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Narrowing the Gap between China and Japan: Three Dimensions of National Identity and the Korean Factor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

GILBERT ROZMAN
GILBERT ROZMAN*
Affiliation:
Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton Universitygrozman@Princeton.EDU
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Abstract

In 2010–12, Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated without the Yasukuni Shrine or Chinese human rights violations in the forefront. To improve relations, attention should turn to what I label the ideological, sectoral, and horizontal dimensions of a national identity gap between these countries. They have each figured in the decline and offer more promise than the temporal dimension, with its symbols of wartime memories, and the vertical dimension, where sensitive Chinese internal affairs are at stake. The sectoral dimension comprises political, economic, and also cultural national identity, each of which has grown more intense in China, while cultural identity is still a force in Japan. Establishing an East Asian community is now the centerpiece in the hope that the horizontal dimension will be an impetus for mutual understanding, yet the notion of community is repeated with no sign of a shared vision of the outside world, whether the US role or the international arena and regionalism. With South Korea, their partner in trilateralism and North Korea's transformation at the crux of all three of these dimensions, this paper emphasizes the way divergent views of the peninsula keep growing in importance for bilateral relations. It suggests ways to reframe relations through cooperation over Korea. As difficult as Korean relations are for both states, it is a test case for their identity gap.

Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 14 , Special Issue 1: Japan–China Fragile Partnership: At Fortieth Anniversary of Diplomatic Normalization , March 2013 , pp. 31 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

1 On how to analyze and estimate a national identity gap, see Rozman, Gilbert (ed.), National Identities and Bilateral Relations: Widening Gaps in East Asia and Chinese Demonization of the United States (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar, especially the Introduction to Part 1, ‘Conceptualizing National Identity Gaps in East Asia’, and the Introduction to Part 2, ‘The US Factor and East Asian National Identity Gaps’, pp. 1–14 and 155–72.

2 For a fuller discussion of the six dimensions, see Rozman, Gilbert (ed.), East Asian National Identities: Common Roots and Chinese Exceptionalism (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2012).Google Scholar

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