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Dissertation

Nationalism in Japan’s contemporary foreign policy: a consideration of the cases of China, North Korea, and India

01 Feb 2013-
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored how political actors manipulated the concept of nationalism in foreign policy discourse and explored how the two administrations both used nationalism but in the pursuit of contrasting policies: an uncompromising stance to China and a conciliatory approach toward North Korea under the Koizumi administration, a hardline attitude against North Korea and the rapprochement with China by Abe, accompanied by a friendship-policy toward India.
Abstract: Under the Koizumi and Abe administrations, the deterioration of the Japan-China relationship and growing tension between Japan and North Korea were often interpreted as being caused by the rise of nationalism. This thesis aims to explore this question by looking at Japan’s foreign policy in the region and uncovering how political actors manipulated the concept of nationalism in foreign policy discourse. The methodology employs discourse analysis on five case studies. It will be explored how the two administrations both used nationalism but in the pursuit of contrasting policies: an uncompromising stance to China and a conciliatory approach toward North Korea under the Koizumi administration, a hard-line attitude against North Korea and the rapprochement with China by Abe, accompanied by a friendship-policy toward India. These case studies show how the nationalism is used in the competition between political leaders by articulating national identity in foreign policy. Whereas this often appears as a kind of assertiveness from outside China, in the domestic context leaders use nationalism to reconstruct Japan’s identity as a ‘peaceful nation’ through foreign policy by highlighting differences from ‘other’s or by achieving historic reconciliation. Such identity constructions are used to legitimize policy choices that are in themselves used to marginalize other policy options and political actors. In this way, nationalism is utilized as a kind of political capital in a domestic power relationship, as can be seen by Abe’s use of foreign policy to set an agenda of ‘departure from the postwar regime’. In a similar way, Koizumi’s unyielding stance against China was used to calm discontents among right-wing traditionalists who were opposed to his reconciliatory approach to Pyongyang. On the other hand, Abe also utilized a hard-line policy to the DPRK to offset his rapprochement with China whilst he sought to prevent the improved relationship from becoming a source of political capital for his rivals. The major insights of this thesis is thus to explain how Japan’s foreign policy is shaped by the attempts of its political leaders to manipulate nationalism so as articulating particular forms of national identity that enable them to achieve legitimacy for their policy agendas, boost domestic credentials and marginalize their political rivals.
Citations
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Book
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather, one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deformation as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

512 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP: Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions by Ellis S. Krauss and RobERT J. PEKKANEN as discussed by the authors, 2010. 318 pp.
Abstract: ELLIS S. KRAUSS and ROBERT J. PEKKANEN. The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP: Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions . Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2010. 318 pp. US$26...

56 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that Japan's foreign policy has become more proactive and assertive than it was during the cold war, placing greater emphasis on non-economic sources of power.
Abstract: Within the past decade or so, Japan's foreign policy has become more proactive and assertive than it was during the cold war, placing greater emphasis on non-economic sources of power. Changing bilateral relations with all four BRICs are both causes and consequences of this newly assertive foreign policy stance. Japan's relationship with China is both the most important and the most complicated of the four. At the core of complexity is Japan's deep ambivalence about whether to treat China's economic rise as a threat or an opportunity. Japanese policy has consequently veered between engagement and confrontation, with the paradoxical result that while bilateral trade has exploded, diplomatic relations are the worst in memory. Japan's relations with Russia display a similar if less pronounced ambivalence. Largely as a consequence of heightened concerns about the threats from China and Russia, Japanese policy makers have begun to see the potential of both India and Brazil as useful counterweights, a view that coincides with the newly-articulated "values diplomacy" that stresses the importance of shared democratic values. However, India and Brazil remain relatively unimportant trading partners for Japan. Key words: Japan, foreign policy, international relations, BRICs Introduction For much of the cold war, Japan's foreign policy was guided by the "Yoshida Doctrine" of pacifism, deference to and security dependence on the United States, and a nonconfrontational diplomatic style.1 Within the past decade or so, however, Japan's foreign policy has become more proactive and assertive, placing greater emphasis on noneconomic sources of power, both "hard" military strength and "soft" diplomatic and cultural assets. Scholars attribute this shift from "reactive state" to "reluctant realist" to many causes. Globally, the end of the cold war meant that unquestioning U.S. protection could no longer be taken for granted. Regionally, new challenges include a rising China, a resurgent Russia, and the nuclearization of the India-Pakistan standoff, as well as increased threats from North Korea. Domestically, economic stagnation increased Japan's sense of vulnerability and provoked rising nationalism even as the pacifist left collapsed. Changing bilateral relations with all four BRICs are both causes and consequences of this newly assertive foreign policy stance. Changing relations with China and to a far lesser extent Russia did much to provoke the policy shift, while relations with India and Brazil are being transformed by it. Japan's relationship with China is both the most important and the most complicated of the four. At the core of the complexity is Japan's deep ambivalence about whether to treat China's economic rise as a threat or an opportunity and, if the former, whether the main threat stems from China's economic and military power or from the regional instability that would follow an economic or political collapse. Japanese policy has consequently veered between engagement and confrontation, with the paradoxical result that while bilateral trade has exploded-China is now Japan's largest trading partner-diplomatic relations are the worst in memory. Japan's relations with Russia display a similar if less pronounced ambivalence. Russia's energy resources and economic vibrancy are increasingly attractive to Japanese corporations, and trade is rapidly increasing, but longstanding territo- rial disputes and mutual distrust mar the relationship. Largely as a consequence of heightened concerns about China, Japanese policy makers have begun to see the potential of both India and Brazil as useful counter-weights. Japan enlisted both as allies in the bid to win permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. Closer relations were also part of the recent Foreign Minister Taro Aso's "Values Diplomacy" which, as part of Japan's contribution to the "War on Terror," stressed shared values of democracy and human rights. …

13 citations

Book
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: Koizumi and Abe as discussed by the authors discuss the history of the Koizumi administration in a historical and theoretical perspective, and discuss the role of Neoliberal Reform in domestic and foreign relations.
Abstract: 1. Koizumi's Management of Politics 2. Domestic Affairs: The Battle over Neoliberal Reform 3. Foreign Relations: Closer to America, Farther from East Asia 4. The Koizumi Administration in Historical and Theoretical Perspective 5. Legacies of the Koizumi Administration Postscript: The Koizumi and Abe Administrations

12 citations


"Nationalism in Japan’s contemporary..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…home for many powerful Posts and Construction zoku lawmakers, Koizumi’s pursuit of ‘structural reforms’ like postal privatization and the reduction of public works expenditures were ‘poised to cut deeply into the vested interests of the bureaucracy and zoku lawmakers alike (Uchiyama 2010: 13-14)’....

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  • ...As a result, its composition was far from factionally balanced, sending a strong signal of ‘defactionalization’ instead (Uchiyama 2010: 13)28....

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Journal ArticleDOI

12 citations


"Nationalism in Japan’s contemporary..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…on a simplified version of Japan’s political nationalism, which tends to be identified with the prewar type of right-wing militarism (Morris 1960, Brown 1971) or ‘ultranationalism’ (Maruyama 1963) characterized as a mixture of statism, militarism, xenophobia and aggressive expansionism (McVeigh…...

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Journal ArticleDOI

12 citations


"Nationalism in Japan’s contemporary..." refers background or result in this paper

  • ...The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a surge of interest in cultural nationalism triggered by the appearance of a vast array of literature on ‘nihonjinron’, a popular genre that seeks to rediscover, redefine and reaffirm Japanese uniqueness (Yoshino 1992: 203, Kowner 2002: 169)....

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  • ...Although most academics who deal with ‘cultural nationalism’ seem to draw a clear line between political and cultural nationalism (Rose 2000, Yoshino 1992), these two aspects can hardly be separated in a strict sense, but are better understood as being mutually constitutive....

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  • ...In contrast to the abundance of literature on the prewar period, fewer English literatures have been written on postwar 16 nationalism, except for some short articles until the 1990s (Yoshino 1992: 2)....

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