The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
National Identities and Bilateral Relations
Related Topics: Society and Culture, Asia
The second of Gilbert Rozman's contributed volumes on East Asian national identity traces how efforts to draw a sharp divide between one country's identity and that of another shape relations in the post-Cold War era. It examines the two-way relations of Japan, South Korea, and China, introducing the concept of a national identity gap to estimate the degree to which the identities of two countries target each other as negative contrasts. This concept is then applied to China's reinterpretation from 2009-11 of the gap between its identity and that of the United States. Each pairing represents a key relationship through which an Asian country has historically shaped its identity, and is striving to reshape it.
The volume begins with experts' analyses of how Japan, South Korea and China have changed their diplomatic environment in Asia in order to transform identity. In the second half of the book, Rozman reflects on the discomfort all three East Asian countries have from excessive dependence on the United States.
He concentrates on Chinese discourse in particular, as analyzed through the ideological, temporal, sectoral, vertical, and horizontal dimensions of national identity. Even if foreign policy turns more cautionary for a time, Rozman argues that China's inflammatory identity discourse, which remains at an intensity unmatched in the other countries, will continue to have a chilling effect on prospects for pragmatic diplomacy with the U.S.
What People are Saying
"Invaluable to understanding how dyadic relations across Northeast Asia are evolving and are likely to do so in the next decade or more."—T. J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley
Chapter List
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
P art I. Bilateral Relations and National Identities within East Asia
Introduction: Conceptualizing National Identity Gaps 1
Gilbert Rozman
1. The Search for a Japanese National Identity by Foreign Service Officials 15
Kazuhiko Togo
2. National Identities and South Korea–Japan Relations 45
Cheol Hee Park
3. National Identities and Sino-Japanese Relations 65
Ming Wan
4. National Identities and Sino–South Korean Relations 95
Scott Snyder and See-Won Byun5. The Rediscovery of the Tianxia World Order 127
Yongnian Zheng
Part II. National Identity Gaps and the United States
Introduction: The U.S. Factor and East Asian National 155
Identity Gaps
Gilbert Rozman
6. East Asian National Identities and International Relations Studies 173
Gilbert Rozman
7. Chinese National Identity and East Asian National Identity Gaps 203
Gilbert Rozman
8. Chinese National Identity and the Sino-U.S.Civilizaitonal Gap 233
Gilbert Rozman
Contributors 265
Index 267
