Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute and the Reconstruction of China as Japan’s ‘Other’

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F26482789%3A_____%2F17%3AN0000061" target="_blank" >RIV/26482789:_____/17:N0000061 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://apssr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/7_Kolmas-revised-112317-1.pdf" target="_blank" >http://apssr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/7_Kolmas-revised-112317-1.pdf</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute and the Reconstruction of China as Japan’s ‘Other’

Original language description

In the recent years, much has been written about Japan’s security “normalization,” that is, the resurgence of Japan as a “proactive contributor to world peace.” This article aims to add to this debate, but it will approach it from a novel angle. Basing its epistemology in critical security studies, I investigate the relationship between national identity and Japan’s foreign policy (i.e. its normalization). The article dismisses realist assumptions that Japan’s security rejuvenation is a reaction to the changing balance of power in Asia. Rather, it argues that the normalization is a product of Japan’s discursive practice of victimization, that is, situating itself as a victim of foreign pressure. The identity of a victim is reproduced through the practice of “othering”—differentiating from various “others.” For most parts of the 20th century, the United States served as the focal other to Japan’s self-identification. In the last two decades, however, Japan’s identity has become practiced through differentiation to China. The article illustrates this process on the case study of Japan’s primary discourse on the Senkaku/ Diaoyu island dispute of 2010 through 2014. Japan’s narrative on the dispute has managed to depict China as a coercive, immoral and abnormal state that bullies subsequently weak, coerced, but moral and lawful Japan. By writing Japan as a coerced, yet lawful state protecting the status quo, Tokyo succeeded in persuading the United States to subdue the disputed territory under its nuclear umbrella. Through the process of victimization of a weak Japan then, the Prime Minister Abe Shinzo managed to propagate the new security legislature as a means of reconstruction of Japan from weak to a normal state.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2017

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Asia-Pacific Social Science Review

ISSN

0119-8386

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

17

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

PH - PHILIPPINES

Number of pages

14

Pages from-to

267-280

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85047082971