The Postcolonial Clue: Bringing Japan Back In

Abstract

Most of the discussions of China’s Japan policy are focused on economic trade and investment, armament and disarmament, and Japan’s potential role in facilitating or hindering China’s reunification with Taiwan. Focus on these issues indicates (although not without some unstated assumptions) that one would interpret Sino-Japanese relations in light of a predetermined set of national interests, presumably including China’s economic development, national security, and nationalism. It is not difficult, however, to observe certain contradictions among these interests, for example, between China’s economic need to attract more investment and aid from Japan and the political need to act independently from the seeming surge of Japan’s overseas ambition or, for another, between the nationalist need to punish those Japanese politicians interested in rewriting Japan’s role in World War II and the political–economic need to maintain an amiable East Asian environment.