Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the new Museum for Sovereignty and Territory, this paper will examine how Japan is utilizing maps and museums in order to re-articulate its claims to disputed territory. It will show how these bordering practices stabilize Japan's claims, and thus its self-identity.

Paper long abstract:

On 21 January 2020, the Museum for Sovereignty and Territory "re-opened" its doors at a new location in downtown Tokyo. Originally established in a small basement room in early 2018, the sevenfold expansion in floor space available at the new facility has enabled information on the Northern Territories to be added to the initial facilities focus on the Senkaku Islands and Takeshima. The new museum provides a means for the state to legitimate and "homogenize" its claims to these marginal scraps of territory, which are currently disputed between Japan and its three nearest neighbours.

Territorial disputes serve as an important mechanism through which state identity is performed, and innovative bordering practices provide a means of asserting and maintaining state territoriality. Such practices serve as a way for state actors to delineate, reproduce, and sometimes extend the contours of the national body beyond conventional understandings. The disputed territories that are the subject of the new museum are the most "over-determined" areas of Japan's contemporary borderline, serving as repositories for wider discourses surrounding the legitimate boundaries of the nation, with the contested meanings accorded these island spaces both within Japan and beyond its borders serving as proxies within broader discussions occurring with regards to Japan's past actions, its present legitimacy, and future viability.

This paper will focus upon the use of maps and museum displays as bordering practices, and analyse their effects through the lens of ontological security. The paper argues that the articulation of 'inherent territory' has provided a means for states to attempt to stabilize and routinize understandings regarding the state's extent, in response to anxiety generated by their participation in territorial disputes. As these novel bordering practices work to re-assert and re-routinize the stability of the state's claims (and thus its self-identity) both internally and externally, they paradoxically expose their inherent fluidity. In addition, a focus on border practices allows us to unsettle the endogenous/exogenous divide in how ontological security has been understood in IR (Mitzen 2006; Steele 2008).

Paper short abstract:

This study examines the aspects of third-party countries’— the USA and UK—position and interest in relation to the "Northern Territories" settlement between Japan and the Soviet Union/Russia.

Paper long abstract:

The existence of the “Northern Territories” dispute between Japan and Russia is the main reason why no peace agreement has been concluded between these two states until now. Towards the end of the war these islands (the islands of Shikotan, Etorofu, Kunashiri, and the Habomai group) were used for a deal to bring the Russians into the war in the Far East that was agreed at the Yalta Conference by the USA, UK and the Soviet Union. Depending on the international situation the “Northern Territories” issue was treated differently by the third-party “concerned” countries after World War II. As it is known, Japan tried to exploit the settlement of the territorial issue by internationalizing it. In this regard, Japan expressed its desirability towards US and UK as primary nations involved in creating the issue through different arrangements, to support Japan’s claim over the territories prior and during peace negotiations with the Soviet Union. The studies that have been published to these days are narrowly focused on the cause of the territorial issue and third-party countries’ relation to the Northern Territory problem as a “concerned” nation received lees attention. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the aspects of third-party countries’ position and interest in relation to the Northern Territories settlement. This study is mainly based on the extensive research of archival materials conducted in the UK, US and Japan. The present study argues that despite the fact that UK and US belonged to the same camp of “democratic nations” during the Cold War, their positions towards the Northern territory settlement differed. Farthermost, each nation was concerned to protect its own short-term interests over justice reflected settlement of the issue.

Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the positions various forces in Japan's political landscape take regarding sensitive issues of historical memory, particularly those related to Japan's colonial and wartime past, with the emphasis on politically instrumental and pragmatic way in which such issues are used.

Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on the way various domestic political actors in Japan, i.e. political parties, factions, as well as individual politicians treat sensitive issues of historical memory, particularly those related to Japan's wartime and colonial past. Several types of positions regarding these issues are specified, including nationalistic revisionism, active repentance, and neutral or ignoring attitude. The two main puzzles addressed are, first, that significant differences in attitudes often exist on an intra- rather than inter-party basis, and, second, that particular political gestures related to the issues of historical memory often have significant negative effects on Japan's international relations as a whole, and yet politicians make them anyway. The influence upon specific aspects of Japan's political system, such as factionalism in political parties, is discussed. The theoretical framework of rational choice is applied to the question of why an actor may choose to emphasize a particular historical issue as a part of his/her political agenda, with possible explanations including seeking to increase support from the electoral base or specific interest groups, as well as trying to promote and strengthen one's particular "political brand".

Paper short abstract:

Japanese kenka-ryoseibai means in a quarrel, both parties are to blame; unlike victim blaming, the victim is not clearly defined, nor the assailant. Both parties sharing the blame diminishes “collective sin”, making reconciliation harder in international wartime sexual crime cases.

Paper long abstract:

Kenka-ryoseibai (喧嘩両成敗; in a quarrel, both parties are to blame), assault cases in which both parties are considered to share the blame, began in the fourteenth century in Japan and has been a common conflict resolution method since then. In Japanese culture, there is “tacit knowledge” of kenka-ryoseibai, but its logic can be an obstacle for international reconciliation, especially in the case of war-time sexual collective assault.

　　The paper first analyzes two famous sexual assault cases in Japan: the first sexual harassment court case (Fukuoka 1989), and the first academic serial rape incident (Kyoto 1993). Assaulters claimed their damaged feelings in public as a strategy of kenka-ryoseibai to show that both feelings were hurt, and even that both parties were assailants.

　　Based on the above analysis, this paper then examines Japanese public speech in the 2015 Japan-Korea agreement on war-time sexual violence. In Japanese public speech, many verbs are used in their passive form or omitted form, so agents of verbs are not obvious in every situation; this often means it is possible not to indicate an assailant. At the same time, “damage to the assailant” has been emphasized in public to fit with this kenka-ryoseibai approach: both parties share the blame and both are suffering, and even that both are assailants. Unlike victim blaming, this logic means that no party is clearly defined as the victim(s) nor as the assailant(s), reducing or eliminating the recognition of “collective sin” in war-time organized rape, making the acknowledgement of crime difficult. The result is that “collective sin” is diminished and even reduced, becoming simply a “sin of omission”.

This paper concludes that kenka-ryoseibai approach is an inappropriate for war-time sexual assault reconciliation, and that “collective sin” should not be diminished. Kenka-ryoseibai approach is a culturally acceptale in Japan as it is tacit knowledge but it is not universal, especially in cases involving human rights’ issues.