Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T15:13:34.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - The Enduring Challenges of History Issues

from Part V - Foreign Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2021

By
Mary M. McCarthy
Edited by
Takeo Hoshi  and
Phillip Y. Lipscy
Takeo Hoshi
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo
Phillip Y. Lipscy
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

The Abe administration had two goals with regard to historical legacy issues: to enrich national pride through historical revisionism; and to change the global narrative of Japan as perpetrator. Unfortunately, these goals were fundamentally incompatible. Further, they failed to take into account that public memorialization today is not only the purview of the state. It has democratized to include various domestic, transnational, and international actors. Through case studies of comfort women, Yasukuni Shrine, and Pearl Harbor, this chapter explores the degree of success for the Abe administration in achieving its goals in each of these areas and what the enduring challenges are that make these goals difficult to achieve.

Keywords

historyhistorical revisionismYasukuni Shrinecomfort womenPearl HarborSouth KoreaUnited States
Type
Chapter
Information
The Political Economy of the Abe Government and Abenomics Reforms , pp. 511 - 533
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arrington, C. 2018. “South Korea ended its review of its ‘comfort women’ deal with Japan. Here’s what you need to know.” Washington Post, January 11. www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/11/south-korea-ended-its-review-of-its-comfort-women-deal-with-japan-heres-what-you-need-to-know/, accessed September 8, 2019.Google Scholar
Arrington, C., and Yeo, A.. 2019. “Japan and South Korea Can’t Get Along.” Foreign Affairs, July 31. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/japan/2019–07–31/japan-and-south-korea-cant-get-along, accessed December 23, 2019.Google Scholar
Asian Women’s Fund (AWF). 2001. “Promotion of Resolution for Issues Concerning Victims of Wartime Sexual Coercion Act.” www.awf.or.jp/pdf/0204.pdf, accessed July 28, 2016.Google Scholar
Cheung, M. 2013. “Japan’s Domestic Politics and China Policy: The Yasukuni Controversy (2006–07).” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 2(2): 25–46.Google Scholar
Cheung, M. 2017a. “Japan’s China policy on Yasukuni under Abe (2012–2015): A political survival interpretation.” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 6(1): 62–78.Google Scholar
Cheung, M. 2017b. Political Survival and Yasukuni in Japan’s Relations with China. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Deans, P. 2007. “The Yasukuni Shrine: Contested Politics.” East Asia 24: 265–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fackler, M. 2016. “The Silencing of Japan’s Free Press.” Foreign Policy, May 27. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/27/the-silencing-of-japans-free-press-shinzo-abe-media/, accessed January 4, 2020.Google Scholar
Fukuoka, K. 2013. “Memory, Nation, and National Commemoration of War Dead: A Study of Japanese Public Opinion on the Yasukuni Controversy.” Asian Politics & Policy 5(1): 27–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaser, B. S., and Mastro, O. S.. 2019. “How an Alliance System Withers.” Foreign Affairs, September 9. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019–09–09/how-alliance-system-withers, accessed December 23, 2019.Google Scholar
Heinrichs, W. 2007. “The Enola Gay and Contested Public Memory.” In The Unpredictability of the Past, edited by Gallicchio, M., pp.15–48. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, C. W. 2015. Japan’s Foreign and Security Policy Under the “Abe Doctrine.” London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kennedy, T., and Nagakawa, M.. 2016. “Public divided over ‘comfort women’ agreement.” East Asia Forum, January 22. www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/01/22/public-divided-over-comfort-women-agreement/, accessed July 28, 2016.Google Scholar
Laurence, H. 2005. “Censorship at NHK and PBS.” JPRI Critique 12(3).Google Scholar
Masshardt, B. 2007. “Mobilizing from the Margins: Domestic Citizen Politics and Yasukuni Shrine.” East Asia 24: 319–335.Google Scholar
McCarthy, M. M. 2015. “Competing Voices and Compelling Visions: The “Comfort Women” Issue in Japanese Domestic Politics.” Presented at the Association of Asian Studies annual meeting, Chicago, IL, March 2015.Google Scholar
McCarthy, M. M. 2016. “Comfort Women Agreement Must Engage Civil Society.” East Asia Forum, January 28. www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/01/28/comfort-women-agreement-must-engage-civil-society/.Google Scholar
McCarthy, M. M. 2018. “The Power and Limits of the Transnational ‘Comfort Women’ Movement.” In Handbook of Japanese Foreign Policy, edited by McCarthy, M. M., pp.366–380. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCarthy, M. M. 2020. “The Creation and Utilization of Opportunity Structures for Transnational Activism on WWII Sexual Slavery in Asia.” In Agency in Transnational Memory Politics, edited by Wustenberg, J. and Sierp, A., pp.113–134. Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Mochizuki, M. M., and Porter, S. P.. 2013. “Japan Under Abe: Toward Moderation or Pragmatism?” Washington Quarterly 36(4): 25–41.Google Scholar
Niksch, L. 2007. “Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’s’ System.” Congressional Research Service Memorandum, April 3.Google Scholar
Ninkovich, F. 2007. “History and Memory in Postwar US–Japanese Relations.” In The Unpredictability of the Past: Memories of the Asia-Pacific War in US–East Asian Relations, edited by Gallicchio, M., pp.85–120. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Penney, M. 2012a. “The Abe Cabinet – An Ideological Breakdown.” Asia-Pacific Journal. http://apjjf.org/-Matthew-Penney/4747/article.html, accessed August 18, 2016.Google Scholar
Penney, M. 2012b. “The NHK Comfort Women Documentary – 10 Years Later.” Asia-Pacific Journal. http://apjjf.org/-Matthew-Penney/4617/article.html, accessed July 28, 2016.Google Scholar
Rose, C. 2008. “Stalemate: The Yasukuni Shrine Problem in Sino-Japanese Relations.” In Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle for Japan’s Past, edited by Breen, J., pp.23–46. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Sakamoto, K. 2017. “Visits to Yasukuni Shrine by the Prime Minister and Japan-China Relations: What is Confusing the Debate?” Japan Institute of International Affairs. www.jiia-jic.jp/en/resourcelibrary/pdf/Sakamoto_Visits_to_Yasukuni_Shrine_by_the_Prime_Minister_and_Japan-China_Relations_What_is_Confusing_the_Debate.pdf, accessed May 26, 2020.Google Scholar
Seaton, P. 2008. “Pledge Fulfilled: Prime Minister Koizumi, Yasukuni and the Japanese Media.” In Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle for Japan’s Past, edited by Breen, J., pp.163–188. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Sekiguchi, T. 2014. “Japan’s 1993 Comfort Woman Apology Returns to Center Stage.” Wall Street Journal, February 26. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/02/26/japan-comfort-women-deniers-claim-government-on-their-side/, accessed July 28, 2016.Google Scholar
Shibata, R. 2016. “Japan’s Identity Crisis and Sino-Japanese Relations.” In Disasters and Social Crisis in Contemporary Japan: Political, Religious, and Sociocultural Responses, edited by Mullins, M. R. and Nakano, K., pp.81–103. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Shibuichi, D. 2005. “The Yasukuni Shrine Dispute and the Politics of Identity in Japan: Why All the Fuss?” Asian Survey 45(2): 197–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, S., and Glosserman, B.. 2016. “The Japan-Korea Comfort Women Deal: This is Only the Beginning.” Forbes, February 1. www.forbes.com/sites/scottasnyder/2016/02/01/the-japan-korea-comfort-women-deal-this-is-only-the-beginning/#6c4b9cc42e0b, accessed July 13, 2016.Google Scholar
Tamamoto, M. 2001. “A Land without Patriots: The Yasukuni Controversy and Japanese Nationalism.” World Policy Journal 18(3): 33–40.Google Scholar
Tiezzi, S. 2014. “Japanese Report on the Kono Statement Draws Ire From Seoul, Beijing.” The Diplomat, June 24. http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/japanese-report-on-the-kono-statement-draws-ire-from-seoul-beijing/, accessed August 19, 2016.Google Scholar
Yoshikawa, H. 2002. “’Senji seiteki kyousei higaisha mondai kaiketsu sokushin houan’ teishutsu to keika.” Kikan Sensou Sekinin Genkyuu 38: 26–33.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×