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This article examines a transnational network of advocates for Kampō (traditional) medicine in Japan, occupied China, and Manchukuo during the Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945), shedding new light on collaborationism, Asianism, and the modernization of traditional medicine in East Asia. In the 1930s, despite deteriorating Sino-Japanese relations, the Kampō revival movement in Japan joined forces with the struggle to preserve traditional medicine in China. In 1938, the Association of East Asian Medicine was founded in Japan, gathering together Chinese, Korean, and Japanese advocates under the banner of 'East Asian medicine'. This article delineates the evolution of what I call 'medical Asianism' and how it was institutionalized in different parts of the Japanese empire. Participants in this network differed in their priorities and ideological commitments, yet they tactfully utilized the Japanese imperial infrastructure and wartime circumstances to promote traditional medicine. Their work laid important intellectual and institutional foundations for the postwar development of traditional medicine across East Asia. This study also contributes to a more nuanced understandings of collaborationism. The type of collaboration examined in this article was preceded by a long history of intellectual exchange, based on a shared body of knowledge and morals, motivated by mutual empathy, and for a cause that was much valued in postwar Asia. As a result, unlike most Chinese collaborators who were prosecuted as 'traitors', protagonists in this study continued to prosper professionally and became valuable assets in the postwar rebuilding of Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore whether international disputes harm commerce by galvanizing consumer boycotts of foreign products. Boycotts increase the social penalty of owning goods associated with a foreign adversary, offsetting individual incentives to free ride or discount the utility of participation. By harming international commerce, boycotts can help reveal information about resolve and avoid more costly forms of conflict. Using administrative data on the universe of new passenger vehicle registration records in China from 2009 to 2015, we demonstrate that consumer boycotts that arose amid tensions between China and Japan over a territorial dispute in 2012 had significant and persistent effects on vehicle sales, especially in cities that witnessed anti-Japanese street demonstrations. The market share of Japanese brands dropped substantially during and after the boycott with long lasting effects. Our analysis provides concrete evidence of the short- and long-term impacts of international tensions on economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smith skilfully demonstrates that understanding the Chinese political and intellectual contexts within which different conceptions of Asianism were articulated is key to grasping why so many Chinese participated in Asianist discourse, often "in dialogue with Japanese Asianism" (p. 16). $55.00; £44.95; €49.50 ISBN 978-0-6742-6024-5 For a long time, scholarly interest in Asianism (also known as Pan-Asianism) focused on Japan and its role in justifying Japan's empire in East and South-East Asia. I Chinese Asianism i is highly recommended to everyone interested in Chinese intellectual and political history, China-Japan and China-Asia relations. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the importance of the exchange of foreign correspondents between Japan and China from 1964, during a period of the Cold War when the two countries did not have official ties. Favourable political circumstances in the first half of the 1960s led to a brief window of opportunity for an improved relationship between China and Japan, during which this unique exchange took place. The article attempts to shed light on the significance of the exchange within the broader context of Chinese foreign policy and Sino-Japanese relations during the Cold War. Thereby it will clarify the importance of the 1960–1964 period for the longer rapprochement process that would come to fruition in 1972 with the establishment of diplomatic relations. The exchanges of 1964 were seen by participants as an important first step on the way towards official ties. For the Chinese the importance of a relationship with Japan in this period, and, by extension, the importance of the journalist exchange, is shown by the involvement of an unusually high number of journalists from both countries. This article argues that the Chinese leadership's desire for the journalist exchange was rooted in a craving for accurate knowledge about Japan, especially concerning specific political trends and economic developments. This enthusiasm was matched by pro-China politicians in Japan, who also felt that the journalists' presence would enable the Chinese to base their Japan policy on a broader variety of sources, extending beyond information merely gathered through contacts in the Japanese left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions would Japanese leaders visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and why? Previous studies have focused primarily on the domestic benefits and effects of such visits, claiming that leaders employ visits to follow their own conservative ideology and gain domestic political support. Given the harsh international criticism that tends to ensue, however, political leaders should also consider the cost and international effects of such visits. This study proposes three necessary conditions for such visits: a conservative ruling party, a government enjoying high popularity, and Japan's perception of a Chinese threat. With regard to the latter, a security threat from China has allowed Japan to use these visits as a credible signal of its resolve against China. Comparative analyses of Japanese cabinets after the mid-1980s support this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft power and hard power are conceptualised in International Relations as empirically and normatively dichotomous, and practically opposite – one intangible, attractive, and legitimate, the other tangible, coercive, and less legitimate. This article critiques this binary conceptualisation, arguing that it is discursively constructed with and for the construction of Self and Other. It further demonstrates that practices commonly labelled and understood as soft power and hard power are closely interconnected. Best understood as 'representational force' and 'physical force' respectively, soft and hard power intertwine through the operation of productive and disciplinary forms of power. We illustrate this argument by analysing the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Both governments exercise representational force in constructing their respective versions of events and Self/Other. The soft/hard power binary itself plays a performative role as the Self is typically associated with soft power and the Other with hard power. The operation of productive power, moreover, privileges the attractiveness of the former and the repellence of the latter, and disciplinary power physically enforces these distinctions on subjects in both states. Finally, reinforced Self/Other distinctions legitimise preparations for violence against the Other on both sides, thus exposing how fundamentally entangled soft and hard power are in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note explores an increasingly prominent, but often neglected, communication group in China's cyberspace—the online "influential" (big Vs or verified users)—who shape public perceptions, including on foreign policy issues. Examining threads on Sino-Japanese relations on Weibo reveals a diverse ecosystem that includes not only established media agencies and government agencies, but public intellectuals, whose role and presence are quite central. An analysis of the content of posts finds that influentials have similarly diverse viewpoints on Sino-Japanese relations; some have broken with the conflict-focused discourses that have prevailed on Weibo, reflecting a competing narrative espousing the need for greater pragmatism towards Japan. The findings call into question the argument that social media necessarily trends toward greater nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do interstate relations deteriorate and become conflictual, even under conditions where one might expect improved ties? The article seeks an answer to this question through a case study of the deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations in the twenty-first century, which took place despite the existence of several factors that might be thought likely to have led to an improvement. Existing theoretical approaches cannot fully explain this puzzle. The article argues that such deteriorations can result from disruptions to states’ reciprocally performed routinised recognition, and identifies three mechanisms through which these can occur. To facilitate this argument, the article draws on scholarship on relational identity, recognition, and ontological security to develop a theory of identity construction that takes account of how self and other routinise the ways in which they recognise each other and how they react to the other’s representational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring how the history of the Fifteen-year War was dealt with in pre-1982 mainland China is an essential step towards understanding the currently explosive Sino-Japanese History Problem; furthermore, this might shed light on various issues in the post-war history of China and Sino-Japanese relations. However, available research on the pre-1982 period is scarce and problematic. Earlier political scientists argue that the history of the war was ruthlessly manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party regime, while some recent studies believe that the war was conveniently ‘forgotten’ as Sino-Japanese friendship was vital for the government of the People's Republic of China. This article aims at providing an accurate and thorough picture of how the history of the Fifteen-year War was positioned in the diplomatic practice of the Chinese Communist Party regime in relation to Japan during the period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Chinese Communist Party was confronted with the pressing challenge of ‘reconstructing’ China's industrial economy when it came to power in 1949. Drawing on recently declassified Chinese Foreign Ministry archives, this article argues that the Party met this challenge by drawing on the expertise of Japanese technicians left behind in Northeast China at the end of the Second World War. Between 1949 and 1953, when they were eventually repatriated, thousands of Japanese technicians were used by the Chinese Communist Party to develop new technology and industrial techniques, train less skilled Chinese workers, and rebuild factories, mines, railways, and other industrial sites in the Northeast. These first four years of the People's Republic of China represent an important moment of both continuity and change in China's history. Like the Chinese Nationalist government before them, the Chinese Communist Party continued to draw on the technological and industrial legacy of the Japanese empire in Asia to rebuild China's war-torn economy. But this four-year period was also a moment of profound change. As the Cold War erupted in Asia, the Chinese Communist Party began a long-term reconceptualization of how national power was intimately connected to technology and industrial capability, and viewed Japanese technicians as a vital element in the transformation of China into a modern and powerful nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the approval of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) in the East and South China Seas in 2014. Topics include the Chinese government's implementation of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea, the dispute between Japan and China over the ownership of the Senkaku Islands, and tensions in the South China Sea.

Rare earth elements (REE) captured a startled world's attention during the 2010 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands crisis, when it appeared that China withheld access to them during its border dispute with Japan. China asserts that its sovereign right to environmental regulation and national production quotas is unassailable. However, China's trade measures appear to be inconsistent with WTO rules, as well as with environmental protection and conservation, since they incentivize illegal mining and smuggling practices. In an upcoming case (DS431), the United States, the European Union, Japan and 16 third parties will argue before the WTO that China's trade measures on rare earths, tungsten and molybdenum constitute discriminatory behaviour and are illegal. This raises the question of whether China is inappropriately using the environment as a defence against allegations that its rare earth trade policies are in violation of its WTO obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how China and Japan fought for supremacy in China's treaty-port English-language press during the Jinan Incident of 1928. It argues that China's defeat in this media battle was a result of the long-term, unsettled political conditions the country was experiencing. The constant changes of government thwarted China's official and non-official efforts to establish a national news network. The threat from the northern warlords and China's intricate relations with the imperialist powers deterred the Nanjing regime from formulating decisive foreign propaganda policies. In contrast, Japan, with a strong news network in China, quickly installed its version of the event in the media. Its response was fast, consistent, and intensive. Japan also took advantage of the Nanjing Incident to justify its actions in Jinan. Press opinion in the treaty ports towards the Jinan Incident was split, with the British press supporting the Japanese and American papers favouring China's case. However, Japanese accounts, with the endorsement of the British treaty-port papers, still dominated the reports in The Times of London and influenced the views of the Manchester Guardian and The New York Times. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes the impact of employment institutions on Japanese-, British-, and Chinese-owned textile firms in China during the 1920s and 1930s. Despite Britain's domestic position as a world productivity leader, Japanese firms enjoyed a 70 percent productivity advantage over both British and Chinese competitors. The divergent performance of Japanese and British investments in China is explained by differences in management practice. Japanese firms had domestic experience with employment institutions similar to China's and applied labor management strategies that functioned well under these institutions. British firms lacked the institutional experience necessary to adapt management strategies to Chinese institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For the last four decades Sino-Japanese relations have been characterized by steadily growing economic and sociocultural interactions. Yet, greater interdependence has developed in tandem with bilateral tensions. Many analysts have attempted to explain the latter as a result of Japan trying to balance or contain the burgeoning growth of Chinese capabilities. In this article, we question and qualify this widespread understanding of Japan's response to China's rise by examining how Japan has handled China's rise between 1978 and 2011. More precisely, how has Japan dealt with China's long-term core strategic interests, which are embodied in the post-1978 Chinese "grand strategy" that is believed to have been instrumental to China's rise? Our main finding is that to a significant degree Japan has accommodated the rise of China rather than balanced against it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese leaders have repeatedly insisted upon the contemporary relevance of the ‘War of Resistance to Japan’ (1937–1945). However, the content of the official history of the war and the lessons drawn from it have changed dramatically from 1949 through 2010. This paper begins by reviewing theories of collective remembrance and then covers four historical periods: China's ‘benevolent amnesia’ on Japan's wartime atrocities before 1982; China's patriotic education campaign from the mid-1980s; the rise of history activism in China in the late 1990s; and the post-2005 reversal in official rhetoric on Japan and the wartime past. It concludes that, while the party-state retains an impressive capacity to shape the narratives of critical periods of modern Chinese history, Chinese leaders are likely to find themselves increasingly constrained by domestic forces and by external events beyond their control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 is often explained as a consequence of Nationalist fiscal incompetence during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which led to the collapse of the Nationalist state. In this paper, I argue that from 1937 until 1940, GMD fiscal policy managed to preserve a degree of relative stability even though, by early 1939, the Nationalists had already lost control over ports yielding 80 per cent of Customs revenue which, during the Nanjing decade (1928–1937), had accounted for more than 40 per cent of annual central government revenue. The loss of this revenue forced the Nationalists to introduce wartime fiscal instruments, taxation in kind, and transit taxes, both previously condemned as outdated and inequitable by the Nationalists. Further territorial losses led to the introduction of deficit financing, which in turn became a cause of hyperinflation. The introduction of war-time fiscal instruments led to administrative changes in the revenue-collecting agencies of the Nationalist state, and to the demise of the Maritime Customs Service as the pre-eminent revenue-collecting and anti-smuggling organization. The administrative upheavals of the war facilitated the rise of other central government organizations nominally charged with smuggling suppression, which in fact frequently engaged in trade with the Japanese-occupied areas of China. Hence, administrative reforms at a time of fiscal collapse, far from strengthening the war-time state, created one of the preconditions for the disintegration of the Nationalist state, which facilitated the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) victory in 1949. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article represents the first attempt to examine the Chinese elite's threat perception of Japan using statistics to analyse what, if any, differences exist among the People's Liberation Army, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese economic institutes. It seeks to answer two questions that have not previously been addressed in the literature. First, has there been a change in perception of the Japanese threat in these three sectors over time? And if so, what can we deduce about the causes of this change? This study finds that there have indeed been two major shifts in China's threat perception of Japan since the 1980s, one in the late 1980s and the other in the mid-1990s. It also finds that there were no differences between sectors as to the direction and timing of these shifts. It suggests that Japan's military build-up in the late 1980s and the strengthening of the US-Japan alliance from 1996 onwards are what prompted these shifts in China's threat perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the policies of the Japanese government toward the Ryukyu Islands and the Taiwanese aboriginal territories in the 1870s, during the Meiji period. The author expresses his disagreement with various historians that the Japanese occupation of these areas was intended as aggression toward China. He instead proposes that the Japanese government sought to elevate its national security and role in the international community. He remarks on the influence of these expansionist policies on the Sino-Japanese War beginning in 1894.