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Sino-Japanese Power Politics pp 19–41Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Power Politics Behind Sino-Japanese Identity Politics

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Abstract

Following the Senkaku/Diaoyu standoff, Sino-Japanese power politics slowly contributed to the crystallization of antagonistic identities, through the active involvement of state-led communication efforts. An International Relations (IR) Realist framework reassesses orthodox Constructivist accounts on Sino-Japanese identity creation. Within the broader structural picture of great power competition, the Chinese and Japanese elite engaged into a more assertive foreign policy aimed at territorial defense. Central governments enjoy leverage in defining the perimeters of discourse-making, and the nationalistic Abe and Xi administrations have mobilized public opinion following the 2012 crisis scenario. The ensuing propaganda wars fostered a “propaganda dilemma” that reinforced the Japan–China identity chasm. Finally, apart from winning the hearts and minds of international public opinion, the Japanese and Chinese governments sought international support that would reverberate with their respective domestic audiences and legitimize their increasingly rock-solid stances.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Reading, Addison-Wesley, 1979 (Waltz 1979). Along similar, but more “offensive,” lines: John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: Norton, 2001. (Mearsheimer 2001)

  2. 2.

    Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics and Diplomacy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 (Gries 2004); Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation, New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. (Wang 2014)

  3. 3.

    “Statement by H.E. Yang Jiechi at UN General Assembly.”

  4. 4.

    John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 44–45. (Mearsheimer 2001)

  5. 5.

    “Are Senkakus a ‘core interest’ for China?” The Japan Times, May 24, 2012.

  6. 6.

    Michael Yahuda, Sino-Japanese Relations after the Cold War, Oxford: Routledge, 2014, pp. 54–59. (Yahuda 2014)

  7. 7.

    US-China Economic and Security Review Commission—Staff Research Backgrounder, “China’s” Core Interests“ and the East China Sea,” May 10, 2013, http://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China'sCoreInterestsandtheEastChinaSea.pdf.

  8. 8.

    Ministry of Foreign Affairs China, “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on April 26, 2013,” April 28, 2013, http://www.china-un.org/eng/fyrth/t1035948.htm.

  9. 9.

    Interview with foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo.

  10. 10.

    Karl Gustafsson, “Identity and recognition: remembering and forgetting the post-war in Sino-Japanese relations,” The Pacific Review, vol. 28, no. 1, 2015, 117–138. (Gustafsson 2015)

  11. 11.

    Karl Gustafsson, Narratives and Bilateral Relations: Rethinking the “History Issue” in Sino-Japanese Relations, Ph.D. thesis, Stockholm, 2011. (Gustafsson 2011)

  12. 12.

    Shogo Suzuki, “The rise of the Chinese ‘Other’ in Japan’s construction of identity: Is China a focal point of Japanese nationalism?” The Pacific Review, vol. 28, no.1, 2015, 95–116 (Suzuki 2015); Takeshi Suzuki and Shusuke Murai, “How the Japanese Legacy Media Covered the Senkaku Controversy,” in The Diaoyu-Senkaku Dispute, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 141–168. (Suzuki and Murai 2014)

  13. 13.

    Christian Wirth, “China, Japan, and East Asian regional cooperation: the views of ‘self’ and ‘other’ from Beijing and Tokyo,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 9, no. 3, 2009, 469–496 (Wirth 2009); Linus Hagström and Jerdén Björn, “Understanding fluctuations in Sino-Japanese relations: to politicize or to de-politicize the China issue in the Japanese Diet,” Pacific Affairs, vol. 83, no. 4, 2010, 719–739. (Hagström and Jerdén 2010)

  14. 14.

    Caroline Rose, Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations, London: Routledge 1998 (Rose 1998); Caroline Rose, “The Battle for Hearts and Minds: Patriotic Education in Japan in the 1990s,” in Naoko Shimazu, (ed.) Nationalism in Modern and Contemporary Japan, London: Routledge, 2006: pp. 131–154 (Rose 2006); Kamila Szczepanska, The Politics of War Memory in Japan, London: Routledge, 2014. (Szczepanska 2014)

  15. 15.

    William A. Callahan, China: The Pessoptimist Nation, p. 28. (Callahan 2010)

  16. 16.

    Ming Wan, Sino-Japanese Relations: Interaction, Logic and Transformation, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, pp. 142–145 Wan (2006); interview with Kokubun Ryōsei, Tokyo, January 11, 2013.

  17. 17.

    Thomas Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947–1958, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 11–31. (Christensen 1996)

  18. 18.

    Kingsley Edney, The Globalization of Chinese Propaganda: International Power and Domestic Political Cohesion, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. (Edney 2014)

  19. 19.

    Steven Lobell, Norman Ripsman, and Jeffrey Taliaferro (eds.), Neoclassical Realism, the State and Foreign Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. (Lobell et al. 2009)

  20. 20.

    Peter Shearman (ed.), Power Transition and International Order in Asia, Oxford: Routledge, 2013. (Shearman 2013)

  21. 21.

    Douglas M. Gibler, The Territorial Peace—Borders, State Development, and International Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. (Gibler 2014)

  22. 22.

    Gō Itō and Akio Takahara, “Minshutō seiken tanjō ikō no nicchū kankei 2009–2012,” in Akio Takahara and Ryūji Hattori (eds.) Nicchū kankei-shi 1972–2012: I Seiji, Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 2012, pp. 495–496 (Gō and Takahara 2012); Zhan Zhang, “Fanning the flames of public rage,” pp. 84–6.

  23. 23.

    Linus Hagström and Karl Gustafsson, “Japan and identity change: why it matters in international relations,” The Pacific Review, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 1–22. (Gustafsson 2015)

  24. 24.

    Laurie Ann Freeman, Closing the Shop: Information Cartels and Japan’s Mass Media, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 63. (Freeman 2000)

  25. 25.

    Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 189–218 (Weiss 2015); Ryōichi Hamamoto, Shū Kinpei kyōken seiji de Chūgoku wa doko he mukau no ka, Tokyo: Minerva Shobō, 2014, pp. 113–56. (Hamamoto 2014)

  26. 26.

    Giulio Pugliese, “The resurgence of nationalism in China and Japan: a comparative analysis,” in Orientalia Parthenopea, vol. X, 2009, 209–222. (Pugliese 2009)

  27. 27.

    “China says tensions with Japan likely to hurt trade,” Reuters, September 13, 2012.

  28. 28.

    Emphasis added. Ministry of Foreign Affairs China, “Remarks by Assistant Foreign Minister Le Yucheng at the Symposium on the Issue of Diaoyu Dao,” September 14, 2012, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/diaodao_665718/t969558.shtml.

  29. 29.

    International Crisis Group, “Dangerous waters: China-Japan relations on the rocks,” Asia Report, no. 245, April 8, 2013, p. 7, http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/north-east-asia/245-dangerous-waters-china-japan-relations-on-the-rocks.pdf; Linda Jakobson, “China’s foreign policy dilemma,” Lowy Institute for International Policy February 2013 Analysis, February 5, 2013, http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/chinas-foreign-policy-dilemma.

  30. 30.

    Andrew S. Erickson and Adam P. Liff, “Installing a safety on the ‘loaded gun’? China’s institutional reforms, National Security Commission and Sino-Japanese crisis (in)stability,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 25, no. 98, 197–215 (Erickson and Liff 2016); David M. Lampton, “Xi Jinping and the National Security Commission: policy coordination and political power,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 24, no. 95, 2015, 759–777. (Lampton 2015)

  31. 31.

    Evan Osnos, “Born Red.”

  32. 32.

    “Nanjing da tusha sinan zhe guojia gongji yishi longzhong juxing—Xi Jinping fabiao zhongyao jianghua,” Xinhua, December 13, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2014-12/13/c_1113630026.htm.

  33. 33.

    “Speech delivered by the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping to the Körber Foundation,” Körber Stiftung, March 28, 2014.

  34. 34.

    “Xi Jinping zai zhoubian waijiao gongzuo zuotan hui shang fabiao zhongyao jianghua,” Xinhua, October 25, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-10/25/c_117878897.htm; Michael D. Swaine, “Chinese views and commentaries on periphery diplomacy,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 44, July 2014.

  35. 35.

    “Yan Xuetong: cong taoguang yanghui dao fenfayouwei,” Zhongguo jingji zhoukan, November 13, 2013, http://www.rmlt.com.cn/2013/1113/181720.shtml.

  36. 36.

    “Xi Jinping chuxi zhongyang waishi gongzuo huiyi bing fabiao zhongyao jianghua,” Xinhua, November 29, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014-11/29/c_1113457723.htm.

  37. 37.

    Genron NPO, “Dai 10kai nicchū kyōdō yoron chōsa kekka,” September 10, 2014, http://www.genron-npo.net/world/genre/tokyobeijing/10-7.html.

  38. 38.

    “The Abe habit,” The Economist, December 20, 2014.

  39. 39.

    Emphasis added. On the record interview with advisor to Abe Shinzō, June 2014.

  40. 40.

    Eiji Ōshita, Abe Shinzō to Nobusuke Kishi, Tokyo: Kadokawa Shinsho, 2014, pp.172–184 (Ōshita 2014); quote from page 175.

  41. 41.

    Cabinet Secretariat, “The Advisory Panel on Communications Concerning Territorial Integrity,” July 2013, http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/ryodo_eg/torikumi/ryodoshitsu/ryodoshitsu-adp.html.

  42. 42.

    Definition provided in Geoffrey Till, Asia’s Naval Expansion: an arms race in the making?, Oxford: Routledge, 2012, pp. 18–19. (Till 2012)

  43. 43.

    “Chūgoku ‘rekishi kādo’ no hitotsu ni kyūfūjō shita ianfu,” Sankei Shinbun, April 4, 2014.

  44. 44.

    Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, “Comfort women: beyond litigious feminism,” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 58, no. 2, Summer 2003, 223–258. (Wakabayashi 2003)

  45. 45.

    For a different view: Christopher W. Hughes, Japan’s Remilitarisation, Oxford and New York: Routledge for International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2009, pp. 67–78. (Hughes 2009)

  46. 46.

    Government of Japan, National Security Strategy, Tokyo: December 2013, pp. 35–36.

  47. 47.

    Junichi Fukuda, “Chūgoku no ‘sansen’ ni tachimukau hōhō—‘tatakawazu shite katsu’ senpō wo fūjikomeru tame no 37 no teigen,” JB Press, October 24, 2014, http://jbpress.ismedia.jp/articles/-/42018?page=8.

  48. 48.

    E.H. Carr, The Twenty Year Crisis, p. 121.

  49. 49.

    Masafumi Kaneko, “Paburikku dipuromashī no mōten—shinzui wa ika ni aite no shinyō wo eru ka,” Gaikō, vol. 27, September 2014, 58–63 (Kaneko 2014); Ikuo Kayahara, “Chūgoku no jōhōsen—gun ni yoru ‘san sen’ no jittai to tokusei,” Gaikō, vol. 27, September 2014, 40–43 (Kayahara 2014); Yoshikazu Suzuki, “Kokusai jōhō-sen wo dō ikinuku ka,” Gaikō, vol. 27, September 2014, 16–21. (Suzuki 2014)

  50. 50.

    “Rekishi-sen: puropaganda wo bunseki—gaimushō naibu bunsho: Chūgoku wa media Kankoku wa chihō kara,” Sankei Shinbun, May 4, 2014.

  51. 51.

    Interview with Abe administration government official in charge of communication strategies; Interview with former US State Department official.

  52. 52.

    “Yulun jiawu haizhan zhenghan Ri zaixian jiaokeshu zhi zhan,” Sina.com , January 13, 2014 http://dailynews.sina.com/gb/news/usa/uslocal/chinapress/20140113/02205361718.html; “Ri Hua mei: Riben dui Diaoyu Dao ‘yulun zhan’ burong hushi,” Zhongguo xinwen wang, November 25, 2013, http://www.chinanews.com/gj/2013/11-25/5543802.shtml.

  53. 53.

    Karl Gustafsson, “Is China’s discursive power increasing? The ‘power of the past’ in Sino-Japanese relations,” Asian Perspective, vol. 38, no. 3, July-September 2014, 424–427 (Gustafsson 2014); Linus Hagström, “The Sino-Japanese battle for soft power: pitfalls and promises,” Global Affairs, vol. 1, no. 2, 2015, 129–137. (Hagström 2015)

  54. 54.

    See, for example, Chinese Embassy in Berlin, “Zhu Deguo dashi Shi Mingde fu Munihei zuo baogao zaici chanshu duiri guanxi lichang”; “Chūgoku media—Doitsu de Nihon ga Chūgoku ni ‘ronpa’ to no dame-nagashita,” News Post Seven, January 28, 2014, http://www.newspostseven.com/archives/20140127_238426.html.

  55. 55.

    William A. Callahan, “Identity and security in China: the negative soft power of the China Dream,” Politics, vol. 35, no. 3–4, 2015, 216–229. (Callahan 2015)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. War Studies Department, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Giulio Pugliese

  2. History Department, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

    Aurelio Insisa

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  1. Giulio Pugliese
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Pugliese, G., Insisa, A. (2017). The Power Politics Behind Sino-Japanese Identity Politics. In: Sino-Japanese Power Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59554-6_2

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