The Politics of the Past and Japanese Media Coverage of China

• In Event: Know your Enemy? Japanese Perceptions of China in Society, Politics, and Media

Abstract

History politics has been identified by recent scholarship as a major factor in the creation of a (mostly negative) view of neighboring countries and peoples towards the national 'Self'. This is partly because national self- and xeno-stereotypes have remained largely relevant in mainstream and mass media political discourse, in particular in times of crises. Despite increasing pluralities of self-chosen and assigned identities, the mutual portrayals of Japan and China in mass media are strongly influenced by monolithic depictions of homogeneity. These portrayals gain in weight when they are linked to the troubled past between both peoples. References to the past, therefore, appear much less concerned with history itself but as a mere vehicle to transport or amplify other messages. In this way, the past may easily be instrumentalized for partisan purposes. My paper will examine these mechanisms and recent contents of the instrumentalisation of the past in Japanese media coverage of China.

Author

• Torsten Weber, German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo