Abstract
This chapter addresses what it sees as the Abe administration’s resolve to enhance a “patriotic love of nation” among Japan’s citizens by whitewashing the history and legacy of prewar Japanese expansion and in the process denying the legitimacy of territorial boundaries established following World War II. Its central focus is on the 2014 publication of a map by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that claims “inherent sovereignty” over all maritime areas to which Japan continues to exert claims, disregarding counterclaims by other states, and the divergent understandings of the pre-1945 histories that made them Japanese territory in the first place.
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Notes
- 1.
Abe Shinzo, Utsukushii kuni e (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 2006).
- 2.
Yuichi Hosoya, “Historical Memories and Security Legislation: Japan’s Security Policy under the Abe Administration,” in Asia-Pacific Review, Vol. 22 No. 2, 2015, pp. 44–52.
- 3.
Ibid., p. 47.
- 4.
For a brilliant explanation of the issues and their more recent politicization, see, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “You Don’t Want to Know About the Girls? The ‘Comfort Women,’ the Japanese Military and Allied Forces in the Asia-Pacific War,” in The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No. 1, August 3, 2015.
- 5.
Relatedly, see Mari Yamaguchi, “Japan Withholds its UNESCO Dues,” October 14, 2016, ABC News Wire; http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-withholds-annual-dues-unesco-42796960
- 6.
Richard Minear,Victor’s Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971).
- 7.
Japanese language materials are voluminous; in English-language reading, the first clear manifestation of a shift toward “hollowing out” Minear’s meaning began with Uchimura Kei, The Judgment of Civilization: The Intellectual Legacy of the Japanese War Crimes Trials, 1946–1949 (Tokyo: The International House of Japan, 2003).
- 8.
As even its Twitter feed proudly advertises, since 1997, the chief group seeking to make concrete changes—the Tsukurukai (the Committee to Make a “Correct” History)—has sought to make history textbooks that make Japan proud which begin by denying guilt of war crimes: https://twitter.com/tsukurukai?lang=en
- 9.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, “Japanese Territory,” April 2014 http://www.mofa.go.jp/territory/index.html
Cabinet Secretariat, Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty, April 2017. http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/ryodo/img/data/poster201704.pdf
- 10.
By May 2016, Tokyo’s policy is upheld in 78% of high school textbooks compared to 54% of publications a decade ago, teaching future voters that the history of the Japanese empire has nothing to do with the contested islands.
- 11.
Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 2014. http://www.mofa.go.jp/territory/index.html
- 12.
Japan Ministry of Defense, August 2016: http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/2016.html
- 13.
In Kimie Hara’s splendid edited collection, The San Francisco System and Its Legacies: Continuation, Transformation, and Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2015), Seokwoo Lee’s chapter, “Korea and Japan: The Dokdo/Takeshima Problem” offers excellent details concerning the distinctions made about “inherent” Japan at the time of the treaty’s signing (pp. 20–36).
- 14.
The themes of “theft” predominate in discussions of the island contests with Korea and Russia whose territorial problems are clearly linked to the San Francisco Treaty; this view is less clearly articulated with the East China Sea matters until considered through a Ryukyuan perspective.
- 15.
TheNippon Kaigi worldview is at the heart of things, with the primacy given by a recently convened government-sponsored study group to the legitimacy of the Tokyo Tribunals; there is an excellent recent discussion of theNippon Kaigi in the Nikkei (October 9, 2016), page 12 (including an interview with its policy director, Momochi Akira).
- 16.
There is no room here, but this entirely confused approach thus lays its inconsistencies bare in among other aspects not demanding the “return” of southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) which became Japanese territory in 1905 together with Japan’s control over Dokdo (Takeshima).
- 17.
It is instructive to consider the work of historians working in Japan who face denigration for arguing a lack of historical evidence to back Japan’s claims (see, e.g., Kuboi Norio and Kuroda Yoshihiro).
- 18.
Jessica Chen Weiss thoughtfully examines the ramifications for Beijing should it fail to continue its hardline push for territory, “Nationalist Protests, Government Responses, and the Risk of Escalation in Interstate Disputes,” (Forthcoming), Security Studies 25:4 (December 2016) (with John D. Ciorciari).
- 19.
In the spring of 2016, the group, Voices of Overseas Youth for Civic Engagement (VOYCE), published an online English-language translation of the LDP April 2012 proposal for constitutional revision, “Draft for the Amendment of the Constitution of Japan (in contrast to the Current Constitution)”: http://www.voyce-jpn.com/ldp-draft-constitution
- 20.
Komamura has numerous essays; his guest blog on Shelia Smith’s Council on Foreign Relations website in August 2016 introduces his work to a broad audience, “The Unbearable Lightness of Our Constitution,” http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/08/17/the-unbearable-lightness-of-our-constitution/
- 21.
Jeff Kingston, “Empire of the Setting Sun,” Foreign Policy, August 15, 2016.
- 22.
See Chap. 7 by Jeff Kingston in this volume.
- 23.
Komamura Keigo, “Destroying ‘The Rule of Law,’” Asahi Shinbun, June 12, 2015.
Bibliography
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Hosoya, Yuichi. “Historical Memories and Security Legislation: Japan’s Security Policy Under the Abe Administration.” Asia-Pacific Review, Vol. 22 No. 2, 2015, pp. 44–52.
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. Japanese Territory. April 2014. http://www.mofa.go.jp/territory/index.html
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. “You Don’t Want to Know About the Girls? The ‘Comfort Women’, the Japanese Military and Allied Forces in the Asia-Pacific War.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No. 1, August 3, 2015.
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VOYCE. “Draft for the Amendment of the Constitution of Japan (in Contrast to the Current Constitution).” August 2016. http://www.voyce-jpn.com/ldp-draft-constitution
Weiss, Jessica Chen (with John Ciorciari). “Nationalist Protests, Government Responses, and the Risk of Escalation in Interstate Disputes.” Security Studies 25:4, December 2016.
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Dudden, A. (2019). Confronting History and Security Through Territorial Claims. In: Sohn, Y., Pempel, T.J. (eds) Japan and Asia’s Contested Order. Asia Today. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0256-5_8
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