Robert Hoppens. The China Problem in Postwar Japan

Robert Hoppens does not offer a mere chronology of Sino-Japanese relations over the last seventy years, rather his deep trawl through significant political moments over the postwar period is refreshing and insightful. Following, one might say, in the footsteps of Baba Kimihiko’s (Sengo nihonjin no chūgokuzō: Nihon haisen kara bunka daikakumei nitchū fukkō made [2010]) encyclopedic investigation of the image of China in postwar Japan, Hoppens has chosen to analyze how China’s policy was shaped by Japan’s own postwar struggle to define itself and its position in the world. The debate in Japan about China was often less about the Chinese themselves, as the author argues, and more about Japanese national identity. Postwar Japanese progressives no longer saw patriotism as healthy, as it was seen in the West, since it was associated with the destruction of World War II. But nationalism, the sort associated with anti-imperial liberation movements like the Chinese revolution, was good. Conservatives, by contrast, lamented the lack of patriotism among postwar Japanese. The China problem defined, in part, how the Japanese articulated to each other their views of the world and Japan’s potential new role in East Asia. Japan’s relations with China, were “imagined to be revealing of the Japanese nation’s place in international society and reflective even of essential traits of Japanese national character” (39). As such, much of the discourse was about “how best to recover a lost national identity” (42). Would relations with China help or hinder a united and independent Japan?

Aesthetics · China · Economic history · Identity (music) · International relations · National identity · Nationalism · Patriotism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · World War II · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies