The book discusses the changing nature of Japanese foreign policy through the concepts of identity, culture and memory. A set of chapters written by established Japanese and foreign experts show the nuances of Japanese self-images and their role in defining their understanding of the world.

Contested Memories in Chinese and Japanese Foreign Policy explores the issue of memory and lack of reconciliation in East Asia. As main East Asian nations have never achieved a common memory of their pasts, in particular, the events of the Second World War and Sino-Japanese War, this book locates the issue of memory within International Relations theory, exploring the theoretical and practical link between the construction of a country's identity and the formation and contestation of its historical memory and foreign policy. - Provides an innovative theoretical framework - Draws connections between the role of memory and foreign policy - Uses the interpretative theory of international relations - Gives comparative perspective using the cases of China and Japan - Presents in-depth analysis of the construction and contestation of national memory in China and Japan

This book assesses the role of identity and Chinese face culture in Chinese foreign policy by analyzing China’s political and economic retaliation against South Korea’s deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system on its soil. By examining the history and military action of China, Japan, and North and South Korea, the book argues that China’s divergent responses were caused by different expectations according to whether states had a perceived identity as a friend or a rival. The author demonstrates that Chinese face culture shapes China’s reaction to others through three dynamics of seeking, saving, and losing face. This book shows how identity and culture have worked in the relationship between China and neighboring countries through three case studies exploring North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missile launch and first nuclear test in 2006, South Korea’s decision to allow the United States to deploy the THAAD around 2016, and Japan’s decision to deploy two U.S. X-band radars in 2005 and 2014. A timely analysis of the importance of identity and culture in international relations, the book will be of interest to scholars of Chinese foreign policy, Sino-South Korean relations, Sino-North Korean relations, Sino-Japanese relations, Korean Politics, Asian Politics, and International Relations.

This book explores the uses of the past in foreign policy-making. It outlines why and how political leaders refer to historical events in contemporary foreign policy discourses; the goals they hope to achieve; and the sometimes unintended foreign policy consequences of their (ab)use of historical memory. Furthermore, it looks at how political leaders shape domestic collective memories in pursuit of their international agendas, and highlight historical events leaders forget, reinterpret or obscure through selective narratives. The chapters explore a variety of theoretical concepts that shed light on how memory and foreign policy are linked in a complex and reciprocal way. The following mechanisms are discussed: the application of historical analogies; the construction of historical narratives; the creation of memory sites; the marginalisation and forgetting of the past; and the securitisation of historical memory. Through the use of a number of methodological approaches (such as discourse analysis, narrative analysis and content analysis of securitising moves) and a broad range of qualitative and quantitative data (newspaper articles, policy documents, commemorative speeches, interviews with policymakers and the observation of memory sites), the contributions highlight the interdependence of the international, national, regional and local dimensions of memory practices and history writing. Although they mostly focus on national case studies of foreign policy-making, they also reveal how representations of historical events evolve through interaction between political actors at the international level of analysis. The collection originated in the section entitled ‘Exploring the Link between Historical Memory and Foreign Policy’ at the annual Pan-European Conference of the European International Studies Association (EISA) 2018 held in Prague, the Czech Republic.

In Japan's National Identity and Foreign Policy, Alexander Bukh focuses on the construction of the Japanese self using Russia as the other, examining the history of bilateral relations and comparisons between the Russian and Japanese national character.

This is the first extensive English-language study of Yasukuni Shrine as a war memorial. It explores the controversial shrine’s role in waging war, promoting peace, honoring the dead, and, in particular, building Japan’s modern national identity. It traces Yasukuni’s history from its conceptualization in the final years of the Tokugawa period and Japan’s wars of imperialism to the present. Author Akiko Takenaka departs from existing scholarship on Yasukuni by considering various themes important to the study of war and its legacies through a chronological and thematic survey of the shrine, emphasizing the spatial practices that took place both at the shrine and at regional sites associated with it over the last 150 years. Rather than treat Yasukuni as a single, unchanging ideological entity, she takes into account the social and political milieu, maps out gradual transformations in both its events and rituals, and explicates the ideas that the shrine symbolizes. Takenaka illuminates the ways the shrine’s spaces were used during wartime, most notably in her reconstructions, based on primary sources, of visits by war-bereaved military families to the shrine during the Asia-Pacific War. She also traces important episodes in Yasukuni’s postwar history, including the filing of lawsuits against the shrine and recent attempts to reinvent it for the twenty-first century. Through a careful analysis of the shrine’s history over one and a half centuries, her work views the making and unmaking of a modern militaristic Japan through the lens of Yasukuni Shrine. Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar is a skilled and innovative examination of modern and contemporary Japan’s engagement with the critical issues of war, empire, and memory. It will be of particular interest to readers of Japanese history and culture as well as those who follow current affairs and foreign relations in East Asia. Its discussion of spatial practices in the life of monuments and the political use of images, media, and museum exhibits will find a welcome audience among those engaged in memory, visual culture, and media studies.

Why do some governments and societies attach great significance to a particular anniversary year whereas others seem less inclined to do so? What motivates the orchestration of elaborate commemorative activities in some countries? What are they supposed to accomplish, for both domestic and international audience? In what ways do commemorations in Asia Pacific fit into the global memory culture of war commemoration? In what ways are these commemorations intertwined with current international politics? This book presents the first large-scale analysis of how countries in the Asia Pacific and beyond commemorated the seventieth anniversaries of the end of World War II. Consisting of in-depth case studies of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, United States, Russia, and Germany, this unique collective effort demonstrates how memories of the past as reflected in public commemorations and contemporary politics—both internal and international—profoundly affect each other.