The China Problem in Postwar Japan: Japanese National Identity and Sino-Japanese Relations

摘要

This book not only treats Japan's relationship with China during the 1970s as a foreign policy discourse, but also sheds new light on the relationship by analysing how Japan's nationalist discourse has shaped it. After the defeat of Japan in 1945, with its negative impact on national identity and national consciousness, the Japanese Right and the Left both developed different explanations and nationalist discourses. The relationship with China was used by both sides. Robert Hoppen's main argument is that "changes in the international political environment and Japan-China relations transformed the China problem from a powerful support for Leftist and progressive constructions of identity into a support for the postwar conservative political order and the nationalist narratives that supported it" (p. 6). Facing Japan's submission to American Cold War policy, many on the Left initially identified with the success of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) revolution and with the national liberation struggles in Asia which fitted nicely into their nationalist narrative. This was actively supported by China's leaders when their main struggle was against "American imperialism" and support for nationalist liberation movements. When the PRC developed a closer relationship with Western countries after 1971 in order to fight "Soviet hegemonism," and encouraged revisionist conservative historical narratives, many on Japanese Left distanced themselves from Beijing while the mainstream conservatives championed relations with the PRC. Hoppens argues that the latter did so mostly not for normative reasons, but because the PRC's changes made relations with it more convenient for conservative positions and nationalist narratives, leading later to what the author calls a "conservative triumphalism." The author contests the view that Japanese policy towards the PRC in the 1970s was easy submission (e.g. by abandoning Taiwan) or even masochistic (e.g. sacrificing national pride), arguing that the government stuck it out against Chinese demands (e.g. the anti-hegemony clause or a stronger sense of responsibility towards the past) in order to cope with domestic nationalist opposition. Hoppens contends that war guilt or war responsibility played a role in the development of positive relations with China in the 1970s but did not determine Japan's China policy. He devotes considerable space to this point when dealing with Japan's Official Development Aid (ODA) to China. One would have wished that he had also pointed out that while war guilt/returning favours for the PRC's renunciation of reparations was only a secondary consideration for Japan's ODA, the Chinese government made a clear link between the past and its expectations of ODA.