Know your Enemy? Japanese Perceptions of China in Society, Politics, and Media

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Despite growing inter-dependencies and exchange between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, the relationship between the world’s second and third largest economies has remained frosty as a result of conflicts over territorial and historical issues for more than one and a half decades. At the same time, anti-Chinese sentiments have been on the rise in Japan as have anti-Japanese sentiments in China. Opinion polls show that negative feelings towards China in Japan have reached all-time highs. Meanwhile, the Abe administration is sending mixed messages to China: On the one hand, Abe has appointed senior politicians who favor close ties with China to high-level positions within his party; on the other hand, however, his government openly continues its revisionist agenda by means of legislation, public statements, and appointments of controversial figures to public offices. Recent disputes over historical as well as contemporary issues have also triggered a more intense competition between pro- and anti-Chinese positions in Japanese media. Against the backdrop of these developments, this panel seeks to examine the current state of Japanese perceptions of China and its theoretical links to assigning and choosing identities. The first paper analyzes how the dominant political party in Japan has defined its position via-à-vis China in election manifestos since the 1990s. The second paper deals with history politics in contemporary Japanese mass media and focuses on how the past is utilized to portray China and the Chinese people in a stereotypical way. The third paper uses a quantitative approach to examine how anti-Chinese sentiments are influenced by participation in social networks.

Area of Study

• Northeast Asia

Session Organizer

• Torsten Weber, German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo

Chair

• Torsten Weber, German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo

Individual Presentations

• Partnership, profit or peril? Changing Depictions of China in the LDP’s Election Platforms - Chris Winkler, German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo

• The Politics of the Past and Japanese Media Coverage of China - Torsten Weber, German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo

• East Asian Views on China and Japan: Some Research Findings of AsiaBarometer - Sonoda Shigeto, The University of Tokyo