amplified through the tumultuous labor relations. The experience of Sumida, a Japanese electronics firm, in 1989– 90 illustrates this. In a letter to the South Korean labor ministry, Sumida claimed that disputes started two years after the founding of a labor union in its Korean subsidiary. It notes that full-scale industrial actions were averted while the wages doubled over the years. Meanwhile, “radical elements” (kageki bunshi) infiltrated the union, sabotaging company operations.80 The letter concludes that hunger strikes and demonstrations, not to mention the intimidation of company executives, became rife and problems were compounded by rising labor costs. Sumida noted that it had no choice but to close the factory, and subsequently divest from the South Korean market.81 This kind of labor strife is not unique to Sumida. Momose writes that he had once talked to a Japanese executive, asking him if he is interested in investing in the ROK. The reply was somewhat negative, with the executive worrying about “the strikes and demonstrations.”82 Keidanren (Japanese Business Federation) issued a set of briefing points in November 2000, setting out its position on trade with South Korea. In it, the business federation identifies labor relations as a major impediment, stating that “while the situation has improved with assistance from the [International Monetary Fund following the Asian Financial Crisis], it remains a significant impediment to Japanese firms operating in the country.”83 This is striking given the familiar invocation of mirai-shiko: Keidanren hopes that the FTA negotiations since October 1998 will encourage “future-oriented debate (mirai-shiko no kensetsu-teki na giron).”84 It is as if the demands for the Future are exposing the familiar Backwardness. The reality of ungratefulness and Korean resentment has sunk into the Background such that cost-benefit analysis necessarily entails Backwardness as an integral factor in its calculation. Hence, Backwardness as the discursive framework within which Korean otherness is reproduced reifies impediments to investment as an inevitability. As Matsumoto notes, “The Japanese business community shares the impression that their cooperation is not adequately appreciated by the Koreans,”85 adding that “Japanese businesses feel that the Korean government does not fully appreciate Japanese technology: the cheap royalties for Japanese patents seem to bear this out.”86 The irony is that the reconstruction of Korean otherness as “unruly” is a familiar motif reminiscent of Japan’s ongoing relationship with its neighbor dating from the late nineteenth century. Fujimura Masaya, the president of Mitsubishi Material and

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Japan-Korea Economic Association, notes in 1998 that “until 10 years ago, labor unrest was serious. But now, the environment is changing.”87 He also interprets South Korean attitudes toward the Past rather optimistically, arguing that “the Japanese do feel as though if they are being ‘hated’ by the Koreans. But as generations change, so will their feelings.”88 The narrative of a “close yet a far away country” (chikakute toii kuni) remains an operative. Okuda Hiroshi, the former president of Keidanren, repeats this message in April 2003. He is encouraged by the success of the World Cup games in 2002 and is convinced that the bilateral relations have evolved from being a “close but a far away relationship” (chikakute toii kankei) to being a “very close neighbor” (honto ni chikai otonari-doshi). Yet, he also identifies impediments to FTA, including Korean concerns over current account deficit, something Okuda considers “natural,” given South Korea’s reliance on Japanese capital equipment.89 Okuda’s speech is yet another manifestation of the reemergence of Backwardness as a by-product in Tokyo’s pursuit of the Future: the desirability of Future necessitated by resentful Korean otherness. Imagining Korean Backwardness within Policy Circles The organic link between the government and the business community is discussed earlier. Despite the diplomatic language, the resemblance in the resultant narratives of Korean otherness between the two sectors is striking. Japanese policy elites expect South Korea to act as a responsible member of the OECD; but Seoul’s demands for government interference to alleviate trade imbalance are perceived as interference into Tokyo’s economic management, potentially conflicting with the pursuit of its “futureoriented diplomacy” that expects South Korea to cooperate in formulating new trade rules. As Prime Minister Kaifu once noted, “Korea [is] a partner that can, along with Japan, lead Asia that is full of dynamism.”90 However, the perceived South Korean intransigence, not to mention skepticism shared by the Japanese business community, amplifies the validity of Backwardness within the official circles as well. This reproduction of Korean otherness epitomizes the perception gap between the two governments over their respective roles in promoting Japanese investment into the ROK. The collision between Seoul’s understanding that it is the duty of the government to encourage, if not force, the private sector into technology transfers; on the one hand; with Tokyo’s jealous adherence to the principle of laissez faire, on the other, provides another fertile ground for Japanese policy makers to reaffirm Japanese self as a benefactor trying to sooth an ungrateful Korean other. Kang Yong-ji

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notes that “on the one hand, the South Korean government demands that the Japanese government lead the private sector to encourage technology transfers, but the latter insists that since the ROK is now a ‘developed’ country, technology should be acquired through commercial means.”91 MITI officially told its South Korean counterpart that since the know-how is in the hands of the private sector, Tokyo cannot force them to handover technology,92 a position reiterated by the trade minister Muto Kabun stating in January 1990 that “when there is no confidence among Japanese firms, it is counter-productive for the Japanese government to force them to invest and transfer technology to South Korea. It cannot be justified on legal grounds, and moreover, it is not feasible.”93 Far Eastern Economic Review notes that “most Japanese companies have lost confidence in their Korean counterparts . . . [and] the problem is that the Korean side doesn’t realize the Japanese side is lacking in confidence.”94 The main economic agenda during the 1990 summit between Kaifu and Roh centered on technology transfers and trade imbalance. Kaifu admitted that there were problems stemming partly from Japanese reluctance, observing that “the trade imbalance is due, in part, to structural factors, but we will put every effort into minimizing the effects.”95 This became the prevailing mode of representation for Tokyo in the subsequent discussions: the problem is fundamentally structural but Japan will do its best. Kaifu repeated this while attending the January 1991 summit, claiming that “the technology and the know-how are both in the private sector. As such, all that the Japanese government can do is to provide an environment conducive to carrying them out.”96 Seoul’s insistence was interpreted in Tokyo as a hallmark of Korean Backwardness. Kaifu emphasized the point yet again, telling Roh that “the private sector possesses all the technology you are looking for. There are limits as to what the Japanese government can do to encourage them. But it also means that the Koreans need to do its part.”97 In the end, “Kaifu essentially told the South Koreans to stop complaining at a diplomatic level and put the private sector to work. Noting that Tokyo already encourages Japanese companies to transfer technology to the South Korean counterparts, he told Seoul to combine efforts with your private sector to improve the environment for the acceptance of more investment and technical know how.”98 Such an exchange hardened Japanese position. Already at the 1990 summit, the MITI made clear that “there will be no more concessions until South Korea lifts import restrictions on Japanese products”99 amid Tokyo’s campaign of pursuing mirai-shiko gaiko by addressing the Past. Hence, the irony is replicated: an effort at resolving the Past by emphasizing the Future resulted in the further reexposure to purported Korean Backwardness. This effectively confirms the difficulty of bilateral relations that needs

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to be taken for granted by the policy and business elites. Miyazawa’s visit to Seoul in January 1993 was initially optimistic, reflected in his comment that “trade deficits will not continue for ever. The South Korean economy is not that weak.”100 He remained confident for a while when he addressed the South Korean parliament in January 1992, telling legislators that “Japan and South Korea need to cooperate to become the ‘locomotive’ for Asia in order to bring about an open and prosperous Northeast Asia.”101 Yet, following his talks with Roh, Miyazawa told reporters that trade imbalance and technology transfers made the talks extremely “tough.”102 He reiterated this in Sekai Shuho in 1998, stating that while the relations with South Korea are crucial for Japan, they remain “difficult and tough” (hone no oreru kankei da).103 Similar exchanges continued at official levels during the January 1992 summit. The South Korean government urged Japan to lower its tariffs and accelerate technology transfers,104 with the Japanese government claiming that the problem is structural and that Tokyo can do nothing about it. Instead, Tokyo urged Seoul to liberalize its economy, arguing that the South Korean failure to implement investment policies since the 1985 Plaza Agreement left South Korean corporations uncompetitive.105 Miyazawa told the South Korean government that “as much as Japan would like to help, it must be born in mind that technology transfers are for the private sector to decide.”106 In response to South Korean suggestions that a government-sponsored fund be established to provide grants to firms, Minister of Finance, Hata Tsutomu, retorted: “We cannot establish such a fund for technology transfer, it would not be possible under the current legislation and fiscal constraints. We must invite the private sector and look into other ways through which this can be done.”107 It was not until Kim Dae-jung became the South Korean president that a change in atmosphere became apparent. Following his visit to Tokyo in October 1998, the trade minister, Yosano Kaoru, stated that “we are entering a new phase in Japanese-South Korean economic relations.”108 Slowly, import restrictions on Japanese products were lifted, and the business community felt increasingly confident investing in the ROK, though skepticism remained. A former Japanese ambassador to Seoul, Ogura Kazuo, stated in 1998 that in the past, Japan had the role of guiding the Korean economy. Now, we are equal partners. We must cooperate in the making of international rules. Otherwise, we will be left behind only to be dictated to by the Americans and the Europeans. . . . We have never done things together, and some people frequently like to compare our bilateral relations with that of France and Germany. Yet, we must also bear in mind that they have done things together

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while we have not. The process of trying to do things together is crucial from now on.109

Ogura’s comment is notable to the effect that while the hierarchy remains intact, Korean otherness is represented as a junior partner. Put differently, the dominant narrative recognizes Korean otherness as a vital medium through which shonin kokka is maintained and mercantile legitimacy of the Japanese self is reproduced. This is particularly the case now that South Korea became a member of the OECD; and that the rapprochement meant Japan’s role ceased to be one of guiding the South Korean economy, but rather, to leverage its neighbor as a potential partner for Tokyo to realize its self-professed role to the fullest. Prime Minister Obuchi stressed this in 1999, suggesting that Japan and the ROK must now strive to create an FTA on the scale of the EU.110 Rapprochement helped turn the two governments’ attention toward an FTA and economic partnership in general. In the words of Trade Minister Hiranuma Takeo in November 2000, “The FTA can play a useful role in our trade policy, although we would stress that they are complimentary to the [World Trade Organization],”111 and an Agreement with South Korea is seen as “a token of [Japanese] determination to overcome ingrained mutual mistrust.”112

The Narratives of FTA: Backwardness Reexposed The emergence of goodwill in late 1998 and preparations for the 2002 World Cup provided valuable momentum toward enhanced partnership between Tokyo and Seoul. This progress was in line with the Japanese penchant for the Future, and the official narratives on FTA negotiations belie this initial optimism. The FTA process commenced immediately after the October 1998 summit: the two governments discussed FTA in November 1998, and by May 2000, Tokyo and Seoul concluded that “while there are several areas of concern, the FTA will not only lower tariffs, but it will also encourage foreign investment, enhance competition, and improve productivity. Furthermore, there is a potential for improving the two countries’ balance of payments.”113 Here again, the current account imbalance is recognized as one potential impediment. The business leaders from Japan and South Korea issued a joint statement in January 2002 under the rubric of Japan-Korea FTA Business Forum. The forum stated that the two countries should cooperate to “lead” (sendo suru) East Asian industry and economy; and while there are anxieties that the agreement will exacerbate

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trade imbalance in the short-term, “the overall merits of the FTA should be discussed holistically (taikyoku-teki ni) by the peoples of both countries,” before concluding that “the two countries should promote partnership through future-oriented relations as a means to realize their economic leadership in East Asia.”114 The leadership role prescription can be readily identified here as a rearticulation of the hierarchy, but this time with South Korea as a (junior) partner. Simultaneously, though, its reference to trade imbalance as an ongoing issue reminds the interlocutors of the omnipresent difficulty. The forum’s conclusions echo MITI’s (METI from January 2001) understanding that the negotiations are fraught with difficulties. At a Tokyo symposium hosted by the Institute of Developing Economies, a think tank affiliated to MITI, the participants agreed that current account deficit is a concern, although it should not be considered a problem from an economic point of view. Instead, the symposium concluded that the pursuit of mutual trust is the priority,115 underlying its absence in contemporary bilateral relations. Furthermore, the 2003 edition of the Trade Whitepaper published by METI reiterates the “near but far” theme, pointing out that Japan and South Korea are “two leading industrialized countries in Asia” but having failed to fully exploit this relationship due to “historical background” (rekishi-teki na haikei).116 Again, the language of the Past and Future are implicitly invoked to represent the potential Backwardness of any negotiations with South Korea. MOFA elaborates by reiterating the language of Backwardness with a presentation in October 2008. It points out that South Korea has experienced the so-called sandwich effect whereby it “failed to catch up with Japan and is simultaneously being caught up by China,”117 implicitly warning of a potential flare-up in the familiar antiJapanese sentiments. It adds that the Korean dependence on Japan for capital equipment would result in “perennial trade deficit with Japan.”118 Perhaps MOFA’s pessimism as opposed to a hint of optimism in MITI/ METI is understandable, since the foreign ministry is at the forefront of diplomatic exchanges, whereas the trade ministry deals with more pragmatic business activities. Yet, the similarities between the two ministries’ depiction of Japan-South Korea diplomacy as rife with difficulties is noteworthy. These narratives represent the reification of difficulty as inevitable: South Koreans will never be satisfied with Japanese benevolence accusing Tokyo of negligence. The more the Korean otherness elaborates on its dissatisfaction, the more the Japanese self seeks to gain legitimacy by repeating the diagnosis that trade imbalance is due to Korean dependency despite Japan’s track record on assistance. Given the legitimacy accorded to Japanese self via the Past and Future, Korean otherness is altercasted as the difficult one. Tamura Hideo of Nikkei argues that the “Korean people’s

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frustration with Japan will not easily be placated” despite the success of the World Cup, primarily due to a lack of political leadership in the two countries.119 As such, the political economy of identity is emblematic of the social structure born of identity narratives coming back to haunt the very author. The irony is that economic relations is a realm within which Tokyo feels most comfortable in reasserting legitimacy via shonin- and heiwa kokka; yet even within this framework, the Korean otherness is reconstructed as Backward. Japan’s negative images of Korea is a perennial theme—indeed a by-product—in Japan’s quest for legitimacy and raison d’être. In short, the persistent denigration of Korean otherness is a necessary component of Japanese self. Conclusion Despite the calls for enhanced partnership, hierarchy as a dominant worldview is reproduced through the narratives of identity remains intact. For Tokyo, utilizing this form of influence is an obvious economic policy preference. Japan’s urge to pursue economic leadership with South Korea derives from confidence shared among the policy elites and business community in reinforcing Japan’s role as a locomotive to guide Asian economy through the twenty-first century. The structural dependency of South Korean economy born of postwar economic interaction across the Tsushima Strait is crucial in understanding the elaboration of difficulty into a taken-for-grantedness. It hinges on two points: first, over whether Japan had provided sufficient economic assistance in the past as part of restitution; and second, whether the current problems are fundamentally the result of South Korean failure to innovate. From the Japanese perspective, South Korea remains “ungrateful,” and the narratives of Backwardness emerge as the primary mode of representation. For Tokyo, the past “wrongs” had been neutralized through the diplomatic language of the Past and Future to the extent that it expects today’s economic interactions to be free of impediments, let alone the perceived ingratitude. The economic realm provides an interesting perspective into the construction of Japanese self in opposition to Korean otherness. Whatever the dominant narrative is for a given interaction, the Past and Future effectively reinforce Backwardness reminiscent of a colonial language: it is not as if history is repeating itself, but rather, it points to the omnipresence of history. Japanese policy elites’ efforts at putting the Past behind and progressing into the Future only elicits the familiar timelessness of Korean Backwardness that strikes them as an obdurate diplomatic fact. Mark

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Beeson understands this well. He suggests that Japan “has played a crucially important historical role in acting as an engine of regional growth and source of capital,”120 but it is also “puzzling” to witness its “lack of political influence and leadership capacity.”121 Hence, the narrative of leadership that is evident within both the diplomatic, as well as economic, exchanges subsequently compels Japanese policy elites to utilize this language further. From the Japanese perspective, its relations with Korea is akin to a Sisyphean task of legitimization, only to encounter further challenges to the legitimacy of Japanese self.

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Conclusion

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he difficulties faced by Japanese policy makers in their relationship with their counterparts in Seoul are a social construct. They are a product of historical interactions between the two nations involving exchange of ideas among the policy elites and business community, not to mention cultural exchanges at subnational levels over the centuries. The memories of colonialism in both Japan and South Korea add to what has turned into an incendiary mix. Yet, it is also the case that Tokyo’s perception of bilateral relations is a resilient one, involving generations of Japanese policy makers in rekindling the often negative images of their Korean counterparts and reifying the collective image of Korean otherness as a starting point in condsidering Japan’s Korea policy. In short, the Korean otherness is a reified image, but as such, it is real. The intersubjective dimensions of Japan-South Korea relations derive from an exchange of speech acts by the agents involved. I have explored the Japanese side of this equation. The emergence and elaboration of this macro-level social context reflects the process of reconstructing Japanese self in opposition to the Korean otherness. Put differently, the negative image of Korean otherness stands in distinction to Japan’s self-professed benevolence over the decades, ranging from the admission of war guilt; the pursuit of peaceful coexistence; and technological transfers to Korea. These narrations of identity amount to a speech act manifestation of postwar Japan’s heiwa- and shonin kokka roles. It is not outlandish to suggest that these identities are sustained through the reproduction of Korean otherness that is depicted as conceptually inferior to the Japanese self. As such, we can identify ethnocentrism in Japan’s self/other dichotomy. The admission of war guilt effectively rationalizes the sufferings of Korean otherness into generalized painful memories of the war through which the varied experiences of suffering are consolidated into a universal motif that ultimately bolsters Japan’s victimization myth.1 Japanese government’s enthusiasm for enhanced international role satisfies the resilient hierarchy

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within the dominant worldview; and the track record of technology transfers reinforces Japanese confidence in its economic power, while its byproducts—trade imbalance and dependency—are seen as necessary evils to be endured by South Korea. The inevitable one-sidedness of benevolence as a theme in Japanese identity narratives elicits sharp criticism from Seoul, subsequently reifying the difficult relationship as a diplomatic reality. The three themes—the Past, the Future, and Backwardness—provide a useful discursive space within which policy elites and business community reproduce Korean otherness that legitimizes the Japanese self as a benefactor to an “ungrateful” South Korea. As I argued in Chapters 3 and 4, the striking thing about this identity reconstruction is the endurance of hierarchy in Japan’s collective worldview over the decades, if not centuries, and the concomitant subordination of the neighbor within this narrative structure. The Past, the Future, and Backwardness constitute a triumvirate in Japan’s Korea and ultimately Asia imaginary that is reminiscent of a colonial relationship at its conceptual core.2 I am not suggesting that Japan is exploiting Korea today; but the language of Korean otherness has not witnessed a significant change despite the postwar transformation of Japan itself. To be sure, the prewar kokutai ideology gave way to heiwa- and shonin kokka narratives after 1945. Yet, despite discernible changes on both sides on August 15, 1945, we can also identify resilient themes such as “liberation” and “leadership” even throughout the 1990s.3 “Liberation” is superseded by the cohabitation of the Past with Future, which emphasizes Tokyo’s self-professed leadership role; and the hierarchy remains the predominant lens through which policy makers in Tokyo perceive the reality of Japan’s relations with Asia. Such Asia imaginary has been repeatedly elaborated within Japan-(South) Korea relations since the Meiji Restoration. Japan’s gradual colonization of the Korean peninsula was conducted in the name of liberating Asia.4 The fraught negotiations preceding the signing of the 1965 Basic Treaty; the series of negotiations over yen loans in the 1980s; disagreements over technology transfers; and the ongoing accusations and counteraccusations over the Past provide a forum within which Japanese policy elites reassert legitimacy.5 Pace G. H. Mead, the conversation of gestures today derives from conversations from yesterday, and the reality of the intersubjective structure is rooted in such historicity. Japan’s contemporary Korea imaginary derives from resolving the contradiction between stability and disjuncture in Japanese policy elites’ perception of the ever-changing international environment, and the resultant rearticulation of Japanese identity narratives.

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Taking Reification Seriously in Japanese Foreign Policy Throughout this book, I have used the terms “Japanese self/Korean other,” “Tokyo/Seoul,” “business community,” “policy elites,” and so on. They are, to be sure, reifications: I have made clear that they are shorthand for various webs of collective agents and individuals at overlapping levels of agency6 and that they are elaborated into a collective entity sharing and reproducing the dominant identity narratives. Simultaneously, these collective agents constitute a valuable source of diplomatic pronouncements, including the context within which they were enunciated; and the agential roles played by such individuals add further significance to what was said and how. Moreover, we need to explore not only social entities, but also how intersubjective structures emerge. There are many ways of conceptualizing the process, and John Ruggie’s typology of various “constructivisms”7 illustrates this well. The difficulty with which terms such as “constructivism” and “poststructuralism” in international relations (IR) are defined makes Ruggie’s efforts at classification all the more cumbersome as there are multifarious ways through which we can operationalize social constructions within numerous aspects of international politics. Perhaps it is easier to locate the “politics of construction” as a locus of debate between realists and antirealists in social theory.8 My position throughout this book is that an agency is predicated on a resilient identity to provide a worldview that enables her to encounter transformation in external environment, including an evolution in identities over time and space. Maja Zehfuss is correct in pointing out Alexander Wendt’s failure to account for the role played by identity prior to the conversation taking place.9 Simultaneously, there is a counteracting tendency to immediately treat identities as constantly “shifting” and thus “unstable.” Roxanne Lynn Doty claims that in trying to “effectively address the issue of practice,” which holds the “key for all theorists of the agent-structure problematique,” it “must entail an acceptance of indeterminacy. It must entail a decentering of practice.”10 It follows from this that identities are “always . . . fragile and ultimately unstable.”11 My criticism centers on this move: identity being subsumed into performance. By doing so, we risk losing sight of “who” is acting. To the extent that we can legitimately ask “who”—or what—is being “performed” in relations between Tokyo and Seoul, it is necessary to point to the resilient “Japan” that is rearticulated within the conversation of gestures.12 Pace Zehfuss, the Japanese case shows the crucial role of historically constructed leadership role prescription, necessitating a philosophical realist account of identity as opposed to the predominant antirealist arguments in IR. The role of identity in Japanese foreign policy, and in particular

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Japan-South Korea relations, shows that we need conceptual tools to appreciate continuity within change. The seeming contradiction between the dramatic changes in international and psychological landscapes on both sides in August 1945, on the one hand; and the resilience of hierarchical worldview, on the other, can be resolved once we scrutinize the stability of Japanese identity narratives through 1945. Japan’s policy preferences changed, but this was made possible precisely because there were narratives able to bridge the chasm of defeat. Put differently, the Japanese self remained counterpoised upon the reproduction of Korean otherness regardless of the international context. This means that Japan’s transformation needs to be explained through the continuity of Japan’s Korea imaginary. What had been an object of desire and an inevitable otherness within had transformed into a junior partner after 1945. Nevertheless, the imaginary that altercasts Korea as a subordinate within the bilateral hierarchy remains intact. This is the meaning attached to Korea and reinforced by the policy circles in Tokyo that is akin to a diplomatic tradition that has been reified into the 1990s and beyond. Hence, identity does play a significant role in Japanese foreign policy. While traditional, rational choice, approaches are useful for certain set of questions, by black-boxing actorhood they fail to address reifications, or social constructions, seriously. Questions relating to the persistence of acrimony across the Tsushima Strait are a case in point: traditional theories treat this as a given; I problematize its social construction. To be sure, constructivist literature on the Asia-Pacific is beginning to appear. As Nikolas Busse notes with respect to security in Southeast Asia, “We get a better understanding of what is going on in the region by using concepts from constructivism such as norms and identities.”13 See Seng Tang is correct in identifying the necessity of constructivist analysis in Southeast Asia,14 and by extension, East Asia in general. Moreover, Peter Katzenstein and Thomas Berger explain Japanese postwar antimilitarism as a norm that governs its behavior,15 and David Campbell provides a poststructuralist account of the U.S.-Japan economic rivalry.16 However, even with the burgeoning number of so-called postpositivist literature, a similar treatment is still awaited on the diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. Victor Cha might be an exception to the rule,17 although he treats the instance of identity politics across the Tsushima Strait as a “given.”18 To that extent, the Japanese national interest is still exogenously defined, and identities are shunted aside. Various literature within cultural studies takes this cross-straits identity politics seriously,19 but within IR, the role of identity in Japan-South Korea relations is still wanting. It is here that this book provides a potential for future research using philosophical realist approach. Theoretically,

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the treatment of identity in IR currently parallels G. H. Mead’s “conversation of gestures.”20 While not everyone professes to be following Mead, the notion of shifting and unstable identity is widely shared among the postpositivist IR theorists. Yet, their focus immediately shifts away from the subject to the very “instability” of various performances to the effect that subjects become mere receptacles waiting for shifting and unstable subjectivities to take hold.21 Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper sum it up well. They ask: “If identity is fluid, how can we understand the ways in which self-understanding may harden, congeal and crystallize?”22 This points out that “reification is a social process, not only an intellectual practice.”23 It is here that the imperative of taking reifications seriously emerges so that we can reasonably ask who is experiencing all these shifts and instability. An insight into social theory provides us with a useful guide. Margaret Archer argues that we need to be able to account for a continuing personality to experience this shift,24 with Douglas Porpora indicating the need to account for choice in actor’s performance.25 Without this, we are liable to banish agency into a conceptual oblivion. It is that identity—while itself a historical construct as memories and experiences are accumulated26—sinks into the Background from which actor intentionality derives.27 In other words, memories of interactions sink into the background and the constant reflection of one’s position using this accumulated knowledge allows an actor to prepare for future intercourse. The accumulation of memories and experience comprises a constant feedback loop through which the images of otherness reinforce the self reproducing the environmental imaginary. Hence, while I am sympathetic to the notion of “shifting” and “unstable” identities, I am still not convinced of this argument insofar as it tends to trivialize the stability of identity. In my view, this stability is crucial for contingency in actor behaviors. Since a study of IR involves collective agents of some sort, I show how we can derive the “we” from the “I.” Just as John Searle suggests that collective intentionality cannot be reduced to a mere aggregation of individual intentionalities, I argue that a similar argument can be made for collective identity.28 That is, collective identity, such as the ones shared among policy elites, emerges via “collective bargaining” by the constituents. In a manner similar to Mancur Olson’s “logic of collective action,” individual identities are negotiated within the collective entity, and as a result of the “crowdingout,” collective identities emerge as an end product.29 The emergent collective identity is not an aggregate of individual identities, per se, but poses an agency of its own that cannot be reduced to individual identities. The case of Japanese foreign policy shows that an individual policy maker is an agent of the larger policy circle. The reiteration of self/otherness dichotomy and the reproduction of regional imaginary throughout the decades

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solidify the dominant narratives to be invoked by the policy elites as a convenient signifier of diplomatic relations. Only by making an allowance for reification as a social reality can we explore the narration of identities and how they act upon the narrators themselves. Empirically, the hierarchy born of the myth of Japanese uniqueness and the reproduction of Korean otherness as subordinate to the Japanese self have been emphasized. The prewar kokutai ideology and the post-1945 heiwa- and shonin kokka narratives may be dissimilar on the surface; but once we explore the reconstruction of difficulty as a defining element of Japan’s relationship with Korea over the decades, and indeed the resilience of Korea imaginary, we can see that the conversation of gestures between the two neighbors helped confer legitimacy to Japanese self at the expense of Korean otherness in the eyes of policy elites in Tokyo. The surrender on August 15, 1945, dissolved kokutai. It is tempting, therefore, to suggest, as Peter Katzenstein and Thomas Berger have done that the end of the war presaged fundamental changes in Japanese identity.30 While Katzenstein and Berger’s points are understandable, they beg the constructivist question of “who” actually experienced this transition: did “Japan” cease to exist at noon on August 15, 1945, as the emperor announced Japan’s surrender over the radio? Given the similarities across August 15, 1945 in the construction of Korean otherness steeped in negativity, we need to account for resilient self and the associated worldview. As Takeuchi Yoshimi points out, collective Japanese identity is a historical product,31 and John Dower adds that the defeat and the ensuing occupation did not fundamentally change it.32 The reification of hierarchic worldview shared by the generations of Japanese elites justified, in their view, Japan’s historical condescension toward (South) Korea into the twenty-first century.33 It is difficult to ignore the commonalities in the Japanese depiction of its role in the AsiaPacific, as well as the historical construction of (South) Korean otherness. While changes may have taken place on August 1945, such transformations are predicated on the sense of the resilient self. This book undertook this challenge in IR to provide a theoretical insight into the role of identity in Japanese foreign policy by placing Japan-South Korea relations within a theoretical framework. Reification as International Reality This book posits that the reconstruction of Japanese self necessitates the trivialization of Koreans; but iterated interactions between the two reify Korean otherness as an obdurate diplomatic fact that constructs bilateral relations as difficult. This intersubjective structure backfires to the

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policy makers to endorse their shared realm of possibilities, resulting in the reification of a particular social structure. This does not mean that the vicious circle is inevitable. Indeed, the changing international environment indicates that the nuance changes over time as well. Yet, it must also be recognized that similarities in the way Japanese self reproduces Korean otherness—often negatively—is a familiar facet of diplomatic life in Northeast Asia. The frustration among the Japanese officialdom is a potent signifier of the resilience of this intersubjectivity. To be sure, identifying the exact origins of Japanese identity is difficult. However, through the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the “myth of Japanese uniqueness” has emerged to constitute an important symbol in the elaboration of identity narratives throughout the rest of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The “myth” suggests that Japan is neither the West nor Asia; and as Japan became a modern state after 1868, the notion of hierarchy was further elaborated justifying Japan’s “unique” position as the only advanced state in Asia capable of “liberating” the rest of the region from the purported Western threat. Even the post-1945 heiwa- and shonin kokka narratives effectively reinforced this hierarchy and the concomitant condescension toward Koreans. The uncanny similarities in the pre- and post-1945 Korea imaginary can be best explained as a reified structure born partly of Japanese identity speech acts directed against the omnipresent Korea. If we are to fully appreciate the dynamics from which the mutual exchange of invectives emerges, we need to go beyond the takenfor-grantedness in this very culture of vehemence. Hence, the necessity for appreciating the narratives of Past as an integral element in Japan’s pursuit of the Future resulting in the inculcation of forgetfulness in due process. While not suggesting that Japan-South Korea relations today comprise a colonial relationship in which a center seeks to exploit the periphery by expropriation, there is still an institutionalized reproduction of hierarchy as a mode of interaction for Tokyo. To this extent, the rearticulation of Korean Backwardness as another signifier suggests that a relationship akin to a colonial mindset is intact. Put differently, the diplomatic intercourse has evolved over the decades; but the transformation is taking place within a familiar imaginary that seems to have withstood the test of time. This contemporary, yet colonial, mindset is a topic worth exploring. In order for us to fully appreciate how the acrimonious bilateral relations are reconstructed—even with the cohosting of 2002 World Cup34—identity narratives provide a useful tool for understanding the process. While traditional IR theories can explain what happens after the acrimony is taken for granted, they cannot provide an adequate account of how such institutional facts are constructed. This is precisely because the sources of actor interests are exogenized. Thus, Japan’s interests, vis-à-vis South Korea, can

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only be ascertained once the acrimony becomes reified. It is here that the shortcomings of traditional approaches are made stark: because of the exogeneity of Japan’s interests, they fail to appreciate how such interests and conceptual milieu are constructed. In contrast, I take seriously the process of reification as a social fact, endogenizing Japan’s interests in order to understand how social actors enter into various “conversation of gestures” of which Japan-South Korea relations are good examples. Even if Japanese uniqueness is a “myth”; and however much Backwardness is discursive and therefore fluid, the resilience in Tokyo’s depiction of (South) Korea as an enigma needs to be taken seriously. This book argues that we need to take reifications seriously in order for us to “make sense” of this. The so-called postpositivist literature, too, is inadequate. While they take identities seriously, in the end, they are preoccupied with the representation of identity, and not the identity of the representor. This is true for both constructivists and poststructuralists. This body of literature cannot account for the ways through which Japanese policy makers experienced changes in the international and psychological environment following the defeat; nor can it adequately explain why the postwar bilateral relations are defined primarily through the exchange of invectives. By appreciating the narrative structure within which Japanese self altercasts Korean otherness, we can begin to understand how the bilateral relations are reproduced as a macro-level social context. In order not to reduce resilient Japanese identity into mere representations; and to suggest, instead, that Japanese identity has an agency of its own, philosophical realist approach utilized here proves useful in providing a “different take” on the bilateral relations between Tokyo and Seoul. Taking Identities and Reifications Seriously This book shows that it is not only fruitful, but also necessary, for us to take identities and reifications seriously. The traditional IR literature does not adequately allow us to ask this type of question, nor does postpositivist literature enable us to appreciate fully the way reifications interact with the agents without a significant detour into the politics of construction and ontology.35 To the extent that we can be curious about the role of collective identity in a macro-level social interaction, IR as a discipline needs to be ready to address this. Ideas do matter;36 and identities play a crucial role in how national interests are cast and intersubjective structures reconstructed. Hence, they need to be taken seriously. For policy prescription, leaving reifications alone suffices: delving into the social process results in a mere regurgitation of a truism that the bilateral relations are difficult.

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However, this does not help in understanding why such an acrimonious relationship is replicated over the decades. I have addressed this core issue of why this difficulty is reified. By taking Japanese collective identity seriously, I can decipher the processes of how Japanese speech acts reproduce a particular social sphere, only for it to bounce back onto the narrators to reinforce the existential reality. Thus far, I have criticized Japanese identity construction as ethnocentric: this analysis equally takes a one-sided view, focusing solely on the Japanese side of the vehemence. A further implication of my analysis is to suggest that a similar framework can be applied to the South Korean side of the equation as well. Such an enquiry will enable us to gain an appreciation of complexities behind the reconstruction of intersubjective structures across the Tsushima Strait. Furthermore, the oft-quoted claim by Robert Keohane that “the greatest weakness of the reflective school lies not in deficiencies in their critical arguments but in the lack of a clear reflective research program that could be employed by students of world politics”37 needs to be taken equally seriously. Just as Campbell and Jutta Weldes, among others, have shown, reflectivists do have robust research programs.38 The implication here is that whether one takes a constructivist or poststructuralist approach to IR, useful and meaningful case studies can be conducted. I have shown that reflectivists can discern correlation between identity narratives and the conduct of foreign policy. One can interpret such relationship to be “‘causal’ even in the positivist sense since, by definition motives are always prior to the action and this can be considered its antecedent conditions.”39 As Milja Kurki astutely observes, we can, and need to, go beyond taxonomy and variables to explore “the construction of holistic integrative frameworks where many types of conditioning causes firm material constraints of capitalist social relations to the ideological congruence of Western cultures, can be brought together to provide explanations of social and historical dynamics.”40 Hence, contra Keohane, a robust research program is indeed possible in the so-called reflectivist school. The role of identity in Japanese foreign policy is one such example. Finally, a question of what is meant by “X” when X is designated as an actor will come under scrutiny. I used “Japan” and “Tokyo” interchangeably (and likewise, “South Korea” and “Seoul”), and criticisms with respect to ontological reductionism can be expected. Methodologically, I have also limited my scope to elite narratives of Japanese collective identity. While limited in its scope, I am justified in using this mode of representation for pragmatic purposes. As Merje Kuus argues, this is justified “because these are the privileged, dominant textual practices that give rise to the system of meaning from which policies are directed and legitimized.”41 Contrary to what many claim,42 his suggestion that states are social constructions

186

DECONSTRUCTING JAPAN’S IMAGE OF SOUTH KOREA

implies that Wendt is taking the emergence of collective agency rather seriously.43 Perhaps this is too generous a reading of Wendt, as Steve Smith points out in his criticism of Wendt’s reification of the state.44 However, there is an important implication for further research, especially with respect to collective identity. If X as a collective actor has collective agency, then we need to be able to account for this without resorting to methodological individualism.45 We need to start treating state identity as an emergence born of domestic coalition patterns,46 not to mention states as complex entities comprised of numerous webs of agencies.47 This implies caution: while the crux of the argument might be one of actor designation,48 it entails a crucial methodological issue of how we can effectively study collective agents, ranging from civil society groups to states and international regimes. After all, if in some way shape or form we can comfortably talk about collectives—such as we read in the newspapers—then this seems to be a potent clue to take them seriously and start unpacking them so that we can constructively reuse them. It is necessary to make sense of collectivities such as Japanese policy elites and to explore how they perceive and formulate their understandings about their interlocutors and the social environment as a whole. The vicissitudes in relations are a familiar feature across the Tsushima Strait: the ambivalence that pervades the atmosphere between Japan and South Korea is a reified entity that needs to be taken seriously as it is something that will be reiterated in the decades to come. There are hopes. The success of the World Cup and the once prominent “Kanryu boom”—a boom in Korean culture ranging from cuisine to TV dramas in Japan—illustrate the possibilities for a better future. It is worth bearing in mind the mechanisms through which the exchange of invectives are reproduced, so that the stakeholders—the people of Japan and South Korea—are better equipped to minimize their worst excesses in the decades to come. This means that the two nations need a better language of interaction. Knowing the narrative infrastructure of current difficulties will be a reasonable start.

Notes

Preface 1. Robert O. Keohane, “International Institutions: Two Approaches,” International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4 (1988): 379–96. 2. See for example, Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order (London: Routledge, 2001); Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). 3. Victor D. Cha, “Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea,” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (2000): 261–91.

Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

The Economist, March 23, 2002, 68. Financial Times, November 30, 2001, 14. See The Economist, March 10, 2007, 12. Nina Tannenwald, “Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use,” International Organization 53, no. 3 (1999): 435. Tetsuo Najita and H. D. Harootunian, “Japan’s Revolt Against the West,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. BobTakeshi Wakabayashi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chap. 5. Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy for the 21st Century, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1998), chap. 2 and 3. Barry Buzan, “Japan’s Defence Problematique,” The Pacific Review 8, no. 1 (1995): 34. Hendrik Spruyt, “A New Architecture for Peace? Reconfiguring Japan among the Great Powers,” The Pacific Review 11, no. 3 (1998): 379. Eric Heginbotham and Richard J. Samuels, “Mercantile Realism and Japanese Foreign Policy,” International Security 22, no. 4 (1998): 172; and also Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

188

NOTES

10. Taewoo Kim, “Japan’s New Security Roles and ROK-Japan Relations,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 11, no. 1 (1999): 164–68. 11. See Margaret S. Archer, Being Human: The Problem of Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Colin Wight, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 12. Inoguchi Takashi, Nippon: keizai taikoku no seiji-unei (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1993), 132–36. 13. Frederick W. Frey, “The Problem of Actor Designation in Political Analysis,” Comparative Politics 17, no. 2 (1985): 131. 14. Ibid., 143. 15. Robert Giplin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 18. 16. Ibid., 16. 17. See Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965). 18. Steve Smith, “Wendt’s World,” Review of International Studies 26, no. 1 (2000): 162. 19. For a discussion on emergence and elaboration, see, for example, Archer, Realist Social Theory; and John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (London: Penguin, 1995), 23–26. 20. See, for example, James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization 54, no. 4 (2000): 845–77; and Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization 51, no. 4 (1997): 513–53. 21. Yosef Lapid, “Culture’s Ship: Returns and Departures in International Relations Theory,” in The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, ed. Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), 7. 22. Ibid., 10. 23. See Margaret S. Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 70–71. 24. See Archer, Being Human, chap. 8. 25. See Takeuchi Yoshimi, “Introduction,” in Gendai Nippon shiso taikei vol. 9: Ajia-shugi, ed. Takeuchi Yoshimi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1963). 26. See Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy for the 21st Century: From Economic Superpower to What Power? (London: Macmillan 1998), chap. 3. 27. Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy, 162–63. 28. William Nester, Japan’s Growing Power Over East Asia and the World Economy (London: Macmillan, 1990), 115. 29. Kenneth Pyle, The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: AEI, 1996), 145.

NOTES

189

Chapter 1 1. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979). 2. See Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, ed. Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), chap. 1; Albert S. Yee, “The Causal Effects of Ideas on Policies,” International Organization 50, no. 1 (1996): 69–108; and James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Violence and Social Construction of Ethnic Violence,” International Organization 54, no. 4 (2000): 845–77. 3. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 9. 4. See ibid., 7. 5. Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Meyer, and Volker Rittberger, Theories of International Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 25. 6. Robert O. Keohane, “International Institutions: Two Approaches,” International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4 (1988): 392. 7. Ibid. 8. Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen D. Krasner, “International Organization and the Study of World Politics,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 658. 9. Joseph S. Nye and Robert O. Keohane, Power and Interdependence, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1989), 251. 10. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 16; and Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). 11. Waltz, Theory, 72. 12. Ibid., 95. 13. See Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 135. 14. Ibid., 105. 15. Ibid., 118. 16. Ibid., 97. 17. Ibid., 98. 18. Ibid., 74–76. 19. Ibid., 77. 20. Ibid., 76. 21. Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 22. 22. Ibid., chap. 5. 23. Ibid., 67. 24. Ibid., 73. 25. See ibid., 66. 26. Keohane, “Institutions,” 379.

190 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

NOTES

Waltz, Theory, 72; and Keohane, “Institutions,” 379. Waltz, Theory, 75–76. Keohane, After Hegemony, 64. Waltz, Theory, 79. Ibid., 81. Keohane, “Institutions,” 379. Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, ed. Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 5. Ibid., 6. See Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), chap. 5. Yosef Lapid, “Culture’s Ship: Returns and Departures in International relations Theory,” in The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, ed. Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), 5. Ronen Palan, “A World of Their Making: An Evaluation of the Constructivist Critique in International Relations,” Review of International Studies 26, no. 4 (2000): 577. John Gerard Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 867. Nicholas Onuf, “Constructivism: A User’s Manual,” in International Relations in A Constructed World, ed. Vendulka Kubálková, Nicholas Onuf, and Paul Kowert (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), 58. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 224. Alexander Wendt, “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” International Organization 41, no. 3 (1987): 359. Ibid., 369. Ibid., 366. Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization 46, no. 2 (1992): 393. Alexander Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation and the International State,” American Political Science Review 88, no. 2 (1994): 388. Wendt, Social Theory, 140. Ibid., 148. Ibid., 368. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 395. Wendt, “Collective Identity,” 385. Wendt, Social Theory, 221. There are issues with this view, of course. For debates concerning the potentials for anthropomorphization, see Colin Wight, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

NOTES

191

53. Wendt, “Collective Identity,” 385. 54. See Wendt, “Anarchy,” 404–5; Wendt, “Collective Identity,” 390; Wendt, Social Theory, 330–31; 335; and G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934). 55. Wendt, “Collective Identity,” 385. 56. Wendt, Social Theory, 227. 57. Ibid., 170. 58. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 408–9. 59. Wendt, Social Theory, 82. 60. Ibid., 21. 61. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 411. 62. John Gerard Ruggie, “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations,” International Organization 47, no. 1 (1993): 172. 63. Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 157. 64. Jonathan Mercer, “Anarchy and Identity,” International Organization 49, no. 2 (1995): 252. 65. Ibid., 230. 66. Thomas Risse, Daniela Engelmann-Martin, Hans-Joachim Knopf, and Klaus Roscher, “To Euro or Not to Euro? The EMU and Identity Politics in the European Union,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 2 (1999): 157. 67. Ibid., 154. 68. See Wendt, “Anarchy,” 413. 69. Ziauddin Sardar, Postmodernism and The Other: The New Imperialism of Western Culture (London: Pluto Press, 1998), 8–11. 70. Jenny Edkins, Poststructuralism and International Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 5. 71. Ibid., 22. 72. David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, rev. ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 12. 73. Ibid., 9. 74. Ibid., 23. 75. David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 13. 76. Campbell, Writing Security, 9. 77. Ibid., 3. 78. Ibid., 60. 79. Ibid., 71. 80. Ibid., 32. 81. Campbell, National Deconstruction, 89. 82. Ibid., 92. 83. Ibid., 14. 84. Campbell, Writing Security, 74.

192

NOTES

85. Roxanne Lynn Doty, “Sovereignty and The Nation: Constructing The Boundaries of National Identity,” in State Sovereignty as Social Constructs, ed. Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 123. 86. Ibid., 126. 87. Ibid., 127. 88. Iver B. Neumann, “Self and Other in International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations 2, no. 2 (1996): 148. 89. R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 178–79. 90. Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 126. 91. Campbell, Writing Security, 219. 92. See Wendt, “Anarchy,” 411. 93. Campbell, Writing Security, 220. 94. Roxanne Lyn Doty, “Desire All The Way Down,” Review of International Studies 26, no. 1 (2000): 137. 95. Ibid., 139. 96. Ibid. 97. Wendt, Social Theory, 56. 98. Ibid., 170. 99. Ibid., 21. 100. Ibid., 175. 101. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 397. 102. Ibid., 398. 103. Ibid., 402. 104. Ibid., 404–5. 105. Ibid., 413. 106. Roxanne Lynn Doty, “Aporia: A Critical Exploration of The Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory,” European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 3 (1997): 385. 107. Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation,” 386. 108. Campbell, Writing Security, 5. 109. Ibid., 11. 110. David Campbell, “Foreign Policy and Identity: Japanese ‘Other’/American ‘Self ’,” in The Global Economy as Political Space, ed. Stephen J. Roscow, Naeem Inayatullah, and Mark Rupert (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994), 149; emphases deleted. 111. Campbell, Writing Security, 81. 112. G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), 6. 113. Ibid., 135. 114. Ibid., 164. 115. Wendt, Social Theory, 56.

NOTES

193

116. See Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation.” 117. Wendt, Social Theory, 55–56; Doty, “Desire,” 139. 118. See, for example, Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 101; and Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization 51, no. 4 (1997): 454. 119. See, for example, Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); Thomas U. Berger, “Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in Culture of National Security: Norm and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), chap. 9; Goldstein and Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy”; and Fearon and Laitin, “Violence and Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization 54, no. 4 (2000): 845–77. 120. See Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security 19, no. 3 (1994–1995): 1–49. 121. Palan, “World of Their Making.” 122. Archer, Being Human: The Problem of Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 27.

Chapter 2 1. For general discussion on the critique of both rational choice and postmodern theories on agency, see Margaret Archer, Being Human: The Problem of Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), chap. 1. 2. Irving Velody and Robin Williams, “Introduction,” in The Politics of Constructionism, ed. Irving Velody and Robin Williams (London: Sage, 1998), 3. 3. See Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 2. 4. David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 9. 5. Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of The Contemporary Human Sciences, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 1998), 3; and Margaret S. Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 70–71. 6. Margaret S. Archer, “Realism and The Problem of Agency,” Journal of Critical Realism, 5, no. 1 (2002): 12. 7. Understandably, the term, antirealism, is a broad categorisation. But I use it as a “signpost” in order to appreciate their thinking about identity. See, for example, Irving Velody and Robin Williams, “Introduction,” in The Politics of Constructionism, ed. Irving Velody and Robin Williams (London: Sage, 1998); and Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), chap. 1.

194

NOTES

8. Craig Calhoun, “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity,” in Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994), 12. 9. Ibid., 10. 10. Margaret R. Somers and Gloria D. Gibson, “Reclaiming the Epistemological ‘Other’: Narratives and the Social Construction of Identity,” in Social Theory, ed. Calhoun, 38. 11. Ibid., 61. 12. Calhoun, “Social Theory,” 10. 13. Maykel Verkuyten, “Symbols and Social Representations,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 25, no. 2 (1995): 268. 14. Sandra Jovchelovitch, “In Defence of Representations,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 26, no. 2 (1996): 125. 15. Ibid., 132. 16. Wolfgang Wagner, “Queries About Social Representation and Construction,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 26, no. 2 (1996): 108. 17. John R. Gillis, “Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship,” in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, John R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 5. 18. David Lowenthal, “Identity, Heritage, and History,” in Commemorations, ed. Gillis, 52. 19. Dorinne K. Kondo, Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 29. 20. Ibid., 48. 21. Anne-Marie Costalat-Founeau, “Identity Dynamics, Action and Context,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 29, no. 3 (1999): 289. 22. Ibid., 290. 23. Kondo, Crafting Selves, chap. 7. 24. Constalat-Founeau, “Identity Dynamics,” 296. 25. See G. H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934). 26. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), Case 329. 27. John Shotter, Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through Language (London: Sage, 1993), 26. 28. Ibid., 44. 29. Sandy Petrey, Speech Acts and Literary Theory (London: Sage, 1990), 77. 30. Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (New York: Routledge, 1997), 5. 31. Ibid., 7–8. 32. Ibid., 28. 33. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991), 46. 34. Ibid., chap. 5. 35. Kondo, Crafting Selves.

NOTES

195

36. Colin Wight, “They Shoot Dead Horses Don’t They? Locating Agency in the Agent-Structure Problematique,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 1 (1999): 112. 37. Sandy Petrey, Speech Acts and Literary Theory (London: Routledge, 1990), 3. 38. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakrovarty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 56. 39. Ibid., 150. 40. See Douglas V. Porpora, “The Caterpillar’s Question: Contesting AntiHumanism’s Contentions,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 27, no. 2/3 (1997): 251; and Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 55–56. 41. Petrey, Speech Acts, 134. 42. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976); and Wendt, Social Theory. 43. Irving Velody and Robin Williams, “Introduction,” in The Politics of Constructionism, ed. Irving Velody and Robin Williams (London: Sage, 1999), 3. 44. Ian Parker, “Realism, Relativism and Critique in Psychology,” in Social Constructionism, Discourse and Realism, ed. Ian Parker (London: Sage, 1998), chap. 1. 45. Ian Hacking, “On Being More Literal about Construction,” in The Politics, ed. Velody and Williams, 54. 46. John Gerard Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 855–85. 47. See a similar discussion in education, see Bronwyn Davies, “Psychology’s Subject: A Commentary on the Relativism/Realism Debate,” in Social Constructionism, ed. Parker, chap. 10. 48. See The Economist, January 2, 1999, 50–52. 49. See Shotter, Conversational Realities. 50. Velody and Williams, “Introduction,” 10; and see also Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 1998), 81–82. 51. Petrey, Speech Acts, 132. 52. Ibid., chap. 4; and Shotter, Conversational Realities. 53. Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism, 83. 54. John R. Searle, Intentionaltiy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 5. 55. Mead, Mind, 78. 56. Porpora, “The Caterpillar,” 251. 57. See Searle, Intentionality, chap. 5. 58. John R. Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 51. 59. David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, rev. ed. (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1998), 9.

196

NOTES

60. Don Foster, “Across the S-S Divide,” in Social Constructionism, ed. Parker, 111. 61. Mead, Mind, 135. 62. Ibid., 155–56. 63. Ibid., 162. 64. Ibid., 164. 65. Thomas Berger and Peter Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (London: Penguin, 1966), 152. 66. Margaret S. Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), chap. 8. 67. Ibid., 122. 68. Ibid., 257. 69. Ian Burkitt, “Relations, Communication and Power,” in The Politics, ed. Velody and Williams, 121. 70. See, for example, Campbell, “Epilogue,” Writing Security. 71. Porpora, “The Caterpillar,” 243. 72. See Searle, The Rediscovery, 212–14. 73. Porpora, “The Caterpillar,” 258. 74. Archer, Realist Social Theory, chap. 8; and Searle, Intentionality, chap. 5. 75. Searle, The Rediscovery, 193. 76. Archer, Realist Social Theory, 257. 77. Campbell, Writing Security, 9. 78. Searle, Intentionality, chap. 5; and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (London: Penguin, 1995), chap. 6. 79. Searle, Intentionality, 143. 80. Ibid., 143–44. 81. Searle, The Construction, 129. 82. Searle, Intentionaltiy, 153. 83. Porpora, “The Caterpillar,” 246. 84. Ibid., 252. 85. Ibid.; and see also Archer, Realist Social Theory, 257. 86. Colin Wight, Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), chap. 8. 87. Ibid., chap. 5. 88. Searle, The Construction, 23–26. 89. See Archer, Realist Social Theory, chap. 8. 90. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965). 91. Archer, Realist Social Theory, 255. 92. Ibid., 276. 93. W. James Booth, “Communities of Memory: On Identity, Memory, and Debt,” American Political Science Review 93, no. 2 (1999): 252. 94. Ibid., 253. 95. Archer, Being Human, 123. 96. Ibid., 126.

NOTES

97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128.

197

Gillis, “Memory,” 5. Miki Kiyoshi, Miki Kiyoshi essensu (Tokyo: Kobushi bunko, 2000), 209. Archer, Being Human, 123. Gillis, “Memory,” 11. Archer, Being Human, 132. Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Afterward: Revisiting the Tradition/Modernity Binary,” in The Mirror of Modernity, ed. Stephen Vlastos (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), chap. 18. Archer, Realist Social Theory, chap. 9. Booth, “Communities of Memory,” 252. Miki, Miki Kiyoshi essensu, 278. See Vlastos, ed., Mirror of Modernity, for various “inventions” of Japanese traditions. Watsuji Tetsuro, Fudo: ningengaku-teki kosatsu (Tokyo: Iwanami bunko, 1979), 18–28. Archer, Being Human, 126. Searle, The Construction, 23–26. See Booth, “Communities”; and Gillis, ed., Commemorations. John R. Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 35; and Searle, The Construction, chap. 4. Searle, Intentionality, 94. Ibid., 167–68. Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 24–25. See Wight, “They Shoot Dead Horses,” 125–35. Robert Maier, “Forms of Identity and Argumentation,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 26, no. 1 (1996): 44. Ibid., 84. Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism, 36. Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984), 26. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 25. Margaret S. Archer, Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 80. Archer, Realist Social Theory, 64. Ibid., chap. 9. Ibid., chap. 8; and Searle, Intentionality, chap. 5. See Porpora, “The Caterpillar.” See Olson, The Logic. Archer, Realist Social Theory.

198

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Chapter 3 1. See Maruyama Masao, Gendai seiji no shiso to kodo (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1964), chap. 1. 2. Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 249. 3. Ibid., 143–44. 4. Yoon Keun-cha, Nippon kokumin-ron: kindai Nippon no aidentiti (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1997), 11–12. 5. Maruyama Masao, Nippon no shiso (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1961), 33–34. 6. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991). 7. Yoon, Nippon kokumin-ron, 14. 8. Maruyama, Nippon no shiso, 9–10. 9. See R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 10. See Marius B. Hansen, “Japanese Imperialism: Later Meiji Perspectives,” in The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945, ed. Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 66. 11. See Yoon, Nippon, chap. 1. 12. Bob Tadashi Wakabayahi, “Introduction,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 11. 13. Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, 37. 14. Ibid., 145. 15. Ito quoted in Yoshimitsu Khan, “Inoue Kowashi and the Dual Images of the Emperor of Japan,” Pacific Affairs 71, no. 2 (1998): 223. 16. It must be noted that the term “emperor system” (tennosei) was first used by the Comintern in 1932. Therefore, the term would have been considered lese majeste under the Peace Preservation Law, due to its left-wing origin. It is ironic, then, to see that the term is now used to denote the prewar polity, and in particular to the ultranationalism of the 1930s and the 1940s. See Bito Masahide, “Nippon shijo ni okeru kindai tennosei: tenno kikan-setsu no rekishiteki haikei,” Shiso 794 (August 1990): 4–30. 17. Hence what in fact was a “coup d’etat” became known as the Meiji Restoration, and not the Revolution: bringing back the emperor and thereby deriving his legitimacy. 18. Maruyama, Nippon no shiso, 31–32. 19. Ibid., 32. 20. Quoted in Khan, “Inoue Kowashi,” 222. 21. Maruyama, Nippon no shiso, 33. 22. Ibid., 34. 23. From a description of the Rescript in Meiji Jingu Shrine, http://www.meijijingu .or.jp/ english/intro/education/index.htm (accessed 1 July 1999). 24. Ibid. 25. Gluck, Modern Myths, 147.

NOTES

199

26. Maruyama, Gendai seij, 161. 27. Ibid., 162. 28. Quoted in Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power (London: Papermac, 1990), 240. See also Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 50. 29. Masao Miyoshi, Off Center: Power and Culture Relations Between Japan and the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 186. 30. Wakabayashi, “Introduction,” 16–17. 31. Naito quoted in Yue-Him Tam, “An Intellectual’s Response to Western Intrusion: Naito Konan’s View of Republican China,” in The Chinese and the Japanese: Essays in Political and Cultural Interactions, ed. Akira Iriye (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 175. 32. Fukuzawa quoted in Yumiko Iida, “Fleeing the West, Making Asia Home: Transpositions of Otherness in Japanese Pan-Asianism, 1905–1930,” Alternatives 22, no. 3 (1997): 414. 33. Ibid., 417; and Iriye Akira, Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1966), 61–63. 34. Michael Weiner, “The Invention of Identity: Race and Nation in Pre-war Japan,” in The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan, ed. Frank Dikötter (London: Hurst, 1997), 99. 35. Louis Young, “Rethinking Race from Manchukuo: Self and Other in the Colonial Context,” in The Construction of Racial Identities, ed. Dikötter, 160. 36. Kimura Kan, “‘Fuketsu’ to ‘osore’: bungaku-sha ni miru Nipponjin no Kankoku imeji,” in Kindai Nippon no Ajia-kan, ed. Okamoto Koji (Kyoto: Minerva, 1998), chap. 4. 37. See Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, 30–33. 38. Yamagata quoted in Hirono Yoshihiko, “Yamagata Aritomo: ‘Yamagata Aritomo ikensho,’” in Kindai Nippon gaiko-shisoshi nyumon, ed. Seki Shizuo (Kyoto: Minerva, 1999), 59. 39. Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, 79. 40. Quoted in Iida, “Fleeing the West,” 415. 41. Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, 79. 42. Tetsuo Najita and H. D. Harootunian, “Japan’s Revolt Against the West,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Wakabayashi 208. 43. Masuda Hiroshi, “Ishibashi Tanzan: ‘Sho-Nippon shugi,’” in Kindai Nippon gaiko shiso, ed. Seki 168. 44. Otsuka Takehiro, “Okawa Shumei no Ajia-kan,” in Kindai Nippon no Ajiakan, ed. Okamoto 217. 45. Najita and Harootunian, “Japan’s Revolt,” 264 46. W. G. Beaseley, The Rise of Modern Japan (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1990), 130–31. 47. Seki Shizuo, “Shidehara Kijuro no ‘taishi gaiko’: naisei fukansho-shugi wo chushin ni,” in Kindai Nippon no Ajia-kan, ed. Okamoto Koji (Mierva Shobo), chap. 5. 48. Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, 92–93.

200

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49. Beasley, The Rise of Modern Japan, 114–20; and Shimada Yoichi, “Inoue Junnosuke: ‘Inoue Junnosuke ronsen,’” in Kindai Nippon gaiko shiso, ed. Seki (Minerva Shobo), chap. 11. 50. Maruyama, Gendai seiji, 32. 51. Wakabayashi, “Introduction,” 12–13. 52. Ibid., 44. 53. Quoted in Ibid., 64; and Richard J. Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 127. 54. Smethurst, A Social Basis, xxi. 55. See Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths. 56. Okawa quoted in Maruyama, Gendai seiji, 41. 57. Otsuka, “Okawa Shumei,” 214. 58. Okawa quoted in Najita and Harootunian, “Japan’s Revolt,” 227. 59. Ibid., 230. 60. See, for example, Keiichi Takeuchi, “Japanese Geopolitics in The 1930s and 1940s,” in Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought, ed. Klaus Dodds and David Atkinson (London: Routledge, 2000), chap. 4. 61. Otsuka Takehiro, “Ishiwara Kanji: ‘Sekai saishu-sen ron,’” in Kindai Nippon gaiko shiso, ed. Seki (Minerva Shobo), 202. 62. Ibid., 210. 63. Okamoto Koji, “Kita Ikki no Ajia-shugi,” in Okamoto ed. Kindai Nippon no Ajia-kan, 197. 64. Quoted in Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, 125. 65. Matsuoka quoted in Suzuki Asao, “Dai-toa kyoei-ken no shiso,” in Okamoto ed. Kindai Nippon no ajia-kan, 253. 66. Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, chap. 7. 67. Miyoshi, Off Center, 186. 68. See, for example, Tanaka Akihiko, Anzen hosho: sengo 50 nen no mosaku (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1997), 13–18. 69. Ibid., 15. 70. For the details of the Tokyo Trial, see Richard H. Minear, Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1971). 71. Eto Jun, Tozasareta gengo kukan: senryo-gun no kenetsu to sengo Nippon (Tokyo: Bunshun bunko, 1994), chap. 10. 72. Miyoshi, Off Center 261, no. 14 (1991), 261n14. 73. John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1999), 25. 74. Quoted in Ibid., 84. 75. Quoted in Iriye Akira, Shin Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1991), 50. 76. Charles L. Kades, “The American Role in Revising Japan’s Imperial Constitution,” Political Science Quarterly 104, no. 2 (1989): 218. 77. Theodore McNelly, “The Role of Monarchy in the Political Modernization of Japan,” Comparative Politics 1, no. 3 (1969): 376. 78. For SCAP sensitivities, see Dower, Embracing Defeat, part IV.

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79. Taken from Dan Henno Henderson, ed., The Constitution of Japan: Its First Twenty Years, 1947–67 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), Appendix. The translation here is the one provided by the Ministry of Justice in 1958. 80. See Courtney Purrington, “Tokyo’s Policy Responses During the Gulf War and the Impact of the ‘Iraqi Shock’ on Japan,” Pacific Affairs 65, no. 2 (1992): 161–81. 81. See, for example, Prime Minister Aso Taro’s speech to the UNGA on September 26, 2008, when he reaffirmed Japan’s commitment to fighting terrorism, while simultaneously reiterating Tokyo’s pursuit of peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/asospeech/2008/09/25speech .html (accessed September 26, 2008). 82. Quoted in Iriye, Shin Nippon, 50. 83. Quoted in Bert Edström, Japan’s Evolving Foreign Policy Doctrine: From Yoshida to Miyazawa (London: Macmillan, 1999), 12. 84. Ibid., 14. 85. Ibid., 15–16. 86. Kenneth B. Pyle, The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in A New Era, 2nd ed. (Washington: AEI Press, 1996), 25. 87. See Tanaka, Anzen hosho, 56–60. 88. Sun-ki Chai, “Entrenching the Yoshida Defense Doctrine: Three Techniques for Institutinalization,” International Organization 51, no. 3 (1997): 397. 89. Tanaka, Anzen hosho, 20–21. 90. John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 7. 91. Quoted in Edström, Evolving Foreign Policy, 39. 92. Quoted in Watanabe Osamu, “Sengo hoshu seiji no naka no Abe-seiken,” Gendai shiso 35, no. 1 (2007): 119. 93. Murayama’s speech to the Diet, January 1995, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/ sisei.html (accessed March 20, 2000). 94. Hashimoto’s speech to the Diet, 22 January 1996, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/ danwa-122 (accessed March 20, 2000). 95. Obuchi’s speech to the Diet, January 28, 2000, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/ souri/2000/0128sisei.html (accessed March 20, 2000). 96. http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/hukudaspeech/2008/05/22speech.html (accessed May 23, 2008). 97. Masaru Tamamoto, “The Uncertainty of the Self: Japan at Century’s End,” World Policy Journal 16, no. 2 (1999): 125. 98. See Nakano Koichi, “Nationalism and Localism in Japan’s Political Debate of the 1990s,” The Pacific Review 11, no. 4 (1998): 510. 99. Quoted in Edström, Evolving Foreign Policy, 19. 100. Ibid., 40. 101. Shigeki Nishimura, “Security Issues and Defense of Japan,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 6, no. 1 (1994): 133.

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102. Yong-Ok Park, “Japan’s Defense Buildup and Regional Balance,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 3, no. 1 (1991): 85–100. 103. Ryu Yamazaki, “Review of the Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation: A Japanese Perspective,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 9, no. 2 (1997): 31. 104. Ibid., 43–44. 105. Kakizawa quoted in Tsuneo Akaha, “Japan’s Security Agenda in the Post-Cold War Era,” The Pacific Review 8, no. 1 (1995): 64. 106. Tanaka, Anzen, 297. 107. See Thomas U. Berger, “From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Culture of Anti-militarism,” International Security 17, no. 4 (1993): 119–50; Thomas U. Berger, “Norms, Identity and National Security in Germany and Japan” in The Culture of National Security: Norms an Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan’s National Security: Structures, Norms and Policies,” International Security 17, no. 4 (1993): 82–118; and Katzenstein, Cultural Norms. Also see the exchange between Hendrik Spruyt and Reinhard Drifte regarding the role of the United States; Hendrik Spruyt, “A New Architecture for Peace? Reconfiguring Japan Among the Great Powers,” The Pacific Review 11, no. 3 (1998), 364–88; and Reinhard Drifte, “An Old Architecture for Peace? Reconfiguring Japan Among Unreconfigured Great Powers,” The Pacific Review 12, no. 3 (1999), 479–89. 108. See Peter Polomka, “East Asian Security in a Changing World: Japan’s Security for a ‘Third Way,’” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 4, no. 2 (1992): 71–94; Yoshida Shigeru, “Nippon gaiko no ayundekita michi,” in Sengo Nippon gaikoron-shu: kowa ronso kara wangan senso made, ed. Kitaoka Shinichi (Tokyo: Chuo Koron, 1995), 99–113; Amaya Naohiro, “‘Chonin kokka: Nippon’ tedai no kurigoto: kokusai shakai wo shitataka na chonin toshite ikinuku tameni,” in Gaikoronshu, ed. Kitaoka, 365–95; Nishimura, “Security Issues,” 124; Tanaka, Anzen, 273; and Pyle, Japanese Question, 37–38. 109. Graham, Japan’s Sea Lane Security, 36. 110. Quoted in Edström, Evolving Foreign Policy, 12. 111. Quoted in Ibid., 77. 112. Fukuda quoted in Tanaka, Anzen, 273. 113. Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan’s National Security”; and Katzenstein, Cultural Norms. 114. Graham, Japan’s Sea Lane Security, 73. 115. Yukio Satoh, “Emerging Trends in Asia-Pacific Security: The Role of Japan,” The Pacific Review 8, no. 2 (1995): 275. 116. MOFA, ODA Summary 1998, http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/summary/ 1998/index.html (accessed March 31, 2000). 117. http://www.mod.go.jp/j/defense/policy/seisaku/kihon01.htm (accessed June 26, 2008). 118. Quoted in Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy, 92–93.

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119. See Leonard Schoppa, “The Social Context in Coercive International Bargaining,” International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 307–42. 120. Amako Satoshi, “Chugoku wa kyoi ka,” in Chugoku wa kyoi ka, ed. Amako Satoshi (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1997), 19. 121. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms, 114. 122. Enomoto quoted in Ebara Takuji, Ikai Takaaki, and Ikeda Masahiro, ed., Nippon kindai shiso taikei, Vol. 12; Taigai kan (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1988), 44. 123. Ibid., 7. 124. Thomas U. Berger, “Norms, Identity, and national Security in Germany and Japan,” in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 331. 125. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 25. 126. The Program of the JCP; http://www.jcp.or.jp/Jcdata/koryo/e-koryo .html#index (accessed September 7, 1999). 127. Arguably the process of constructing “New Japan” involved corruption and pork-barrel politics. But they were in a way the very dynamics of the postwar reconstruction and illustrated the role of the conservatives in bringing about this “change.” See Inoguchi, Nippon, 137–45. 128. Carol Gluck, “Idea of Showa,” in Showa: Japan of Hirohito, ed. Carol Gluck and Stephen R. Graubard (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 10. 129. Quoted in Edström, Evolving Foreign Policy, 19. 130. Quoted in Dower, Embracing Defeat, 384. 131. Yoshida Shigeru, “Nippon gaiko,” 113. 132. Ibid. 133. Miki quoted in Takashi Terada, “The Origins of Japan’s APEC Policy: Foreign Minister Takeo Miki’s Asia-Pacific Policy and Current Implications,” The Pacific Review 11, no. 3 (1998): 339. 134. Quoted in Nathaniel B. Thayer, “Japanese Foreign Policy in the Nakasone Years,” in Japan’s Foreign Policy After the Cold War: Coping with Change, ed. Gerald L. Curtis (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 91. 135. Quoted in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/ library/world/ asia/020500japan-nakasone.html (accessed February 5, 2000). 136. Quoted in Edström, Evolving Foreign Policy, 125. 137. Ibid., 127. 138. Murayama’s speech to the Diet on July 18, 1994, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/ murayama.html (accessed March 20, 2000). 139. Obuchi’s speech to the Diet on November 27, 1998, http://www.kantei.go.jp/ jp/soouri/981127 syosinhyoumei.html (accessed March 20, 2000). 140. Aso speech to the UNGA, September 25, 2008, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/ asospeech/2008/09/25speech.html (accessed September 26, 2008). 141. Kenzaburo Oe, “Japan’s Search for Identity in the Nuclear Era,” Alternatives 7, no. 4 (1981): 559.

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142. MOFA, Diplomatic Blue Book, http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/b_v/seisho1998/ index.html (accessed March 31, 2000). 143. Eisuke Sakakibara, “The Once and Future Boom,” The Economist, March 22, 1997, 80. 144. See Dower, Embracing Defeat. 145. Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (London: Verso, 2007), 6. 146. Ibid., 13. 147. Graham, Japan’s Sea Lane Security, 98–99. 148. See Gluck, “The Idea of Showa,” 13. 149. Dower, Embracing Defeat, 419. 150. Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the US Occupation of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); and Yoon, Nippon kokumin-ron, chap. 3. 151. Koshiro, Trans-Pacific, 2. 152. Yoon, Nippon kokumin-ron, chap. 3. 153. Koshiro, Trans-Pacific, chap. 3; and Dower, Embracing Defeat, 394. 154. Quoted in Dower, Embracing Defeat, 237; See also Andrew E. Barshay, “Postwar Social and Political Thought, 1945–1990,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Wakabayashi, 273–74. 155. Quoted in Koshiro, Trans-Pacific, 203. 156. See Edström, Evolving Foreign Policy. 157. Eric Heginbotham and Richard J. Samuels, “Mercantile Realism and Japanese Foreign Policy,” International Security 22, no. 4 (1998): 171–203; and Kent E. Calder, “Japanese Foreign economic Policy Formation: Explaining the Reactive State,” World Politics 40, no. 4 (1988): 517–41. 158. See Roxanne Lynn Doty, “Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory,” European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 3 (1997): 365–92; Colin Wight, “They Shoot Dead Horses Don’t They? Locating Agency in the Agent-Structure Problematique,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 1 (1999): 109–42; David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, rev. ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); and Margaret S. Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 159. See Andrew E. Barshay, “Postwar Social and Political Thought,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chap. 6; and Dower, Embracing Defeat, chap. 16. 160. See, for example, Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy for the 21st Century: From Economic Superpower to What Power? (London: Macmillan, 1998), 161–63.

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Chapter 4 1. “Korea” in this and the following chapters refers to both the Korean peninsula and South Korea (the Republic of Korea, or ROK), since my focus in this book is on the bilateral relations between Japan and the ROK. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will be referred to as either North Korea or DPRK. 2. Peter Duus and Irwin Scheiner, “Socialism, Liberalism, and Marxism, 1901– 31,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 147–49. 3. George Alexander Lensen, Balance of Intrigue: International Rivalry in Korea and Manchuria, 1884–1899, vol. 1 (Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1982), 1–2. 4. Maruyama Masao, Nippon no shiso (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1961), 9. See also Masao Miyoshi, Off Center: Power and Cultural Relations Between Japan and the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 186. 5. Yanaibara quoted in Ebara Takuji, Ikai Takaaki, and Ikeda Masahiro, eds., Taigai-kan, Nippon kindai shiso taikei, vol. 12 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1988), 14–15. 6. Lensen, Balance of Intrigue, vol. 1, 2. 7. Lee Tejin, “Kankoku heigo wa seiritsu shite inai: Nippon no daikan teikoku kokken shimbaku to joyaku kyosei (1),” Sekai, July 1998, 302. 8. Takeuchi Yoshimi, “Introduction,” in Gendai shiso taikei vol. 9: Ajia shugi, ed. Takeuchi Yoshimi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1963). 9. For example, one Meiji ideologue, Kuga Katsunan, noted in 1895 that “the difference between leaving Korea in the hands of China, on the one hand, and placing it in Japan’s hands, on the other, is evident with respect to the prospects for international peace and order in East Asia.” Quoted in Ebara Yoshiyasu, “Nisshin-senso ni okeru Kuga Katsunan no taigai seisaku-ron,” Nippon rekishi, June 1993, 81. 10. See, for example, Fukuhara Mantaro, Kindai Nippon no taikan seisaku (Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki, 1991), 94. 11. See, for example, Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 30–31. 12. Frederick Foo Chien, The Opening of Korea: A Study of Chinese Diplomacy 1876–1885 (New York: Shoe String Press, 1967), 20. 13. Quoted in Ebara et al., Taigai-kan, 12–13. 14. Fukuhara, Kindai Nippon, 96. 15. Kido quoted in Duus, Abacus and the Sword, 32–33. 16. Marlene J. Mayo, “The Korean Crisis of 1873 and Early Meiji Foreign Policy,” Journal of Asian Studies 31, no. 4 (1972), 798. 17. Ibid., 814–15. 18. Quoted in Ebara et al., Tagai-kan, 40.

206 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46.

NOTES

Unno Fukuju, Nikkan heigo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1995), 10. Chien, The Opening, 47. Duus, Abacus and the Sword, 49. Ibid. Ibid., 48. Quoted in Ebara et al., Taigai-kan, 43–46. Ibid., 52–53. Ibid., 53–54. W. G. Beasely, The Rise of Modern Japan (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle, 1990), 145. See Fukuhara, Kindai Nippon, 157. Yoon Keun-cha, Nippon kokumin-ron: kindai Nippon no aidentiti (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1997), 32. Duus, Abacus and the Sword, 71. Of course, one must not forget the Triple Intervention following the war. It dented Japanese euphoria following the victory, and Korea remained under threat from Western intervention, namely Russia. But now that China was defeated, Japan felt less inhibited from pursuing its interests on the peninsula. For a brief overview of events surrounding the Triple Intervention, see Beasely, Rise of Modern Japan, 146–51. Quoted in Iriye Akira, Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1966), 38. See Unno, Nikkan heigo, 233. Ibid., 151. C. I. Eugene Kim and Han-kyo Kim, Korea and the Politics of Imperialism, 1876–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 128. Quoted in Kim and Kim, Korea, 137. Quoted in Stewart Lone, “The Japanese Annexation of Korea 1910: The Failure of Far East Asian Co-Prosperity,” Modern Asian Studies 25, no. 1 (1991): 149–50. Ibid., 138. Uchida, quoted in Takeuchi, ed., Gendai Nippon shiso taikei, Vol. 9: Ajia-shugi (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1963), 206. Quoted in Hatano Masaru, Kindai higashi-Ajia no seiji hendo to Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Keio Tsushin, 1995), 88. Moriyama Shigenori, Kindai Nikkan kankeishi: Chosen shokuminchi-ka to kokusai kankei (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1987), 218–19. Duus, Abacus and the Sword, 230. Ibid., 236. Quoted in Unno, Nikkan heigo, 219. I say “signed” since it was more of a coercion. I shall not go into the details of this process, since much research has been done on this. But it is worth noting that there are debates on whether the Treaty was “void” or rather it was “never established” to begin with. See, for example, Lee Tejin, “Kankoku heigo wa seiritsu shite inai,” 185–96. Unno, Nikkan heigo, 234.

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47. Nakatsuka Akira, Kindai Nippon no Chosen ninshiki (Tokyo: Kenbun Shuppan, 1993), 101. 48. See Maruyama Masao, Gendai seij no shiso to kodo (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1964), 20. 49. Kimura Kan, “‘Fuketsu’ to ‘osore’: bungakusha ni miru Nippon-jin no Kankoku imeji,” in Kindai Nippon no Ajia-kan, ed. Okamoto Koji (Kyoto: Minerva, 1998), 116. 50. Hirata Yuji, Kyoiku chokugo kokusai kankei-shi no kenkyu: kantei honyaku chokugo wo chushin to shite (Tokyo: Kazama Shobo, 1997), 407–8. 51. Ibid., 408. 52. See Iriye, Nippon no gaiko, 84. 53. Lee Chong-sik, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 108. 54. See ibid., chap. 7, for more details on the movement. 55. See Dae-yeol Kim, Korea Under Colonialism: The March First Movement and Anglo-Japanese Relations (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Seoul Branch, 1985), 102. 56. Quoted in ibid., 103. 57. Ibid., 103–4. 58. Ibid., 105. 59. Nakatsuku Akira, Kindai Nippon no Chosen ninshiki (Tokyo Kenbun Shuppan, 1993), 106. 60. Ibid., 105. 61. Kim, Korea Under Colonialism, 125–26. 62. Haraguchi Yoshio, “3.1 undo danatsu-jiken no kenkyu: keimu-kyoku nichiji hokoku no hihanteki kento wo chushin ni shite,” Chosen-shi kenkyu-kai ronbun-shu 23 (1986), 225. 63. Kimura, “‘Fuketsu’ to ‘osore.’” 64. Hamaguchi Yuko, Nippon tochi to Higashi-Ajia shakai: shokuminchi Chosen to Manshu no hikaku kenkyu (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1996), 28. 65. Lee, The Politics, 260. 66. Kimura, “‘Fuketsu’ to ‘osore,’” 116. 67. Lee, quoted in The Politics, 244. 68. Peter Duus, quoted in “Shokuminchi naki teikoku-shugi: ‘Dai Toa kyoeiken’ no koso,” trans. Fujiwara Kiichi, Shiso 814 (April 1992), 110. 69. Nakatsuka, Chosen ninshiki, 116. 70. Yoon Keun-cha, “Shokuminchi Nipponjin no seishin kozo: ‘teikoku ishiki’ towa nanika,” Shiso 778 (April 1989), 24. 71. See John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1999), 287; and Andrew Barshay, “Postwar Political and Social Thought,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Wakabayashi, 274. 72. Lawrence Olson, Japan in Postwar Asia (London: Pall Mall Press, 1970), 103. 73. Ibid., 107.

208

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74. Ibid., 109. 75. Chung Dae-kyun, Kankoku no imeji (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1995), 63–71. 76. See Dower, Embracing Defeat, 381–82; and Yoon Keun-cha, Nippon kokuminron, chap. 3. 77. Yoon, Nippon kokumin-ron, 122. 78. Tanaka Hiroshi, quoted in “Sengo Nippon to posuto-shokuminchi mondai,” Shiso 734 (August 1985): 44. 79. See Chung, Kankoku, 63–71, for instances of Koreans acting as though if they were “victors” in the war. 80. Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the US Occupation of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press), 114. 81. Ibid., 117. 82. Tanaka Hiroshi, quoted in “Sengo Nippon to posuto-shokuminchi mondai,” 45. 83. See, for example, Lee Chong-sik, Sengo Nikkan kankei-shi, trans. Okonogi Masao and Furuta Hiroshi (Tokyo: Chuo koron, 1989); Chung, Kankoku, 71–81; and Kwang-bok Kim, The Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis and the Instability of the Korean Political System (New York: Praeger, 1971), 58–64. 84. Chung, Kankoku, 72. 85. Ko Jun Suk, Sengoki Cho-Nichi kankei-shi (Tokyo: Tabata Shoten, 1974), 75. 86. Olson, Japan in Postwar Asia, 103. 87. See Kimura Shuzo, “Nikkan kosho no keii,” in Nikkan kankei no Tenkai, Kokusai seiji 2 (1962), 114–15. 88. Kim, Treaty Crisis, 42–43. 89. Sasaki Ryuji, “Imakoso Nikkan joyaku no minaoshi wo,” Sekai, April 1993, 124. 90. See Takasaki Soji, “Dai-sanji Nikkan kaidan to ‘Kubota hatsugen,’” Shiso 734 (August 1985): 53–68, for details on the remarks. 91. Quoted in ibid., 56. 92. Ibid., 60; see also Sasaki, “Imakoso Nikkan joyaku,” 123. 93. Takasaki, “Dai-sanji,” 56. 94. Ibid., 58; emphases added. 95. Ibid., 53. 96. See ibid., 59; and Chung, Kankoku, 74–75. 97. Takasaki Soji, “Nikkan joyaku de hosho wa kaiketsu shitaka,” Sekai, September 1992, 41. 98. Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 70–71. 99. Yoshizawa Fumitoshi, quoted in “Nikkan kaidan ni okeru seikyu-ken kosho no seiji-teki daketsu: 1962-nen 3-gatsu kara 12-gatsu made wo chushin to shite,” Chosen-shi kenkyu-kai ronbun-shu 36 (1998): 179. 100. Ibid., 71–72. 101. Kim, quoted in Treaty Crisis, 49. 102. Kim, Ikeda, and Takasuki quoted in Treaty Crisis, 49. 103. Tanaka, quoted in “Sengo Nippon,” 47; and also Kim, Treaty Crisis, 49.

NOTES

209

104. Sakamoto Shigeki, “Nikkan wa joyaku mondai no otoshi-ana ni hamatte wa naranai,” Sekai, September 1998, 195. 105. Ibid., 203. 106. Nakatsuka, quoted in Kindai Nippon no Chosen ninshiki, 17–18 107. Lee, “Kankoku heigo (2),” 194. 108. Sakamoto, “Nikkan wa joyaku mondai,” 194. 109. Brian Bridges, Korea and the West (Chatham House Papers, 33) (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 64. 110. Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 35. 111. Kimura Masato, “Nippon no Taikan minkan keizai gaiko: kokko seijo-ka wo meguru Kansai zaikai no ugoki,” Chosen hanto no kokusai seiji, Kokusai Seiji 92 (1989): 117. 112. Ko Jun-suk, Sengoki Cho-Nichi kankeishi (Tokyo: Tachibana shoten, 1974), 174–75. 113. Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 91–92. 114. Olson, Japan in Postwar Asia, 162. 115. Quoted in Kim, Treaty Crisis, 89. 116. Olson, Japan in Postwar Asia, 165. 117. See, for example, Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 151–55. 118. Quoted in Hong N. Kim, “Japanese-South Korean Relations After the Park Assassination,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 1, no. 4 (1982): 77. 119. The Economist, October 10, 1998, 88. 120. Byung-joon Ahn, “The United States and Korean-Japanese Relations,” in The US-South Korean Alliance: Evolving Patterns in Security Relations, ed. Gerald L. Curtis and Sung-joo Han (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1983), 151. 121. Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 44. 122. Kim Yong-seul, Nikkan kankei no sai-kochiku to Ajia (Fukuoka: Kyushu Daigaku Shuppankai, 1995), 28–29. 123. Ibid., 48. 124. Byung-joon Ahn, quoted in “Japanese Policy Toward Korea,” 267. See Byungjoon Ahn, “The United States and Korean-Japanese Relations,” in The USSouth Korean Alliance: Evolving Patterns in Security Relations, ed. Gerald L. Curtis and Sung-joo Han (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1983), chap. 6. 125. See Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 179 for a similar argument regarding Nakasone’s plan to resolve the aid issue in the run up to his meeting with Reagan. 126. For detailed discussion of the textbook case, see Lee, Sengo Nikkan, chap. 6; and Chong-sik Lee, “History and Politics in Japanese-Korean Relations: The Textbook Controversy and Beyond,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 2, no. 4 (1983): 69–93. 127. Yoon Keun-cha, “1982-nen kyokasho mondai,” Shiso 734 (August 1985): 71. 128. Chung Dae-kyun, Ilbon no imeji: Kankoku-jin no Nipponkan (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1998), 102. 129. Chung quoting Tanaka Akihiko in ibid., 102–3. 130. Yoon, “1982-nen,” 77. See also Lee, Sengo Nippon, 204.

210

NOTES

131. The Economist, March 4, 2000, 83. 132. See George Hicks, Japan’s Hidden Apartheid: The Korean Minority and the Japanese (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997). 133. See, for example, Nihon keizai shimbun, satellite edition, April 11, 2000, 35; and Asahi Shimbun, satellite edition, April 12, 2000, 3. 134. Kim, Nikkan kankei, 82. 135. Victor D. Cha, “What Drives Korea-Japan Security Relations?” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 10, no. 2 (1998): 70. 136. Taewoo Kim, “Japan’s New Security Roles and ROK-Japan Relations,” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 11, no. 1 (1999): 149. 137. See Lensen, Balance of Intrigue, vol. 1, 2; and The Economist, October 10, 1998, 88–89. 138. Taku Tamaki, “Taking the ‘Taken-for-Grantedness’ Seriously: Problematizing Japan’ Perpection of Japan-South Korea Relations,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 4, no. 2 (2004): 147–69.

Chapter 5 1. See, for example, Victor Cha, “Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea,” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (2000): 261–91; and Dorothy Robins-Mowry, ed., Is a Korea-Japan Symbiosis Possible? (New York: The Pacific Institute/Asia Institute, 1996). 2. Taku Tamaki, “An Unholy Pilgrimage? Yasukuni and the Construction of Japan’s Asia imaginary,” Asian Politics and Policy 1, no. 1 (2009): 31–49. 3. David Hundt and Roland Bleiker, “Reconciling Colonial Memories in Korea and Japan,” Asian Perspective 31, no. 1 (2007): 66–67. 4. See, for example, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, November 13, 1994, 9. 5. See MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1990), 146; Gaiko seisho (1991), 212; and Gaiko seisho (1992), 178. 6. Quoted in Rudolf Kranewitter, “Prejudices Against the Japanese,” Korea Journal, 32, no. 1 (1992), 74. 7. Yoshida Yutaka, Nippon-jin no senso-kan: sengo-shi no nakano henyo (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1995), 8. 8. Kim Young-seul, Nikkan kankei no sai-kochiku to Ajia (Fukuoka: Kyushu daigaku shuppankai, 1995), 76–77. 9. Asahi Shimbun, June 24, 1996, 3. 10. Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994), 65. 11. Tamaki, “An Unholy Pilgrimage?” 12. Ishihara Shintaro, “Nippon wo otoshi ireta joho-kukan no kai,” Bungei shunju, February 1991, 95. 13. Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei in January 1974 quoted in Yoshida Yutaka, Nippon-jin, 139. 14. See MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1992), 178; and Gaiko seisho (1999), whose subtitle is: “Diplomacy with leadership for the new century.”

NOTES

211

15. Nishioka Tsutomu, “‘Jugun ianfu mondai’ towa nan datta noka,” Bungei shunju, April 1992, 312. 16. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1990), 144–50. 17. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 212. 18. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1992), 178. 19. Fukuda Yasuo quoted in www.kantei/go.jp/jp/hukudaspeech/2008/05/22speech .html (accessed May 23, 2008). 20. Taro Aso quoted in www.kantei.go.jp/jp/asospeech/2008/09/25speech.hmtl (accessed September 26, 2008). 21. See Timothy C. Lim, “The Origins of Societal Power in South Korea: Understanding the Physical and Human Legacies of Japanese Colonialism,” Modern Asian Studies 33, no. 3 (1999): 603–33. 22. MITI, Tsusho hakusho (1990), 295. 23. MITI, Tsusho hakusho (1991), 370. 24. MITI, Tsusho hakusho (1995), 356. 25. See Financial Times, November 14, 2000, 12; and Financial Times, November 28, 2000, 24. 26. See Far Eastern Economic Review, January 31, 1991, 40. 27. See, for example, Lee Chung-sik, Sengo Nikkan kankei-shi, trans. by Okonogi Masao and Furuta Hiroshi (Tokyo: Chuo koron, 1989), chap. 6; and George Hicks, Japan’s War Memories: Amnesia or Concealment? (London: Ashgate, 1997), chap. 4. 28. Hundt and Bleiker, “Reconciling Colonial Memories,” 71. 29. Rafael Narvaez, “Embodiment, Collective Memory and Time,” Body & Society 12, no. 3 (2006), 52. 30. See Archer, Realist Social Theory. 31. Takasaki Soji, “Han-Nichi kanjo”: Kankoku, Chosen-jin to Nippon-jin (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993), 56; and Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 197. 32. Quoted in Takasaki, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” 56. 33. Quoted in Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 198. 34. Kimijima Kazuhiko, Kyokasho no shiso: Nippon to Kankoku no kin-gendaishi (Tokyo: Suzusawa shoten, 1996), 175. 35. Ibid., 177–78. 36. Ibid., 185–87. 37. Ibid., 187. 38. Ibid., 189. 39. See George Hicks, Japan’s War Memories, chap. 6. 40. Takasaki, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” 72. 41. Ibid. 42. Kimijima Kazuhiko, Kyokasho no shiso, chap. 7. See also Chung Jaejeong, Kankoku to Nippon: Rekishi kyoiku no shiso (Tokyo: Suzusawa shoten, 1998), chap. 6. 43. Chung Dae-kyun, Ilbon no imeji: Kankoku-jin no Nippon-kan (Tokyo: Chuko shinsho, 1998), 229. 44. Yoshida, Nipponjin no senso-kan, 54–55.

212

NOTES

45. Quoted in Ibid., 112. 46. Ibid. 47. Quoted in Miyake Akimasa, “Rekishi kyoksaho wo meguru seiji-teki gensetsu to sono tokucho,” in Rekishi to shinjitsu: ima Nippon no rekishi wo kangaeru, Nakamura Masanori, et al. (Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1997), 35. 48. Quoted in Tawara Yoshifumi, Dokyumento “Ianfu” mondai to kyokasho kogeki (Tokyo: Kobunken, 1997), 11. 49. Quoted in Ibid., 16. 50. Takahashi Testsuya, Sengo sekinin-ron (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1999), 118–20. 51. Quoted in Tawara, Dokyumento, 25. 52. Ibid., 27. 53. Quoted in Chung, Kankoku to Nippon, 168. 54. Kimijima, Kyokasho no shiso, 97. 55. Quoted in Chung, Kankoku to Nippon, 171. 56. Kimijima, Kyokasho no shiso, 108. 57. Chung, Kankoku to Nippon, 172; and Kimijima, Kyokasho kogeki no shinso, 109. 58. See Takasaki Soji, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” chap. 7. 59. See Sekai, November 1995, 123–38. 60. Miyake, “Rekishi kyokasho,” 31. 61. Kuboi Norio, Kyokasho kara kesenai rekishi (Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 1997), 54–55. 62. Ibid., 58. 63. Ibid., 56. 64. Ibid., 65. 65. Miyake, “Rekishi kyokasho,” 30. 66. Ibid. 67. Wakakuwa Midori, “Jugun ianfu-mondai, jenda-shi no shiten kara: naze ‘hyoteki’ to nattaka,” in Reksihi to shinjitsu, Nakamura, et al., 176. 68. Ibid., 181. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid., 184–85. 71. Miyake, “Reskishi kyokasho,” 30. 72. The Economist, April 14, 2001, 66. 73. See The Economist, March 23, 2002 74. The Economist, April 14, 2001, 66. 75. Ibid., 35. 76. Ibid. 77. Quoted in Tawara, Dokyumento, 22. Here, Itagaki is quoting the words of Fujioka Nobumasa, the founder of the Group. This is an ample indication of the “collusion” between the policy circles and the “fringe” groups. 78. See Financial Times, October 16, 2001, 16. 79. Wakakuwa Midori, “Jugun ianfu-mondai,” 165–66. 80. See The Economist, March 10, 2007, 12.

NOTES

213

81. George Hicks, “The ‘Comfort Women,’” in The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931–1945, ed. Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers, and Mark R. Peattie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 306. 82. Wakakuwa, “Jugun ianfu-mondai,” 172. 83. See ibid.; and Hicks, “The ‘Comfort Women,’” 306. 84. Hicks, “The Comfort Women,” 306–7. 85. See Wakakuwa, “Jugun ianfu mondai,” 172. 86. Takasaki, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” 129–30. 87. Wakakuwa, “Jugun ianfu-mondai,” 167. 88. Quoted in Takasaki, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” 130. 89. Quoted in Hicks, “The ‘Comfort Women,’” 307. 90. See Onuma Yasuaki, “Ianfu” mondai towa nandatta noka (Tokyo: Chuko shinsho, 2007), 2; Jane W. Yamazaki, Japanese Apologies for World War II: A Rhetorical Study (London: Routledge, 2006), 58. 91. Yamazaki, Japanese Apologies, 58. 92. Onuma, “Ianfu” mondai, 2–3. 93. Tawara, Dokyumento, 27–28. 94. Tawara, Dokyumento, 29. 95. Tawara, Dokyumento, 31. 96. Tawara, Dokyumento, 34. 97. Quoted in Takasaki, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” 133. 98. Ibid., 174. 99. Quoted in Sekai, November 1995, 125. 100. Ibid., 123, 129. 101. The “Appeal,” quoted in Yamazaki, Japanese Apologies, 67. 102. Yoshikawa Haruko, Jugun ianfu: shin-shiryo ni yoru kokkai ronsen (Tokyo: Ayumi shuppan, 1997), 96. 103. Onuma, “Ianfu” mondai, 181; Kuboi, Kyokasho, 88–89. 104. Kuboi, Kyokasho, 87–89. 105. Ibid., 93. 106. Yoshikawa, Jugun ianfu, 119. 107. Onuma Yasuaki quoted in Kuobi, Kyokasho, 80–81. 108. Onuma, “Ianfu” mondai, 205. 109. Quoted in The Economist, December 16, 2000, 22. 110. The Economist, March 10, 2007, 67. 111. The Economist, May 5, 2007, 62. 112. Ishizaka Koichi, “‘Fusen ketsugi’ towa nanika,” Sekai, May 1995, 181–82. 113. See, for example, MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 212; and Gaiko seisho (1992), 173–82. 114. Quoted in Ryuji Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution on World War Two: Keeping History at Bay,” Asian Survey 36, no. 10 (1996): 1014. 115. Ibid., 1015. 116. Ibid. 117. Tawara, Dokyumento, 7.

214 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140.

NOTES

Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution,” 1015. Tawara, Dokyumneto, 8. Asahi Shimbun, January 31, 1995, 1. Foreign Ministry statement in Asahi Shimbun, February 1, 1995, 2. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, February 1, 1995, 1. Asahi Shimbun, February 1, 1995, 7; also Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution,” 1015. Okuno Seisuke quoted in Asahi Shimbun, March 17, 1995, 2. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, November 13, 1994, 9. Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution,” 1018. Ibid., 1017–18. Quoted in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, May 11, 1995, 3. Quoted in Ibid. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, May 26, 1995, 4. Asahi Shimbun, May 26, 1995, 9. Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution,” 1021–22. Asahi Shimbun, June 7, 1995, 1. Ibid. Quoted in Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution,” 1012. See Mukae, “Japan’s Diet Resolution,” 1027–29; and Hicks, Japan’s War Memories, 93–94. Asahi Shimbun, June 5, 1995, 2. Hicks, Japan’s War Memories, 94. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, evening edition, August 15, 1995, 4. Ibid.; See also Tamaki, “An Unholy Pilgrimage.”

Chapter 6 1. Lee Won-duk, “Reskishi-mondai wo meguru Nikkan no katto mekanizumu,” in Nikkan no kyotsu ninshiki: Nippon wa Kankoku ni totte nan nanoka? ed. Kim Jon-gol and Lee Won-duk (Hadano: Tokai daigaku shuppankai, 2007), 37–38. 2. See Cha, “Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea,” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (2000): 261–91. 3. Takasaki Soji, “Han-Nichi kanjo”: Kankoku Chosen-jin to Nippon-jin (Tokyo: Kodansha gendai shinsho, 1993), 98. 4. Yamazaki, Japanese Apologies, 36. 5. Tamaki Taku, “Nikkan kankei ‘muzukashisa’ no kozu,” Ajia bunka kenkyu, no. 32 (2006): 123–40. 6. Ikeda Tadashi quoted in Gaiko Forum, October 1992, 53. 7. Ibid., 54. 8. Financial Times, November 16, 2006, 17. 9. See Cha, “Abandonment.”

NOTES

215

10. Azuma Kiyohiko, “Nikkan anzen hosho kankei no hensen: kokko seijoka kara reisen-go made,” Kokusai anzen hosho 33, no. 4 (2006): 98. 11. Azuma, “Nikkan anzen hosho,” 101. 12. See JDA, Boei hakusho (1990), 70; Boei hakusho (1991), 65; Boei hakusho (1992), 72; and Boei hakusho (1993), 7. 13. See MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 212; and Gaiko seisho (1992), 178. 14. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1990), 147. 15. See Kim Yeong-seul, Nikkan kankei no sai-kochiku to Ajia (Fukuoka: Kyushu daigaku shuppan-kai, 1995), 25; and Cha, “Abandonment.” 16. Kawamura Sumihiko, “Nikkan sekando-torakku gaiko to kaijo ni okeru chiiki kyoryoku,” in Nippon no gaiko-seisaku kettei yoin, ed. Gaiko seisaku kettei-yoiyn kenkyukai (Tokyo: PHP Publishing, Inc., 1999), 230–31. 17. Ibid., 231. 18. Ibid. 19. See ibid., 234–35. 20. See Tanaka Akihiko, Anzen hosho: sengo 50-nen no mosaku (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1997), 342–47. 21. Azuma, “Nikkan anzen hosho,” 103. 22. Ozawa Ichiro, “Futsu no kuni ni nare,” in Sengo Nippon gaikoron-shu: kowa ronso kara wangan senso made, ed. Kitaoka Shinichi (Tokyo: Chu koron, 1995), 463. 23. The Economist, October 13, 2001, 70. 24. Sasae Kenichiro, “20 seiki no ‘kako’ kara 21 seiki no ‘mirai’ e,” Gaiko Forum, December 1998, 70–71. 25. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1990), 146. 26. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun (evening edition), May 25, 1990, 1. 27. Quoted in Gaiko Forum, June 1990, 37; emphasis added. 28. Quoted in Gaiko Forum, June 1990, 40. 29. See MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 212; and Gaiko seisho (1992), 178. 30. Quoted in Rudolf Kranewitter, “Prejudices Against the Japanese,” Korea Journal 32, no. 1 (1992): 74. 31. See Nihon Keizai Shimbun, January 18, 1992, 3. 32. Quoted in Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, “‘Yuko’ to ‘tekishi’ to,” Sekai (Extra), April 1991, 67. 33. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 367. 34. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 382. 35. Kuriyama Takakazu, “Taikenteki gaiko-ron,” Chuo koron, November 1991, 113. 36. Quoted in Chuo koron, September 1991, 60. 37. JDA, Boei hakusho (1991). 38. Quoted in Gaiko Forum, October 1992, 51. 39. Azuma, “Nikkan anzen hosho,” 103. 40. See Kinomiya Masashi, “Nikkan kankei no rikigaku to tenbo: reisenki no dainamizumu to datsu-reisenki ni okeru kozo henyo,” in Nikkan no kyotsu ninshiki, ed. Kim and Lee, 57.

216

NOTES

41. See Graham, Japan’s Sea Lane Security, 222. 42. See MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1991), 212; Gaiko seisho (1992), 178; Gaiko seisho (1999), 21. 43. Takasaki, “Han-Nichi kanjo,” 107–8. 44. Ibid., 98. 45. Yamazaki, Japanese Apologies, 36. 46. For details on the political negotiations, see, for example, Asahi Shimbun, May 19, 1990, 1; Asahi Shimbun, May 21, 1990, 1; Sekai Shuho, June 19, 1990, 14–15; George Hicks, Japan’s War Memories, chap. 5; and Takasaki, “HanNichi kanjo,” chap. 5. 47. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, May 25, 1990, 1. 48. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, May 25, 1990, 2. 49. Sekai shuho, May 29, 1990, 19. 50. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, May 23, 1990, 1. 51. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, May 26, 1990, 1. 52. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun (evening edition), May 25, 1990, 23. 53. For various conservative sentiments on the “past,” see, for example, Far Eastern Economic Review, August 25, 1994, 22–24; The Economist, January 29, 2000, 84; The Economist, July 10, 1999, 68; The Economist, August 11, 2001, 52; Sekai, January 1996, 56–71; Bungei shunju, April 1996, 262–79; and Ishihara Shintaro, “Nippon wo otoshi ireta joho-kukan no kai,” Bungei shunju, February 1991, 94–110. 54. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, May 26, 1990, 1. 55. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1992), 373. 56. Quoted in ibid., 382. 57. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1993), 356. 58. In MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1994), 153. 59. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1995), 149. 60. Quoted in MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1996), 156. 61. Quoted in Gaiko Forum, October 1992, 54. 62. Ogura Kazuo, “‘Ajia no fukken’ no tameni,” Chuo koron, July 1993, 72. 63. Quoted in Nihon Keizai Shimbun (evening edition), August 15, 1995, 4. 64. Ibid. 65. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, June 22, 1996, 2. 66. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, June 24, 1996, 1. 67. Sekai shuho, 3 November 1998, 6. 68. Nihon Keizai Shimbun (evening edition), 8 October 1998, 2. 69. See, for example, The Economist, October 10, 1998, 88–89. 70. Quoted in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, October 8, 1998, 2. 71. Quoted in Sekai shuho, November 3, 1998, 13. 72. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, March 21, 1999, 3. 73. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1999), 21. 74. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, October 8, 1998, 1. 75. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1999). 76. Quoted in Sekai shuho, February 24, 1998, 12.

NOTES

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

217

Quoted in Nihon Keizai Shimbun (evening edition), March 20, 1999,1. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, October 9,1998, 7. Quoted in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, October 9, 1998, 2. Quoted in Asahi Shimbun, October 9, 1998, 7. Quoted in ibid. Financial Times, November 20, 2001, 14. http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2002/01/01message.html (accessed December 2, 2008). Ibid. http://www.mext.go.jp/worldcup/hajime/h_main.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). http://www.mext.go.jp/worldcup/dokuhon/1_1.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). http://www.mext.go.jp/worldcup/dokuhon/1_2.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). http://www.mext.go.jp/worldcup/dokuhon/1_2.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). http://www.mext.go.jp/worldcup/dokuhon/3_3.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2002/07/01kyoudou.html (accessed December 2, 2008). http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/kids/magazine/0501/6_4.html (accessed December 2, 2008). http://www.jkcf.or.jp/friendship2005/japanese/opening/opening_2.html (accessed 2 December 2008). http://www.jkcf.or.jp/friendship2005/japanese/about/message.html (accessed 2 December 2008). See Tamaki, “An Unholy Pilgrimage?” Suzuoki Takashi, “Hajimatta bunretsu to dakyo: Kankoku to Nippon to,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Web edition), August 18, 2006. http://www.nikkei .co.jp/neteye5/suzuoki/20060816n598g000_16.html (accessed October 22, 2008). Quoted in Chuo koron, August 2005, 44. See Financial Times, October 16, 2001, 16; The Economist, August 19, 2006. http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2003/06/07seimei.html (accessed December 2, 2008). http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2003/06/07press.html (accessed December 2, 2008). http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2004/07/21press.html (accessed December 2, 2008). http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/koizumispeech/2004/12/17press.html (accessed December 2, 2008). See Abe Shinzo, http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/abespeech/2006/10/09koreapress .html (accessed October 22, 2008).

218

NOTES

103. Fukuda Yasuo, http://www. Kantei.go.jp/jp/hukudaspeech/2008/04/21kyoudou .html (accessed October 22, 2008). 104. See Kim Dae-jung quoted in Asahi Shimbun, October 8, 1998, 1; and Miyazawa Kiichi quoted in Sekai Shuho, February 24, 1998, 12.

Chapter 7 1. See Inoguchi, Nippon, 72–78. 2. See Matsumoto Koji, “Mujun suru tai-Nichi yokyu: gijustu-iten to akaji-berashi wa ryoritsu shinai,” Gendai Koria, October 1991, 34–43. 3. Asahi Shimbun, 1 August 1997, 2. 4. See, for example, “Fear of Military Buildup,” Editorial, Korea Times, Web ed., July 29, 1999, http://www.hk.co.kr/14_8/199907/t485161.htm (accessed August 22, 1999). But the tide may be changing; see Sekai Shuho, June 22, 1999, 66–67. It notes that the South Korean public opinion in general has accepted the New Guidelines from a “third party perspective” (dai sansha no tachiba), in which one South Korean newspaper told readers that 1999 is not 1905 nor the 1930s. 5. See Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy for the twenty-first Century, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1998), chap. 3. 6. William R. Nester, Japan’s Growing Power Over East Asia and the World Economy (London: Macmillan, 1990), 165. 7. See Ozawa Ichiro, “Futsu no kuni ni nare,” in Sengo Nippon gaikoronshu: kowa ronso kara wangan senso made, ed. Kitaoka Shinichi (Tokyo: Chuo Koron, 1995), 463. 8. Okita quoted in C. K. Yeung, “Ajia-Taiheiyo keizai kyoryoku kaigi to Nippon,” trans. Sato Yoichiro, in Gendai Nippon no Ajia gaiko: taibei kyocho to jishu-gaiko no hazama de, ed., Miyashita Akitoshi and Sato Yoichiro (Kyoto: Minerva, 2001), 255. 9. Kojima quoted in Yeung, “Ajia-Taiheiyo,” 255–56. 10. Yeung, “Ajia-Taiheiyo,” 259–62. 11. Gilbert Rozman, “South Korea and Sino-Japanese Rivalry: A Middle Power’s Options within the East Asian Core Triangle,” The Pacific Review 20, no. 2 (2007): 207. 12. For example, Nester, Japan’s Growing Power. 13. Eric Heginbotham and Richard J. Samuels, “Mercantile Realism and Japanese Foreign Policy,” International Security 22, no. 4 (1998): 172. 14. MOFA, Gaiko seisho (1990), 147. 15. See, for example, The Economist, May 22, 1999, 133–34. 16. Ming Wan, “Japan and The Asian Development Bank,” Pacific Affairs 68, no. 4 (1995–96): 510. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 509. 19. Inoguchi Takashi, Nippon: keizai-taikoku no seiji-unei (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1993), 96.

NOTES

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

219

Financial Times, November 14, 2000, 12. Financial Times, November 10, 2000, 16. Author’s interview with Ikeda Yukihiko, Tokyo, September 18, 2000. Quoted in Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy, 92–93. Courtney Purrington, “Tokyo’s Policy Responses During the Gulf War and the Impact of the ‘Iraqi Shock’ on Japan,” Pacific Affairs 65, no. 2 (1992): 161. Barry K. Gills, “The Crisis of Postwar East Asian Capitalism: American Power, Democracy and the Vicissitudes of Globalization,” Review of International Studies 26, no. 3 (2000): 389; emphasis added. See Inoguchi, Nippon, 43–45, for continuity in Japanese bureaucracy. Mark Beeson, Regionalism and Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic Development (London: Palgrave, 2007), 186. Beeson, Regionalism, 187. Motoshige Itoh, “Trade Imbalance, Trade Frictions and Maintaining a Liberal Trade Regime in the Asia-Pacific: Recent Trends in Japanese Trade Policies,” The Pacific Review 12, no. 2 (1999): 323. Fukagawa Yukiko, “Nikkan jiyu boeki kyotei (FTA) kosho sai-shuppatsu eno kadai,” Fainansharu Rebyu, April 2006, 105. Iriye Akira, Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1966), 30. Seki Shizuo, “Shidehara Kijuro no ‘taishi gaiko’: naisei fukansho-shugi wo chushin ni,” in Kindai Nippon no Ajia-kan, ed. Okamoto Koji (Kyoto: Minerva, 1998), 143–44; and Iriye, Nippon, 92. Peter Duus, Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895– 1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 248. Timothy C. Lim, “The Origins of Societal Power in South Korea: Understanding the Physical and Human Legacies of Japanese Colonialism,” Modern Asian Studies 33, no. 3 (1999): 604. Ibid., 613. Ibid., 616. Donald Stone Macdonald, The Koreans: Contemporary Politics and Society, 3rd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996), 250–51. Ota Osamu, “Daikan-minkoku juritsu to Nippon: Nikkan tsusho kosho no bunseki wo chushin ni,” Chosen Gakuho, 173 (1999), 27. Ibid., 15. Kasai Nobuyuki, “Nikkan keizai-kankei no hensen: izon to jiritsu no soukoku,” in Posuto-reisen no Chosen hanto, ed. Okonogi Masao (Tokyo: Nippon Kokusai Mondai Kenkyujo, 1994), 326. Lee Chong-sik, Sengo Nikkan kankei-shi, trans. Okonogi Masao and Furuta Hiroshi (Tokyo: Chuo Koron, 1989), Ch. 3; and Kasai, “Nikkan keizai,” 328–29. Lee, Sengo Nikkan, 87. Ibid., 71. T. W. Kang, Is Korea the Next Japan? Understanding the Structure, Strategy, and Tactics of America’s Next Competitor (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 115; see also, Kasai, “Nikkan keizai,” 328.

220

NOTES

45. Quoted in Brian Bridges, Japan and Korea in the 1990s: From Antagonism to Adjustment (London: Edward Elgar, 1993), 92. 46. Asahi Shimbun, 18 January 1992, 3. 47. Yanagimachi Tsutomu, “Kankoku hando-tai sangyo no rekishi-teki hatten to kadai: zaibatsu kigyo no jigyo-senryaku wo chushin ni,” Ajia Kenkyu 37, no. 4 (1991): 130–31. 48. Nakajima Koichi, “Higashi Ajia no keizai-seicho ni okeru taibei yushitsu to tainichi yunyu kozo no kensho: Taiwan to Kankoku no ingasei no tesuto,” Ajia Kenkyu 42, no. 2 (1996): 63–93. 49. Kaneko Itsuo, Momose Shigeo, and Okamoto Yoshihiro, Kankoku keizai: kigyo no hatten to genjo (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1999), 131–32. 50. The figures show Hyundai at 4.1 percent, Kia 5.0 percent, and Daewoo 4.9 percent. Their competitors show similar figures such as Toyota at 5.2 percent, Nissan 5.9 percent, GM 4.5 percent, and Ford 4.3 percent. Ono Junko, Kankoku no jiudosha sangyo (Tokyo: Ajia Keizai Kenkyujo, 1996), 98. 51. Andrew E. Green, “South Korea’s Automobile Industry: Development and Prospects,” Asian Survey 32, no. 5 (1992): 417. 52. Ono, Kankoku no jidosha sangyo, 95. 53. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, May 20, 1990, 3. 54. Kang Yong-ji, “‘Ajia keizai kyoryoku-ken’ niramu Nikkan kyoryoku wo: NIES no shuraku wo mo fusegu,” Ekonomisuto, March 12, 1991, 58. 55. Hattori Tamio, “Miyazawa hokan, shukudai toshite nokotta Nikkan keizaimasatsu: namboku toitsu sokushin niwa Nippon mo koken wo,” Ekonomisuto, February 4, 1992, 54. 56. MITI, Tsuho Hakusho (1990), 290. 57. Ibid., 295. 58. Glenn D. Hook, et al., Japan’s International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security (London: Routledge, 2001), chap. 10. 59. Inoguchi, Nippon, 72. 60. Ibid., 74. 61. Fukagawa, “Nikkan jiyu-boeki kyotei,” 107. 62. Yamazawa Ippei, “Niju-isseiki no Nikkan keizai kankei wa ikani arubeki ka,” Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, September 10, 2008, http:// www.meti.go.jp/discussion/topic_11/kikou_03,htm (accessed February 3, 2009). 63. Yamazawa, “Niju-isseiki.” 64. METI, “Nikkan keizai kyoka ni muketa torikumi,” http://www.meti.go.jp/ policy/trade_policy/epa/html/jk_relation.html (accessed October 31, 2008). 65. METI, “Nikkan FTA shimpojumu (Tokyo) no kekka gaiyo,” September 28, 2000, http://www.meti.go.jp/kohosys/press/0001000/0/0928jkfta.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). 66. Nishioka quoted in Chung Dae-kyun, Kankoku no imeji (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1995), 204–5. 67. Matsumoto “Mujun,” 36; emphasis added.

NOTES

221

68. Sato in Bungei Shunju, July 1992, 281. 69. Momose Tadashi, Kankoku ga shindemo Nippon ni oitsukenai 18 no riyu (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1998), 27. 70. Ibid., 53. 71. Ibid., 64. 72. Ibid., 172. 73. Momose Tadashi, Yappari Kankoku ga shindemo Nippon ni oitsukenai 18 no riyu (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1999), 163. 74. Sekai Shuho, April 21, 1998, 27. 75. Lee hong-ju, “Nikkan ryokoku no keizai-katto wo do kaiketsu suruka: mirai no tameno teigen,” Sekai, February 1996, 202. 76. Ono, Kankoku no jidosha sangyo, 117. 77. Ibid., 128. 78. An automobile manufacturer quoted in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, May 21, 1990, 9. 79. Okatani Naoaki, “Nikkan wa ‘chikakute soen na kankei’ wo seisan seyo: gijutsu iten nadode gutaiteki joho ga hitsuyo,” Sekai Shuho, March 3, 1992, 64–69. 80. Reprinted in Gendai Koria, October 1991, 44–45. 81. Ibid., 46–47. 82. Momose, Yappari Kankoku, 176. 83. Keidanren, Nikkan sangyo-kyoryoku no aratana hatten ni mukete,” November 20, 2000, http://www.keidanren.or.jp/japanese/policy/2001/055.html (accessed October 22, 2008). 84. Ibid. 85. Bungei Shunju, July 1992, 287–88. 86. Matsumoto, “Mujun,” Gendai Koria, October 1991, 38. 87. Fujimura Masaya, “Nikkan no shin-jidai ni mukete,” Gaiko Forum, June 1998, 19 88. Ibid., 21. 89. Okuda Hiroshi, “Higashi-Ajia jiyu keizai-ken no kochiku ni muketa Nikkan no yakuwari,” April 24, 2003, http://www.keidanren.or.jp/japanese/ speech/20030424.html (accessed October 22, 2008). 90. Kaifu quoted in Kang, “‘Ajia keizai,’” 62. 91. Kang, “‘Ajia keizai,’” 60. 92. Ha Shin-gi, “Kankoku ga kaku ‘gijutsu-rikkoku’ no aojashin: Soren, Doitsu tono hai-teku kyoryoku ga kappatsuka,” Ekonomisuto, May 14, 1991, 89. 93. Asahi Shimbun, January 28, 1990, 2. 94. Far Eastern Economic Review, January 31, 1991, 41. 95. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, evening ed., 26 May 1990, 1. 96. Asahi Shimbun, January 10, 1991, 2. 97. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, January 10, 1991, 2. 98. Far Eastern Economic Review, January 31, 1991, 42. 99. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, May 20, 1990, 3.

222 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115.

116.

117.

118. 119.

120. 121.

NOTES

Asahi Shimbun, January 17, 1992, 1. Ibid., January 18, 1992, 1. Ibid., 3. Sekai Shuho, February 24, 1998, 9. Asahi Shimbun, January 18, 1992, 3. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, January 16, 1992, 3. Ibid., evening ed., January 17, 1992, 1. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, January 17, 1992, 5. Ibid., November 29, 1998, 3. Asahi Shimbun, October 9, 1998, 11. Ibid., March 1, 1999, 2. Quoted in Financial Times, November 28, 2000, 24. Ibid. http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/trade_policy/epa/html/jk_fta_keii.html (accessed October 21, 2008). Joint Statement by the Japan-Korea FTA Business Forum, January 25, 2002. METI, “Nikkan FTA shimpojumu (Tokyo) no kekka gaiyo,” September 28, 2000, http://www.meti.go.jp/kohosys/press/0001000/0/0928jkfta.htm (accessed October 31, 2008). METI, “Kankoku tono keizai renkei,” 2003 excerpt from Trade White Paper, http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/trade_policy/epa/html/s_korea.html (accessed October 31, 2008). MOFA, “Kankoku keizai no genjo to Nikkan keizai kankei,” October 2008, http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/korea/pdfs/keizai.pdf (accessed October 31, 2008). Ibid. Tamura Hideo, “‘Jiyu boeki’ Nikkan ugokezu,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Web ed., September 8, 2003, http://www.nikkei.co.jp/neteye5/tamura/ 20030905n1695000_05,html (accessed February 12, 2009). Beeson, Regionalism and Globalization, 191. Ibid.

Conclusion 1. See Dower, Embracing Defeat, 29–30. 2. Miyoshi, Off Center, chap. 1; and Maruyama, Nippon no shiso. 3. See, for example, John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1998), chap. 10; Takeuchi Yoshimi, “Hoho to shiteno Ajia,” in Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshu, Takeuchi Yoshimi, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1981), 90–115. 4. See Unno Fukuju, Nikkan heigo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1995); and Iriye, Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1966), chap. 2.

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5. See, for example, Lee Chong-sik, Sengo Nikkan kankeishi, trans. Okonogi Masao and Furuta Hiroshi (Tokyo: Chuo Koron, 1989); Takasaki Soji, Kensho: Nikkan kaidan (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1996); and Lee Tong-won, KanNichi joyaku teiketsu hiwa (Tokyo: PHP, 1997). 6. See Wight, Agents. 7. John Gerard Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 855–85. 8. See, for example, Irving Velody and Robin Williams ed., The Politics of Constructionism (London: Sage, 1998); and Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 9. Maja Zehfuss, “Constructivism and Identity: A Dangerous Liaison,” European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 3 (2001): 315–48. 10. Roxanne Lynn Doty, “Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory,” European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 3 (1997): 376. 11. Roxanne Lynn Doty, “A Reply to Colin Wight,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 3 (1999): 389. 12. See Margaret S. Archer, Being Human: The Problem of Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 13. Nikolas Busse, “Constructivism and Southeast Asian Security,” The Pacific Review 12, no. 1 (1999): 41. 14. See Seng Tang, “Rescuing Constructivism from the Constructivists: A Critical Reading of Constructivist Interventions in Southeast Asian Security,” The Pacific Review 19, no. 2 (2006): 239–60. 15. Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military on Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); Thomas U. Berger, “Norms, Identity and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in The Culture of National Security: Norms, and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), chap. 9; Thomas U. Berger, “From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Culture of Anti-Militarism,” International Security 17, no. 4 (1993): 119–50; and Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan’s National Security: Structures, Norms and Policies,” International Security 17, no. 4 (1993): 82–118. 16. David Campbell, “Foreign Policy and Identity: Japanese ‘Other’/American ‘Self,’” in The Global Economy as Political Space, ed. Stephen J. Roscow, Naeem Inayatullah, and Mark Rupert (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994), chap. 7. 17. Victor D. Cha, “What Drives Korea-Japan Security Relations?” The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 10, no. 2 (1998): 69–87. 18. Victor D. Cha, “Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea,” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (2000): 261–91. 19. See, for example, Chung Dae-kyun, Kankoku no imeji (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1995); Chung Dae-kyun, Ilbon no imeji: Kankoku-jin no Nippon-kan (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1998); Yoon Keun-cha, Nippon kokumin-ron: kindai

224

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

NOTES

Nippon no aidentiti (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1997); and Masao Miyoshi, Off Center: Power and Cultural Relations between Japan and the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934). See Porpora, “The Caterpillar’s Question.” Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity,’” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 1. Ibid., 5. Archer, Realist Social theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 257. Douglas V. Porpora, “The Caterpillar’s Question: Contesting Anti-Humanism’s Contentions,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 27, no. 2/3 (1997): 251. See, for example, Archer, Being Human, Ch. 6; and Gillis, “Memory and Identity.” John R. Searle, Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), chap. 5; and John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (London: Penguin, 1995), chap. 6. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality, 23–26. See Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), chap. 3. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms; and Berger, “Norms.” See also, Katzenstein and Okawara, “Japan’s National Security”; and Thomas U. Berger, “From Sword to Chrysanthemum.” Takeuchi Yoshimi, “Introduction,” in Gendai Nippon shiso taikei, vol. 9: Ajia shugi, ed. Takeuchi Yoshimi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1963). Dower, Embracing Defeat; and Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the US Occupation of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). See Yoon, Nippon kokumin-ron, 166–73; Takasaki Soji, “Han-Nichi kanjo”: Kankoku, Chosen-jin to Nippon-jin (Tokyo: Kodansha Gendai Bunko, 1993), 197–99; and Iriye Akira, Shin Nippon no gaiko (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1991), 213. The Economist, March 23, 2002, 68; and Financial Times, April 22, 2002, 16. See Zehfuss, “Constructivism and Identity”; and Wight, Agents, Structures, and International Relations. For ideas in foreign policy, see Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, ed., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (New York: Cornell University Press, 1993). Robert O. Keohane, “International Institutions: Two Approaches,” International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4 (1988): 392. Campbell, Writing Security; Campbell, National Deconstruction; and Weldes, Constructing National Interest. Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 24–25.

NOTES

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40. Milja Kurki, “Causes of a Divided Discipline: Rethinking the Concept of Cause in International Relations Theory,” Review of International Studies 32, no. 2 (2006): 214–15. 41. Merje Kuus, “European Integration in Identity Narratives in Estonia: A Quest for Security,” Journal of Peace Research 39, no. 1 (2002): 94. I thank Wolfango Piccoli for alerting me to this article. 42. See, for example, Zehfuss, “Constructivism and Identity.” 43. Wendt, Social Theory, 238. 44. Steve Smith, “Wendt’s World,” Review of International Studies 26, no. 1 (2000): 161. 45. See Archer, Realist Social Theory, 257–58; Searle, The Construction of Social Reality, 23–26; and Colin Wight, “They Shoot Dead Horses Don’t They? Locating Agency in the Agent-Structure Problematique,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 1 (1999): 125ff. 46. See Risse, et al., “To Euro or Not to Euro?” 156. 47. Wight, Agent, Structures and International Relations. 48. For a discussion of actor designation, see Frederick Frey, “The Problem of Actor Designation in Political Analysis,” Comparative Politics 17, no. 2 (1985): 127–52.

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Index

Abe, Shinzo, 1, 132, 151, 155; and comfort women, 127 accreditation incident, 90–94, 101 actor(s), 2, 6–7, 13–20, 56, 181, 183; actor designation, 4–5, 9–10, 15, 17, 180, 185; actor identities, 6, 9, 18, 21–31, 35, 37, 40–56, 84, 114, 184; agent(s) 2, 5, 14, 20–23, 27–31, 34, 41–43, 45–49, 51–52, 54–56, 177, 179, 181, 184, 186; agent-structure problem, 29, 87, 115, 179; collective actors, 4, 23, 53, 186 alliance, 74, 77, 87, 108, 127, 143; quasi alliance between Japan and South Korea, vii, 4 ampo. See Mutual Security Agreement Anderson, Benedict, 38 annexation, vii, 59–60, 88, 90–91, 94–98, 101–3, 105, 108, 113, 118, 120, 123, 136, 162; treaty, 95, 101, 136; validity of, 103 antirealism. See social theory apologies, 2, 8–9, 83–84, 101–2, 105, 111–12, 116, 122, 128–25, 141, 143–44, 151, 167; apologies diplomacy (owabi gaiko) 105, 122 Archer, Margaret, 34, 45, 50–51, 54–56, 181 Arita Hachiro, 98 army, imperial, 69, 70–71, 124; role in atrocities, 125–32 article 9 (of the 1947 constitution), 8, 73–74, 78 Asahi Shimbun, 97, 102, 117, 120, 129

Asia, vii, 1–3, 6–10, 20, 31–33, 39, 56–72, 75–84, 87–94, 98–101, 105–83 passim, 205n9; Asia imaginary, 3, 10, 57, 62–65, 79, 84, 113; Japan’s Asian existence, viii, 57, 78, 84, 109, 119 Asian Development Bank (ADB), 159; Japan’s leadership, 160 Asian Financial Crisis, 151, 159, 168 Asian Peace Foundation for Women (1995), 124, 130–31 Aso Taro, 81, 118, 201n81 atom bomb, 76, 77, 81 background, 46–53, 56–57, 60–62, 168, 181; collective background, 48, 51–52, 62, 70–73, 79; deep background, 47–49, 60; local background, 47–49, 50, 56, 99, 138, 154, 156; as memory, 51 backwardness, 2–4, 7–11, 98, 107–12, 147, 156–78 passim, 183–84; Asia as, 3, 8, 69, 64, 68, 82–84; Korea as, 59–60, 90, 93, 96, 104, 108, 112–13, 116, 118, 142–43, 155–56 Basic Treaty, 9, 103–4, 116, 153, 178; restitution and, 126–28 Beeson, Mark, 161, 175 Bhaskar, Roy, 43, 54 budan seiji (military governance), 96, 98 bureaucracy, 82, 219n26; bureaucrats, 4, 82, 161, 165 business community, 4, 7, 11, 104, 112, 118, 157–58, 161–79 Buzan, Barry, 3

246

INDEX

cabinet, 4, 90, 92, 95; chief cabinet secretary, 122, 129, 132 Calhoun, Craig, 35 Campbell, David, 21, 25–30, 45, 180, 185 chaebol, 162–63 China, vii, 67–71, 79, 88–94, 97, 102, 105, 120, 135, 160–61, 173, 205n9, 206n31; as hypothetical enemy, 93; influence over Asia, 88, 91–92; suzerainty, 88 Chosen, 91, 95–96 Chun Doo-hwan, 104, 116, 143 civility (mindo), 96–97 Clinton, Bill, 144 cold war, 21, 75, 83, 87, 111; end of, 116, 142–48, 156 colonialism, vii, viii, 2, 8, 10, 44, 51, 59–63, 67, 70–71, 79, 84–85, 88–89, 91, 93–96, 98–100, 102–3, 107–9, 111, 113–18, 125, 127, 134–37, 139, 146, 148–50, 157, 161–63, 174, 177–78, 183 comfort women, 1, 111, 115, 119, 124, 126–41, 155; Abe’s accusation, 132; in textbooks, 119, 123–26 Communist Party, 80, 131 constitution, ix, 8, 60, 73, 75–76, 136; peace identity, 76, 136, 146; prewar constitution, 8, 10, 57, 59, 60–66, 73, 92; and kokutai, 65–66; postwar constitution, 8, 60, 62, 73–74, 76, 80, 136 constructivism, 6, 9, 13–16, 20–31, 42, 179, 180 continuity, 48, 51, 59, 63, 73, 83, 106, 161, 180, 219n26; and disjuncture, viii, 13, 31, 57, 61–62, 78, 85, 107, 113, 180; identity, 26, 50–52, 138 Coprosperity Sphere. See Far Eastern Coprosperity Sphere Defense Agency. See Japan Defense Agency

Defense White Paper, 144, 147 Diet, the, 73–78, 81, 100, 118, 132, 135, 146, 149, 151; resolution of 1995, ix, 111, 115, 119, 132–35, 141 diplomacy, 1–10, 21, 25, 53, 57, 60–67, 75, 89–94, 101–8, 112–14, 118–19, 127–28, 139–83 passim; futureoriented, 2, 84, 106–8, 116, 122, 141–47, 156, 169; UN-oriented, 160 Diplomatic Blue Book, 81, 116, 118, 144–46, 151 discipline, 94, 96–97; undisciplined, 112–13 Dokto. See Takeshima Doty, Roxanne Lynn, 26–29, 179 Drifte, Reinhard, 3, 8 Duus, Peter, 91, 161 economy, 42, 75–78, 104, 119, 151–53, 157–74; black economy, 100; economic relations, 4, 112, 156– 65, 171, 174; Korean economy, 162–63, 171–74 Education Ministry. See Ministry of Education emperor, 63–66, 68, 70, 82–83, 90, 96, 99, 118, 143, 148, 151, 182; Heisei (Akihito) 148; Meiji, 90, 94–95; Showa (Hirohito) 72, 133, 143, 148; system, 63–64, 66, 198n16, 198n17; Taisho, 68 Enomoto Takeaki, 80, 91–92 ethnicity. See kokumin ethnocentrism, 7, 10, 62–63, 65, 71, 84, 96, 100, 106, 111, 114, 117, 122, 132–33, 137, 153, 155, 157, 177, 185 Eto Jun, 72–73 exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 100–101 February 26 Incident, 70 Foreign Ministry. See Ministry of Foreign Affairs

INDEX

foreign policy, vii, 2–3, 608, 13, 19, 25, 27–28, 61–64, 73–74, 84, 138, 149, 159, 179–82, 185 forgetting. See remembering and forgetting Free Trade Agreement (FTA). See trade Fujio Masayuki, 149 Fukuda, Takeo, 78; Yasuo, 75, 118, 155 Fukuzawa Yukichi, 67 future, 2–3, 8, 10, 107–18, 130–56 passim, 157, 168–74, 170, 180, 183; International Conference on the Future of Asia (May 2008) 75 future-oriented diplomacy. See miraishiko gaiko Giddens, Anthony, 54–56 Gluck, Carol, 63–66, 80 governance-general, 96–98 Great Depression, 69 Greater Far Eastern Coprosperity Sphere, 59, 60, 62, 71, 87, 98 great powers, 3, 17, 60, 66, 87, 90, 94, 116 Group to Publish a New Textbook (tsukurukai), 124–28, 212n77 guidelines, the: 1978, 144; New Guidelines (1997), 77, 144, 147, 159, 218n4 hakko ichiu, 71 Hara Kei, 97 Hasegawa Yoshimichi, 97–98 Hashimoto Ryutaro, 75, 131, 144, 150 Hata Tsutomu, 132, 149, 171 Hatoyama Yukio, 134 heiwa kokka, 7–8, 10, 60–62, 72–79, 81–83, 87, 99, 101, 107–8, 111, 114, 116–20, 127, 130, 136, 138, 144, 152, 155, 159, 161, 164, 174, 177–78, 182–83 hierarchy. See worldview Higashikuni Naruhiko, 83–84, 99, 118

247

ichioku so zange (mass recompense), 83–84, 99, 117 identity: collective identity, viii, 1–7, 27, 36–39, 48–61, 181, 184–86; Japanese identity, 1, 4, 7–8, 10, 55, 59–62, 72, 82–87, 99, 105, 107, 109, 111, 113–15, 138, 141, 156–58, 178–80, 182–85; national identity, 26, 126 Ikeda Hayato, 103, 122 Ikeda Tadashi, 143, 147, 149 Ikeda Yukihiko, 160 imagined communities. See Anderson, Benedict Imo Mutiny (1882), 93, 96 Imperial: army, 71, 125–32 passim; navy, 68, 82; rule, 44, 83, 90, 96 imperialism, 10, 60–61, 69, 103, 167 Imperial Rescript on Education, 8, 10, 64–65, 92 Inoguchi Takashi, 4, 160, 164 Inoue Kaoru, 93 Inoue Kowashi, 92 intentionality, 30, 40–49, 53, 181; collective intentionality, 49, 53, 181 interdependence, 5–3, 60–62, 72, 77, 84, 162–64; peaceful, 7–8, 10, 60, 117, 158 international relations (IR), vii–viii, xii, 2, 6, 9, 13, 15–16, 20–21, 27, 30–33, 88, 179, 181–83; constructivism, 5–6, 9, 13–16, 20–33, 42, 179–85; constructivist vs. poststructuralist debate, 6, 9, 13–16, 20–31, 33, 179, 184–85; neoliberal institutionalism, 4, 6, 9, 13, 16–19, 27, 30; neorealism, 3–4, 6, 9, 13, 16–19, 22, 27, 30; postpositivism, 15, 20, 27–28; poststructuralism, 6, 9, 13–16, 20–21, 24–33, 84, 179, 180, 184–85; rational choice theories, 3–4, 7, 15–16, 19, 27, 30, 53, 180

248

INDEX

intersubjectivity, 2, 42, 46–47, 54–56, 156, 177–79, 182–85 Ishihara Shintaro, 106 Ishiwara Kanji, 70 Ito Hirobumi, 64, 93–96, 103 Iwakura Tomomi, 90 Japan: alliance with the United States (see Mutual Security Agreement); exceptionalism, 67, 87–89; government, 1–2, 4, 7, 11, 15, 18, 62–71, 75–76, 81, 83, 89–104, 108, 111–16, 120–34, 142, 153, 155, 157–58, 160, 163, 165–72, 177; uniqueness myth, vii, 10, 59, 62–63, 67, 82, 117, 182–84 Japan Communist Party (JCP). See Communist Party Japan Defense Agency, 76, 144, 147 Japan Federation of Economic Organizations. See Keidanren Japan-Korea, 60, 88, 94, 152–53, 165, 169, 172; Protectorate Treaty, 92, 94, 103, 123; protocol, 93, 123. See also annexation Kaifu Toshiki, 146, 148–49, 169–70 kaikoku (the opening), 63–64, 88, 123 Kajiyama Seiroku, 122, 129 Kanghwa: Incident, 60, 87, 90–92, 95, 123; Treaty of, 91–92, 123 Kapsin Coup, 93 Katsura Taro, 93–95 Katzenstein, Peter, 17, 79–80, 180, 182 Kawamura Sumihiko, 144 Keidanren, 168–69 Keohane, Robert, 17–19, 185 Kim Dae-jung, 104, 142, 147–48, 150–53, 156, 165–66, 171 Kim Youg-sam, 150 Kishi Nobusuke, 75–76, 78, 103 Kita Ikki, 70–71 Koiso Kuniaki, 98

Koizumi Junichiro, 1, 152–53; visits to Yasukuni, 1, 153–55 Kojong, King, 97 kokumin, 100; conflation with nation, 96, 100–101; ethnicity, 26, 70, 83, 100; race, 68, 71, 83, 97, 100; shinmin, 100 kokutai, 7–8, 10, 60–72, 79, 83, 89, 92–93, 98, 113, 178, 182; as identity, 59, 62–63, 67–68, 71–73, 82, 96, 108 Komura Jutaro, 93, 95 Kono Yohei, 129, 132, 149 Korea: annexation of (see annexation); ethnic Koreans in Japan, 83, 99–100, 106 Korea clause, 147 Korea imaginary, viii, 8, 107–9, 113–14, 116–17, 121, 147, 178, 180, 182–83 Korea, negative images of, 8, 57, 59–60, 84, 87, 99–100, 102, 106, 111, 115, 128, 143, 166, 168, 174, 177, 183 Korean otherness, viii, 2–10, 13–15, 57, 59–61, 68, 84–85, 87, 91, 94–95, 99, 103, 105–8, 111–16, 119, 124, 128, 131–34, 136–38, 141–43, 147–48, 155–58, 161, 163–66, 168–69, 172–74, 177–78, 180, 182–84 Korean uprising against Japan (see March 1 Movement); North Korea, vii, 108, 142, 146–47, 150, 154–55, 158, 205n1 Korea “problem,” 89, 95, 99 Korea’s dependence, 3, 104, 162–64, 173 Koshiro, Yukiko, 83, 100 Krasner, Stephen, 17 Kuboi Norio, 124, 131 Kubota Kanichiro, 102; the Kubota Remark, 102, 115 Kuriyama Takakazu, 146 Kurki, Milija, 185

INDEX

language. See speech acts Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), 103–4, 124, 126, 129, 132, 134–35, 148–49, 151, 165 liberationism. See pan-Asianism MacArthur, Douglas, 73, 101; constitution, 73; MacArthur Line, 101 March 1 Movement (1919), 97, 123 Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF), 82, 144s Maruyama Masao, 64–65, 88 McSweeney, Bill, 24, 27 Mead, George Herbert, 23, 29, 30, 37, 44–45, 48, 178, 181 Meiji: constitution, 7, 10, 59–61, 73, 92; emperor, 90, 94; era (1868– 1912), 68; oligarchs, 63–64, 70, 88–89, 205n9; restoration, 3, 7, 61, 63, 65, 87, 108, 178, 183, 198n17 memory, 10, 36, 39, 50–52, 54, 89, 114, 117, 126, 137–38; collective, 36, 53, 84, 100, 114, 117, 121, 126, 138, 181; mnemonics, 2, 111, 117, 119–20, 122, 132, 136–37; “nowness” of, 51–52, 114, 119, 133, 138; politics of, 10, 17, 33, 54, 107–8, 111, 113–19, 126, 131–34, 137–39, 141, 155–56; wartime, 55, 77, 84, 100, 124, 127, 136, 141, 177 merchant state identity. See shonin kokka METI. See Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Min, Queen, 93 mindo. See civility Ministry of Defense. See Japan Defense Agency Ministry of Education, 66, 105, 120–21, 124–25, 129, 152 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), 78, 82–83, 100–104, 116–18, 130,

249

133, 143–45, 147, 149–53, 159, 173 Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), 77, 79, 118, 160, 163–64, 167, 170, 173; METI, 165–66, 173 mirai-shiko gaiko (future-oriented diplomacy), 2, 9–10, 84, 106–8, 111–12, 116–18, 122, 132, 141–56 passim, 157, 164, 166–70, 173 Miyazawa Kiichi, 118, 129–30, 146, 149, 151, 163, 171; New Miyazawa Initiative, 159 Momose Tadashi, 163, 167–68 Mongol invasion, 89, 108 Mori Yoshiro, 134, 151 Murayama Tomiichi, 75, 81, 131–34, 150; Muryama Remark (1995) 136–37, 150 Mutual Security Agreement (MSA), 75–76, 105, 117, 144, 147 Nakasone Yasuhiro, 77–78, 80, 105, 143, 151, 154, 209n125 Nakayama Taro, 145–46, 149 nation, 62–65, 71, 74, 78–82, 88–93, 99, 104, 115, 118, 120–26, 131–37, 148, 152 nationalism, 39, 80, 101, 137; kokumin as nation, 100; ultranationalism, 60, 85, 198n16 Nationality Act, 83, 100–101 navy, 91; imperial navy, 68, 82. See also Maritime Self-Defense Forces neoliberal institutionalism. See international relations neorealism. See international relations New Far Eastern Order, 71 New Frontier Party (Shinshinto), 129, 134–35 Nishioka Tsutomu, 166 North Korea. See Korea “nowness” of memory. See memory Nye, Joseph, 17

250

INDEX

Obuchi Keizo, 75, 81, 151, 165, 172 occupation: of Japan (1945–1952), 72, 74, 82–83, 99, 113, 117; of Korea, 91; SCAP, 72–73, 82–83, 101 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), 164, 169, 172 Official Development Assistance (ODA), 8, 78, 160 Ogura Kazuo, 149, 171–72 Okakwa Shumei, 70 Okubo Toshimichi, 90 Okuma Shigenobu, 90 Okuno Sosuke, 133–34 ontology, 6, 16, 22, 25, 27, 31–47 passim, 54–56, 146, 184–85 Onuf, Nicholas, 21 other. See self/other Ozawa Ichiro, 144 Pacific War. See World War II pan-Asianism, 3, 10, 57, 62, 68, 99; liberationism, 3, 63, 67, 71 Park Chung-hee, 102–4, 115, 163 Parliamentarians’ League on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the End of World War II, 134–35 past, 2, 3, 8–10, 36, 52, 55, 84, 107, 109, 111–20, 126, 130–38, 141–56 passim, 157, 166–67, 169–70, 173–74, 178, 183, 216n53 peace, 7, 41, 44, 46, 59, 60, 62, 72–79, 81, 93–97, 118, 132, 136, 144, 146, 149, 150, 152, 159, 201n81, 205n9; peace constitution (see constitution); peaceful coexistence, 62, 74, 79, 81, 84, 87, 151, 154, 177; peaceful interdependence, 7–8, 10, 60, 158; peace state identity, 52–53, 57, 60–62, 73–83, 88, 107, 116–18, 122, 130–32, 136, 146, 162 (see also heiwa kokka) Peace Preservation Law, 63, 69, 198n16 politics of memory. See memory

Porpora, Douglas, 44, 46, 48, 181 postmodernism. See international relations postpositivism. See international relations poststructuralism. See international relations Potsdam Declaration, 63, 71, 74, 80 power, 3–4, 143; soft power, 3, 8, 78, 159, 178 race, 68–69, 71, 82–83, 97, 100; conflation with jinshu, 68; minzoku, 68; nation, 100; racialized worldview, 68–69, 82, 97, 100 rational choice theories. See international relations Reagan, Ronald, 209n125 realism. See international relations; social theory reification, 2–6, 8–10, 14–16, 22, 27–28, 33, 36, 44–45, 47, 49–64 passim, 87, 104, 107, 109, 111–16, 119–21, 128, 131–33, 135–37, 147, 156, 157, 166–68, 173, 177, 179–86 remembering and forgetting, xi, 82, 106, 111, 115, 117, 119, 122, 125–26, 133–34, 136–38 Republic of Korea, the (ROK). See Korea residency-general, 94–95 restitution, 9, 102–3, 105, 111, 118, 131, 133, 158; aid as, 105, 116, 162, 174 Rhee Syngman, 101–2, 162; The Rhee Line, 101, 115 Risse, Thomas, 24 Roh Moo-hyun, 154 Roh Tae-woo, 118, 127–28, 145, 148–49, 163, 170–71 Ruggie, John Gerard, 21, 24, 42, 179 Russo-Japanese war, 67–68, 91, 94; Treaty of Portsmouth, 94

INDEX

Sakigake, 132, 135 Sato Eisaku, 103 SCAP (Supreme Command of the Allied Powers). See occupation Searle, John, 34, 44, 46–49, 54, 181 seikan-ron (1873) 90–91 Sekai shuho, 148, 167, 171 Self-Defense Forces (SDF), 60, 76, 82, 106, 144. See also Maritime SelfDefense Forces self/other, vii–viii, 2–57 passim, 59–68, 79–85, 87–108, 111–38 passim, 141–56, passim, 157–75 passim, 177–84 sengo, 75–76, 80, 132 Shidehara Kijuro, 69, 80, 161 Shiina Etsusaburo, 103 shogunate, 65, 89–90 shonin kokka, 7–8, 10, 60, 62, 72–73, 77–79, 82–84, 87, 99, 107–8, 111, 116, 120, 127, 138, 157–59, 161–64, 172, 174, 177–78, 182–83 Showa, emperor, 133, 143, 148. See also emperor Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), 91, 93 Smethurst, Reichard, 70 Smith, Steve, 5, 186 social construction, 6, 39, 41–45, 179–80, 185 social theory, 6, 9, 13–14, 21, 31, 33–34, 42, 179, 181; antirealism, 6, 9, 14, 31–47 passim, 53, 56, 179, 193n7; philosophical realism, 6, 9, 14, 33 South Korea. See Korea speech acts, 5, 33, 36, 40, 45, 48–54, 60, 83, 117, 119, 148, 158, 177, 183, 185; language, 2, 10, 27, 35, 38–47, 66, 72–75, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99–102, 115, 119, 124, 133, 36–37, 141–50, 153, 155, 167, 169, 173–75, 178; symbols, 8, 14, 35–38, 41, 44, 51, 53, 59, 61, 63–64, 66, 70, 76–78, 84, 89, 92–93, 108, 115, 120, 147–49, 154, 183

251

Spruyt, Hendrik, 4 structuration theory, 54–56 Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP). See occupation Suzuki Zenko, 104, 106 symbols. See speech acts Taisho: emperor, 68 (see also emperor); democracy, 68–69; era (1912–1926) 69 Taiwan, 95, 100, 125, 135, 164 Takeshima (Dokto), 141, 150 Takeuchi Yoshimi, 182 Tanaka Kakuei, 78, 105, 117 technology transfers, 11, 104, 112, 116–17, 119, 157–58, 164–67, 169–71, 178 Terauchi Masatake, 95–97 textbook, 66, 105, 111, 114, 119–26, 129, 137, 139, 141, 150; inspection regime (kentei), 120–23 Tientsing, Treaty of, 92–93 Tokyo trials, 96 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 89, 151 trade, 53, 69, 72, 77–79, 118, 157; Free Trade Agreement, 119, 160–74; relations with South Korea, 91, 104, 112, 114, 139, 157–74; White Paper, 119, 173 Tsushima: clan, 89; Strait, 1, 8, 103, 111–12, 116, 158, 174, 180, 185–86 Uchida Ryohei, 94 ultranationalism. See nationalism unequal treaties, 91 United Kingdom, 92, 123 United Nations, 81, 118, 144, 147, 160 United States of America, vii, 70, 74, 76–77, 79, 87, 92, 101, 103, 117, 123, 144, 147; alliance with Japan (see Mutual Security Agreement) Wakabayashi, Bart Tadashi, 67 Walker, R. B. J., 26

252

INDEX

Waltz, Kenneth, 13, 16–20, 30 Watanabe, Michio, 136, 149 Wendt, Alexander, 21–30, 41, 179, 186 Wight, Colin, 39, 48 World Cup (2002), 1, 139, 142, 150–55, 169, 172, 174, 183, 186 worldview, viii, 1, 5–8, 13–15, 17, 20, 24, 33, 40, 43, 47, 50–53, 56–57, 59, 62, 64, 67–68, 70, 77, 79, 83–84, 88–89, 91, 97, 104, 112, 116, 121, 128, 138, 145, 155, 157– 59, 174, 178–80, 182; hierarchy as, vii, 3, 7–8, 10, 60, 62, 66–68, 70, 73, 77, 79, 83–84, 88, 92, 96, 99, 104, 107–8, 112–16, 118–19,

122, 128, 137, 145, 156–59, 163, 172–73, 177–78, 180, 182–83 World War I, 97 World War II, 71, 80, 87, 99, 111, 158; Pacific War, 55, 59, 102 Yamagata Aritomo, 68, 93, 161 Yanaiba Sakimitsu, 89 Yasukuni (shrine), 1, 153; controversy, 153–55 Yellow peril, 68 Yoshida Shigeru, 73–80, 101; Yoshida Doctrine, 74, 116 Zehfuss, Maja, 179