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The territoriality and contextuality of a nation-state:
Tensions and connections between Japan and East Asia
Revised from the presented paper:
Territoriality in trouble: Challenges to Japan from Northeast Asia

Takashi Yamazaki
Department of Geography, Osaka City University
3-3-138 Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, Japan
yamataka@lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp

The 20th World Congress
The International Political Science Association
July 13, 2006
The Fukuoka International Congress Center, Fukuoka, JapanAbstract
State centrism has been one of the fundamental paradigms in political science. In this paradigm,
state sovereignty and territory tend to be regarded as exclusive and inviolable. From a territorial
point of view, the possession of state territory constitutes the basis of sovereign rights. The control
over the territory (e.g. border control) typically constitutes an act of a state to regulate social
relations inside/outside its territory. Thus, the ability of the state apparatus to contain such relations
is a prime function of territoriality.
If we assume the state as an autonomous container, the dynamism of its growth and/or
decline tends to be ascribed to various functions (territorialities) of the state itself. This, however, ishardly the case. Treating the state as a container neglects the real nature of the relations between
states. In order to understand the interconnectedness of the modern world system, it becomes
necessary to employ a perspective to recognize the multiplicity of states, nations, and territories or
the geopolitical and geo-economic contexts in which a state is situated.
Focusing on the territoriality and contextuality of a nation-state, this paper criticallyexamines the New Right ideology to ‘normalize’ Japan as a nation-state and makes an attempt to‘resituate’ Japan in the context of East Asia under the various influences of globalization.

1

Introduction
State centrism has been one of the fundamental paradigms in political science (Agnew 1994). In thisparadigm, state sovereignty and territory tend to be regarded as exclusive and inviolable. From aterritorial point of view, the possession of state territory constitutes the basis of sovereign rights.
The control over the territory (e.g. border control) typically constitutes an act of a state to regulatesocial relations inside/outside its territory. Thus the ability of the state apparatus to contain such
relations is a prime function of territoriality.
Peter Taylor (Taylor 1994), a British political geographer, employs Robert Sack’s
general definition of territoriality (Sack 1983) to argue that territory is directly linked to sovereignty
to mold politics into a fundamentally state-centric social process and that the domination of politicalpractice in the world by territoriality since the seventeenth century is a consequence of thisterritorial link between sovereign territory and national homeland. In explaining the functions of themodern nation-state, Taylor (1994) also refers to the container metaphor according to Anthony
Giddens’ concept of the state as a ‘power container’ (Giddens 1985). 1
Although Taylor’s container metaphor concisely theorizes the multiple functions of thenation-state, it considers the container a passive entity and is basically state-centric (Yamazaki 2002,
167). In his subsequent paper (Taylor 1995, 1), Taylor self-criticizes his container metaphor bystating, ‘[T]reating the state as a container neglects precisely the ‘international’—the relations
between states’. He argues that the metaphor does not extend to any notion of either a collectivity ofstates or plurality of nations and formulates the ‘multiple’ theory that helps to understand themultiplicity of states, nations, and territories. For him, these three basic components of thenation-state should be understood as ‘internationality,’ ‘interstateness,’ and ‘interterritoriality.’ Ihave found this ‘multiple theory’ helpful to understand and appreciate the interconnectedness of themodern world system.
Drawing on Taylor’s container metaphor, I examined the policy changes of the Japanese
government and Japan’s New Right ideology (i.e. the combination of neo-liberalism andneo-conservatism, see Fyfe 1995) in an era of globalization and diverging territoriality (Yamazaki2002). I argued that the rise of neo-conservatism in Japan was a geopolitical outcome of theJapanese inability to image a new space where they could resituate themselves in the Asia-Pacificcontext (Yamazaki 2002, 187). From a neo-conservative point of view, territorial sovereignty,
military power, and national identity may be fundamental elements for (the restoration of) theJapanese nation-state. In reality, however, they are relative to other nation-states in the modern
world system. On the other hand, Taylor’s multiple theory gives a clue to put a nation-state in thecontext of its socio-historically inherent collectivity although he does not necessarily theorize sucha ‘contextuality.’ In order to apply Taylor’s thesis to a state such as Japan for an examination of theremaking of a contemporary nation-state, it becomes necessary not only to employ multiple theory
1

Taylor’s container metaphor consists of two theses: ‘filling the container’ and ‘a leaking container?’ For the‘filling the container’ thesis, Taylor (1994, 152) argues, ‘[T]he state has acted like a vortex sucking in social
relations to mould them through its territoriality’. He presents four kinds of containers constructed throughthis filling process: power, wealth, culture and social containers. These containers correspond to the basic
functions of the modern nation-state and have become its solid foundation. For the ‘a leaking container?’thesis, Taylor suggests that the territorial integrity of these containers is/will be in question as seen in ‘the endof the state’ thesis. Each container, Taylor argues, is seeking different territoriality in the context ofglobalization. While the state as a power container is expected to continue, a wealth container tends to extend
to a new larger economic bloc. A cultural container, on the other hand, faces fragmentation. As the result of
this diverging triple territoriality, a social container as a unit of democracy, a basis of the welfare state, and anaturalized entity called ‘society’ is in confusion. See Yamazaki (2002, 166).

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but also to develop it so as to explain the contextuality of a nation-state. Thus I concluded in myprevious paper that an alternative to neo-conservatism would be a new perspective to resituate
Japan not in closed containers but in the dynamic web of internationality, interstateness, andinterterritoriality in the broader Asia-Pacific context and proposed to transcend the singularity ofstate theory and container metaphor (ibid).
Following the above-mentioned arguments and further developing the arguments I madein my previous paper (Yamazaki 2002), this paper critically examines the New Right ideology to‘normalize’ Japan as a nation-state and makes an attempt to ‘resituate’ Japan in the context of East
Asia under the various influences of globalization. In the following sections, I will first examine
the deterritorializing processes of the Japanese economy and the prospect for the regional
integration of East Asia, drawing on governmental reports concerning Japan’s economic
development in the region. Second, I will discuss the deepening of internationality or the increase offoreign nationals settled in Japan and illustrate some of the reactions of Japanese society to such atendency or processes of re-nationalization. Third, I will show the continuing ambiguity of Japan’s
territory and the interterritoriality between Japan and Northeast Asia referring to recent territorial
disputes. Finally, I will point out the growing disparity between the contextual reality over Japanand the ideological illusion of the nation-state and suggest how Japan as a state can be redefined andresituated in East Asia.

Deterritorialization of Japan’s economy and reterritorialization of East Asia
As I argued in my previous paper (Yamazaki 2002, 169), the New Right ideology spreading
through developed countries since the 1980s contains important political economic tensions
between neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism (Fyfe 1995). Whereas neo-liberalism attempts topromote individualism, market society, and minimal government in economic matters,
neo-conservatism emphasizes collectivism (nation), disciplined society and strong government inpolitical matters. The economic and the political in the New Right ideology are not separated frombut complementary to each other due to the nature of the modern world system that consists of asingle world market and a multiple state system (Taylor and Flint 2000, 11).
In territorial terms, capitalist territoriality constantly deterritorializes and reterritorializes
the wealth container of the nation-state while state power is forced to adjust to the evolving
dynamics of the capitalist world economy (Ó Tuathail 2000, 169). So the ways the nation-stateadjusts to these de/reterritorializing processes can also be territorial or the exercises of territoriality
since one of the fundamental bases of state power is based on state territory. Therefore, I begin withan argument about the interaction between capitalist and state territoriality as one of the causes of
the tensions in the New Right ideology.
Given the physical stasis or fixity of state territory, the interaction between capitalist andstate territoriality inevitably contains aspects of spatiality. In other words, the interaction actually
emerges from the geographical location of a state or states. Any arguments about state trade policies
cannot help mentioning the geographical location of the pertinent state(s). This condition makes it
necessary for us to take the spatial context of a nation-state into account. Moreover, according toTaylor’s multiple theory of the nation-state, the historical constructiveness of nation-states requires
us to consider the temporal context of a nation-state. Thus we need to resituate a nation-state in aspace-time context, which is applied to the following description of Japan’s economic territoriality.
In the late 1990s, Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) pointed3

out that economic globalization had firmly tied Japan to other East Asian countries and regions 2 bycreating an economic division of labor and interdependency between Japan and these economies. 3
The major actor in this process was the foreign direct investment (FDI) of Japan-based transnational
corporations. Since 1990, the Japanese FDI has been actively spreading over East Asian emerging
markets. Since the second half of the 1980s, East Asia had been the biggest destination of Japan’s
export. The origins of Japan’s imports had also been concentrated in East Asia. 4 Ministry of
Economy, Trade, and Industry (hereafter METI, METI 2005) shows that Japan’s FDI towards East
Asia increased 10.8 times over the past 15 years, with an annual average of 800 billion yen in funds
flowing into East Asia. In particular, Japanese companies are increasingly locating themselves in
China.
Therefore, East Asia has been increasingly becoming an important ‘wealth container’ forJapan’s economy (Yamazaki 2002: 173-175). Keizai kenkyujo (The Economic Research Institute) of
the Economic Planning Agency observed that the rapid economic growth in East Asia hadstrengthened intra-regional linkages in trade, investment, finance, capital and labor. 5 In addition tothis regional interdependency based on the Japanese FDI, the Japanese government had strategicallyincreased official development assistance (ODA) 6 and promoted trade liberalization in the
Asia-Pacific realm since the end of the Cold War. As a major regional power replacing the US,
Japan has been increasing its political economic influence over the realm.
In parallel with the increasing economic linkage between Japan and East Asia, Japan’s
Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI 2005) recently expressed concerns about the twin
deficits of the U.S. economy and the overheating of the Chinese economy. An emphasis is placedon the necessity to achieve self-reliant economic growth in East Asia and shift from a unipolarstructure dependent on U.S. consumption to a multi-polar structure including East Asia and Europe.
METI (2005: 255-265) recognizes the trade structure underlying East Asian growth as anadvancement of cross-industrial “Triangular Trade Structure”. The basic patterns of the triangulartrade are that the high added-value parts, components, and processed goods produced by Japan and
the NIEs are imported by China and ASEAN where wages are low and that these goods are thenconverted into final goods through assembly production and exported to final consumption markets
such as the U.S. and Europe.
With regard to Japan’s domestic structural change (i.e. declining and aging population),
METI (2005) recommends the utilization of human resources at home and abroad. As will be
discussed below, the increasing migration pressure on Japan from East Asia requires effective
measures to deal not only with external migration pressure but also with the shrinking domestic
population. Rather than a simple importation of foreign workers, METI points out the increasing
importance of a bilateral economic partnership (i.e. Economic Partnership Agreement, EPA) with
East Asia as seen with Singapore and the Philippines. Responding to deterritorializing economy andlabor inflow, it has become necessary for Japan to implement more realistic and effective
institutions to sustain its economy and society.
Following the arguments about EPA, METI (2005) examines the possibility of regional
2

Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI 2005) defines East Asia as the region consisting of Japan,
China, ASEAN4 (Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia), and NIEs (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, and Singapore).
3
MITI (1999).
4
O’Loughlin and Anselin (1996).
5
Keizai kenkyujo (1996).
6
Clear regional emphases are placed on Asia in Japan’s ODA strategies (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MOFA
2003). See also Grant (1995) and Grant and Nijman (1997).

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institutional integration in East Asia. As mentioned above, within East Asia de facto economic
relations are becoming closer. METI (2005: 436-437) points out that East Asia’s intra-regional traderatio is higher than NAFTA’s and is approaching the level of EU’s, which is promising thatdeveloping an institutional framework to facilitate and revitalize economic activities will further
promote the economic prosperity of East Asia.
However, there are structural obstacles to such a regional integration in this region; themost obvious one is extremely large intra-regional disparities. In order to provide support for thedevelopment of the economic and social infrastructure of countries within the region that are not yet
prepared for the institutionalization of economic integration, METI (2005: 456) proposes that Japan
make strategic use of ODA to assist in establishing a trade and investment environment andeconomic infrastructure that will make intra-regional economic partnerships more effective.
Therefore, METI puts an importance on developing bilateral EPA or FTA in East Asia as a step
towards a multilateral integration such as the East Asian Community.
With regard to the East Asian Community concept, METI (2005: 503-504) considers theframework of the East Asian Summit 7 as a basis for such a concept. However, two important issues
to be faced to create a Community are presented. First, it would be difficult to regulate theframework of the East Asian Summit due to the problems in allocating rights to member countries
and in coordinating the relationship between the Summit, ASEAN+3, and other member countries.
Second, the scope of “East Asia” can be problematic. For Japan, the exclusion of the U.S.
means to set aside the biggest demand absorber for East Asia. METI (2005: 504) argues that the
military presence of the U.S. in the region constitutes the uniform regional order. For China, Russia
needs to be included probably due to the U.S. presence and its rivalry with Japan. Thus consensus
has not been reached concerning how to define the relationship with members from outside theASEAN region. In the worst case, the East Asian Summit could become a stage for the hegemoniccompetition between regional powers such as Japan, China, and ASEAN.
As often mentioned by METI (2005: 504) and some authors (e.g. Murphy 1996), there is
not much of a common historical and cultural foundation in East Asia. Admitting that developing a“sense of community” by creating a shared regional identity based on common values andprinciples is not at all easy task, METI (2005: 506) mentions “some observers have indicated that a“zone with a common culture” is being formed in East Asia through the emergence of the urban
middle class and the increasingly active intra-regional cultural exchange resulting from this.”
Although the prospect of the East Asian Community remains to be seen, any measure forthe reterritorialization of East Asia is a logical consequence of the interaction between capitalist andstate territorialities. As long as such reterritorialization is a way of state capitalist accumulation, thisprocess contains aspects of spatiality, reflecting the location of pertinent state(s). Such spatiality
then conditions various flows of capital, commodity, labor, information, etc. Given that any state,more or less, needs to deal with such inter-related territorializing processes, the nature of theinterstateness among pertinent states is inevitably affected by and/or shifts in accordance with theprocesses.

The ‘deepening’ internationality and re-nationalization of Japan
Taylor argues that modern politics has operated through multiple nations each defining an ‘us’ that
opposes multiple ‘thems’. For him, the definition of a nation as opposed to other nations is the7

Member countries include ASEAN+3 (Japan, China, and South Korea), India, Australia, and New Zealand.
The first Summit was held in December 2005.

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hallmark of internationality (Taylor 1995, 7). He also points out that the idea that only large nations
would qualify for their own states has not operated in the twentieth century resulting in claims tostatehood coming from smaller groups (Taylor 1995, 8). In this respect, as seen in his argument
about “cultural container” (Taylor 1994), he seems to regard internationality as a rather segregatedcoexistence of distinctive nations. Therefore, such coexistence does not necessarily lead to“trans-nationality” but reproduces itself (Taylor 1995, 12).
However, in the case of Japan and East Asia, the interrelations between nations areneither “international” nor “trans-national” in Taylor’s terms. Despite the increase in the number offoreign nationals residing in Japan, the ‘internal’ boundaries on Japanese nationhood have been
relatively maintained within Japan’s territory. I call this situation ‘deepening’ internationality. There
are two reasons for this. One is that the Nationality Law in Japan is based on “blood,” whichfunctions to reproduce internationality within Japan. The other is that foreign nationals are notnecessarily naturalized in Japan. Unlike the increasing number of registered foreign nationals inJapan as shown below, the number of foreign applicants for naturalization does not have any
constant tendency but varies yearly from 1996-2005 (Homusho 2006). During this period, thelargest number was 17,486 in 1998, and the lowest was 13,344 in 2002. The yearly average is
15,451. That of naturalized foreign nationals in the same period is 15,512. 8
In order to examine the degree of internationality of Japan, I employ the data of foreign
nationals entering and residing in Japan. According to Immigration Control 2005 (Immigration
Bureau, Ministry of Justice, IBMOJ 2005), foreign nationals entering Japan have constantly
increased in number for the past few decades with the exception of 2003 when the war on Iraq andthe outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in Asia took place. In 2004 thenumber reached 6,756,830 due to the increase of tourists.
Visitors from Asia accounted for 68.2% (4,607,027) in 2004 followed by those from
North America (14.1%), Europe (12.2%), Oceania (3.5%), South America (1.6%), and Africa(0.4%). By nationality (place of origin), the largest number of foreign nationals came from South
Korea (1,774,872) accounting for 26.3% of the total, which was followed by Taiwan, the U.S.,
China, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. 53.8% of the foreign nationals entering Japan came fromSouth Korea, Taiwan, and China. The comparison between 2003 and 2004 shows that visitors fromthese three neighboring regions increased by 9.4% in 2004. On the other hand, according to theresearch by Japan Tourist Marketing Co. (2006), the largest (estimated) number of Japanese tourists
visited the U.S. (3,883,906) in 2005, followed by China (3,389,976), South Korea (2,439,809),
Hong Kong (1,210,848), and Taiwan (1,127,184). These statistical facts indicate that theinternational human interaction (mostly tourist flow in this case) between Japan and the rest of theworld has been highly concentrated in South Korea, Taiwan, and China.
While the above-mentioned data show foreign nationals entering Japan as temporary
visitors, the data for the foreign nationals ‘registered’ in Japan indicate those who stay in Japan for a
relatively long period of time as special permanent residents, students, employees, or Japanese’
spouses. They are ‘settled’ in the local community to varying degrees. An examination of these datashows us how internationality has been deepened within Japan.
The total number of registered foreign nationals residing in Japan has been increasing. It
reached 1,973,747 in 2004 constituting 1.55% of the total population of Japan (127,687,000). Its
regional breakdown by place of origin shows that 74.2% (1,464,360) of the registered foreign
8

The number of those naturalized sometimes exceeds that of applicants due to the fact that the reviewing
process of applications does not necessarily end by the end of the year. In terms of nationality, the yearly
average of naturalized Koreans is 10,102 while that of naturalized Chinese is 4,601, indicating the stronger
tendency of Koreans to be naturalized.

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nationals were from Asia, followed by South America (18.1%, 358,211), North America (3.3%,
64,471), and Europe (3.0%, 58,429). As a result of Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula,
North and South Koreans (30.8%, 607,419) have been the largest sub-group of the registeredforeign nationals. However, while the number of this sub-group has gradually decreased, that ofChinese (24.7%, 487,570) has increased dramatically. The numbers of Brazilians (14.5%, 286,557),
Filipinos (10.1%, 199,394), and Peruvians (2.8%, 55,750) have also been increasing. Brazilians andPeruvians have included a significant amount of Japanese descendents since Japanese descendents
can become legal workers in the current law. The decrease of Koreans is not only relative due to theincrease of the other nationals, but also absolute due to the naturalization of Koreans. 9 Therefore,
the recent internationalization of Japanese society has been deepened through foreign residencesfrom East Asia and South America, especially the former.
The domestic distribution of the registered foreign nationals has relatively clear
geographical patterns. Koreans, whose first generation came to Japan before 1945 and many ofwhom were born and raised in Japan, are concentrated mainly in the Kansai Region including major
cities such as Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe Cities. Chinese recently began to live in the Tokyo
Metropolitan Area due to the opportunities for study and work. Brazilians and Peruvians tend to besettled in industrial areas such as the Tokai Region, which provide them with job opportunities asfactory workers. The internationalization of Japanese society is now in progress at the local level.
In addition to deepening internationality within Japan, the process of trans-nationality isdefinitely under way. An index of trans-nationalization is mixed marriage, or what is called“international marriage” in Japan. 10 The ratio of mixed marriage (i.e. either of the spouses is aforeign national) to the total number of the marriages registered in Japan increased from 0.44%(4,156 cases) in 1965 to 5.48% (39,511 cases) in 2004 (Kosei rodo sho 2004).
It is important to note that the mixed marriage in Japan has clear gender biases. As of
2004, the number of cases where a husband was Japanese amounted to 30,907 accounting for 78.2%of the total mixed marriages in Japan while that of the opposite cases were 8,604 (21.8%). The
nationalities of foreign wives were Chinese (38.6%), Filipino (27.2%), and Korean (18.5%). In the
opposite cases, the husbands’ nationalities were Korean (26.7%), American (17.4%), and Chinese(12.8%). Thus the internationalization of Japanese society will proceed at the micro level ofhousehold and have a significant generational effect on the future Japanese population and its ethnic
composition.
The regional breakdown of these data (Kosei rodo sho 2004) shows that mixed marriages
were concentrated particularly in the Kanto and Tokai Regions centering on Tokyo and Nagoya
respectively and that there were localized concentrations in such prefectures as Yamagata andNagano. It seems that the recruitments of Asian brides for depopulated rural villages influenced thelatter case. At the city level, high ratios of mixed marriage were seen in major cities in Japan suchas the 23 special wards of Tokyo (10.4%), Osaka City (8.9%), Chiba City (8.1%), and Nagoya City
(7.7%). It can be said from this that Japanese major cities have played a role as a gate for theinternationalization of Japanese society. In short, the deepening of internationality in Japan will
surely proceed as the East-Asianization of Japanese society.
In terms of international migration and globalization, Saskia Sassen (Sassen 1996:
59-60) contrasts ‘economic denationalization’ with ‘political renationalization’. Economic
globalization denationalizes national economies while immigration causes the state to renationalize9

See note 8.
“International” marriage such as this does not necessarily represent a process of trans-nationality in
Taylor’s terms but creates a process of transforming the integrity of Japan’s nation through issues such as dual
citizenship, social multilingualism, and multicultural public education.
107

its politics. Sassen argues that the nation-state lifts border controls for the flow of capital,
information and services for further globalization but that it claims its older splendor in asserting its
sovereign right to control its borders against immigrants and refugees. This renationalization can beconsidered a kind of reterritorialization to secure territorial sovereignty for the nation-state.
According to IBMOJ (2005: 43), the estimated number of overstayers (those who
illegally stay in Japan beyond the permitted period of stay without obtaining permission for theextension or change of status for residence) was 207,299 in 2005. This number has been decreasing
since it reached 298,646 in 1993. IBMOJ attributes this significant decrease not only to Japan’s
continuing economic stagnancy but also to the comprehensive measures taken by the Bureau
against illegal foreign residents such as “Five-Year Plan to Halve the Number of Illegal
Immigrants” started in 2004. Governmental border controls have been strengthened and become
highly selective to exclude illegal migrants.
In conjunction with the stricter border controls after 9/11, the crime prevention by
Japanese police has targeted foreign nationals temporarily staying in Japan. As the population offoreign nationals has increased, the internationalization of crimes has gained popular attention since
the mid-1990s. According to the National Police Agency (Keisatsucho 2006), the ratio of thenumber of foreign nationals temporarily staying in Japan (8,505) to the total number of arrested
general criminals (386,955) in 2005 is 2.2%, but the number of such foreign criminals began toincrease and reached a historically high in 2004 after it had been recorded as the lowest during thepast decade in 1998. The National Police Agency (ibid) also points out that the crimes conducted byforeign nationals temporarily staying in Japan are spreading nation-wide. By nationality, 44% of thearrested foreign general criminals were Chinese followed by Brazilians (12.5%). Chinese tend tocommit burglary and forgery while Brazilians thief without breaking-in. The fact that many Chinesecommit crimes in Japan has contributed to the negative perception of their existence among
Japanese as shown in the following section, leading to the worsening of Japanese public perceptionof China.
Although the issue of the crime prevention committed by foreign nationals hasdeveloped into a social problem, the exclusionary atmosphere of Japanese society against them has
not been enhanced due to the facts that Japan’s border and immigration controls have been tight,that the number of foreign residents have been increasing but are still small, and that Japan’scultural homogeneity has remained high. Its highly selective immigration control will keep thenationality/ethnic composition of foreign residents diverse rather than limited to a few. Such control
will also be seen in the introduction of foreign high-skilled labor through EPA’s with Asian
countries as a measure countering Japan’s depopulation. In any case, it is undeniable that Japan’sinternationality will be deepened.

Japan’s ambiguous territoriality and ‘internationalism’ in East Asia
By interterritoriality, Taylor indicates the presumption that every section of occupied land acrossthe world is the sovereign territory of some state (Taylor 1995, 3). I agree with Taylor that this is an
ideal-typical presumption of the current interstate system, but this is hardly the case for many states.
Rather, overlapping territories have caused severe international disputes and conflicts anddestabilized interstateness in some parts of the world. In the case of Japan, as I argued in myprevious paper (Yamazaki 2002), the power container or state territory of Japan has maintained its
ambiguity due to the postwar Japan-U.S. security arrangements and the heavy U.S. militarypresence (i.e. extraterritoriality). In addition to this, the return of the Northern Territories from theformer Soviet Union had been an important unresolved territorial dispute for Japan until today. As
8will be examined below, other potentially disputable territories with neighboring countries had long
been suppressed in Japan’s foreign policy.
Let us first look at the territoriality of the postwar Japan-U.S. security arrangements.
After the Second World War, Japan was completely disarmed and incorporated into the Western
capitalist bloc through the U.S. occupation. The Japan-U.S. security arrangements were formallyestablished in 1951 when the Peace Treaty and the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty were concluded. The
current Japan-U.S. Security Treaty determines two important obligations for both countries. Article
5 of the Treaty requires that the U.S. defend Japan, which implies that an armed attack on Japan
would result in a military confrontation with the U.S., and, therefore, means that for Japan theTreaty possesses power as a deterrent. Article 6, conversely, requires Japan to provide the U.S. withareas and facilities so that the U.S. can station its military forces within Japan, particularly in
Okinawa, an islands’ prefecture located at the southern fringe of Japan. This ‘mutual’ relationshiphas sustained Japan’s constitutional pacifism and relatively non-aggressive Self Defense Forces on
the one hand and the U.S.’ forward deployment in East Asia on the other. The deployment of the
U.S. military force has also been considered as playing an important role in maintaining a militarybalance among East Asian countries.
As mentioned above, the end of the Cold War necessitated a reexamination of theconventional Japan-U.S. security arrangements which were based on a bipolar world. After close
consultation between Japan and the U.S., the two states announced the Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration
on Security in 1996. Recognizing that instabilities and uncertainties would continue to exist in the
Asia-Pacific region, the two states reconfirmed in the Declaration that the Japan-U.S. security
arrangements would remain the cornerstone in the maintenance of a stable and prosperous
environment for the Asia-Pacific region into the 21st century (Japan Defense Agency, JDA 2002,
97).
The Declaration redefined the Japan-U.S. security arrangements as maintaining theexisting security arrangements not only for Japan’s security, but also for the security and stability of
the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. The sphere which the Japan-U.S. security arrangements would
influence was also correspondingly enlarged from the territory of Japan to the Asia-Pacific region.
This indicates that the Japan-U.S. political economic alliance reconstructed the division of labor andcooperation in the region after the Cold War (Grant and Nijman 1997). Thus, the end of the Cold
War did not significantly change the nature of the Japan-U.S. security arrangements. Rather, thealliance between the two countries was reinforced against newly-emerging instabilities anduncertainties in the post-9/11 world.
After 9/11, the reinforced Japan-U.S. security arrangements entered a new stage. For the
U.S., East Asia became one of the important strategic areas. Following 9/11, the Quadrennial
Defense Review Report (QDR) paid particular attention to East Asia (U.S. Department of Defense,
USDOD 2001). In addition to China being depicted as the U.S.’ new ‘military rival’, North Korea
was listed as a member of ‘an axis of evil’ (Bush 2002). In this new context of the ‘war on terror’,the Bush Administration has given new security implications to East Asia 11 (USDOD 2005, 29-30).
Therefore, through the postwar Japan-U.S. security arrangements, Japan’s national security has
been tightly incorporated into the geopolitical pasture of the global U.S. military presence.
In light of Taylor’s argument about power container, the territoriality of postwar Japan as
a power container has been ambiguous due to the U.S. military presence within Japan. In order totake advantage of their deterrence, Japan allows foreign military forces to be stationed within its
sovereign territory. With regard to the recent geopolitical context of East Asia, the launch of
long-range missiles from North Korea in 1998 (and 2006) and the Japan Coast Guard’s warning
11

The latest QDR (USDOD 2005, 29-30) expressed growing concerns about China rather than North Korea.

9attacks against unidentified (allegedly North Korean) ships violating Japan’s territorial waters in1999 (with the SDF) and 2002 increased governmental and public awareness of the importance of
territorial defense. Figure 1 shows the dramatic increase of the newspaper coverage on North
Korea’s conducts. This can constitute the reason why Japan’s dependence on the U.S. militaryforces for deterrence should remain intact. The results of the public opinion survey from the late
1990s indicate that in accordance with increasing public concerns about territorial security, publicreliance on the current Japan-U.S. security arrangements has been increasing. 12 In other words,
Japan’s territorial security will be maintained as a form of extraterritoriality of the U.S. within
Japan.
Another important aspect of actual interterritoriality is territorial dispute. The concept ofsovereign territory implies that the state is entitled to exercise exclusive sovereign rights over its
territory. However, the actual arrangement of state territories is not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Thus territorial disputes can occur over overlapped territories and unsettled boundaries. Even
though the territory of Japan has been surrounded by sea since it lost its colonies in 1945, it has had
territorial disputes with neighboring countries: the Northern Territories with Russia, the Senkaku
Islands with China (and Taiwan), and Takeshima Island with South Korea (Figure 2). Relations
between Japan and these countries over disputed territories (islands) have been tense since thesecond half of the 1990s.
A rough content analysis on the coverage of the Asahi Shimbun shows that eachterritorial issue had been covered differently over the period from 1985-2005 (Figure 3). The mostnoticeable fact is that the issue of the Northern Territories had been covered much more frequently
than those with East Asian countries. Such coverage drastically increased in accordance with thedemise of the Soviet Union but seems to be reported ‘consistently’ in the newspaper. On the other
hand, the coverage of territorial issues with East Asian countries increased in 1996 when Japan
formally established its own Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) by ratifying the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea. The demarcation of the EEZ is based on the boundary ofterritorial water, which is necessarily connected to the issues of disputed territories. However,unlike the coverage of the Northern Territories, that of Takashima or the Senkaku Islands appeared
rather ‘sporadically’ or ‘sensationally,’ indicating that territorial disputes or interterritoriality among
East Asian countries have not necessarily been mentioned on a daily basis in the newspaper. 13
Given that territory is a crucial component for the rise of nationalism (Knight 1982;
1984; Passi 1996; Yamazaki 2003), it is likely that the nature of interterritoriality concerning
particular states affects the construction of nationalism in each state. Although it is not an easy task
to describe how Japanese postwar nationalism has been constructed through the above-mentioned
territorial disputes, I attempt to suggest a few important aspects of it using the recent public opinion
surveys on international relations in East Asia. I used the results of two public opinion surveys. One
is that conducted by the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan (Naikakufu 1995, 2005), andthe other is by Nippon resachi senta (2005a, b). According to the results of the former (Figure 4),
the Japanese tendency to feel closer to the U.S. and Western Europe than to East Asia wasmaintained, but the feeling towards East Asia was generally improved with the exception of theincreasing negative perception of China. Nippon resachi senta (2005a, b) show thatinter-perceptions between Japan and South Korea and between Japan and China are not very good
(Table 1). At the perceptual level of respondents, there are two possible reasons for this: one is12

According to the national public opinion survey (Naikakufu 2003, 2006), 63.5% of the respondents
considered the Japan-U.S. security arrangements useful. The ratio continued to increase to 75.1% in 2006.
13
The opposite case is the Sankei Shimbun which published a series of articles to point out the weak territorialconsciousness of the Japanese (Sankei Shimbun 1997).

10

Japan’s ‘official’ reinterpretation of the Asia-Pacific War represented by Japanese Prime Minister
Koizumi’s visit to Yasukuni (War) Shrine; and the other is the above-mentioned territorial disputes
between the three countries (Tables 2 and 3).
According to Figure 4 and Table 1, Japanese respondents have not necessarily
maintained a negative feeling towards China and South Korea. Whereas the anti-Japanesesentiments of China and South Korea are rather constant, the recent worsening of Japanese feelingtowards these countries was mainly brought about by knowing that anti-Japanese sentiments weregrowing in China and South Korea such as seen in the first half of 2005. I argue that on the other
hand, the growth of such antagonistic sentiments in neighboring countries stems partially from the‘tough’ diplomatic attitude of the Koizumi Cabinet towards China and South Korea. The reasons
why Chinese and South Korean respondents do not feel so close to Japan are that they believe that
there are differences between them and Japanese over the perception of the colonial past andterritorial issues (Table 2). Thus the recent relations (interstateness) between Japan and the othertwo countries tend to fuel nationalistic sentiments on the latter side. Given that the processes of
postwar decolonization and the state-formation of China and South Korea have been closely
connected to the evaluation of Japan’s imperialism, Japan’s reevaluation of its own colonial past, if
expressed in an official form, inevitably affects the construction of Chinese and Korean national
identity. This linkage of anti-Japanese sentiments with the concept of history and territory indicates
how Chinese and Korean national identities have been constructed in relation to Japan as their‘other.’Japanese public responses to the growth of such anti-Japanese sentiments have peculiar
aspects. It is clear from Table 1 that the worsening of Japan’s reputation negatively affects Japanesefeeling towards China and South Korea in a significant way. However, the fact that many Japanese
respondents answered “Do not know” implies that they were puzzled over how they should accept
such nationalistic sentiments in neighboring countries. In this sense, the rise of historical and/or
territorial nationalisms in China and South Korea may not directly lead to the construction ofcounter-nationalism in Japan, but the maintaining of an antagonistic relationship between thesenations may affect the reconstruction of Japanese national identity under way (Yamazaki 2002,
181-186). Thus I term this inter-ness in the construction of nationalism ‘internationalism’. I argue
that any movements for state formation or nation-building are likely to have something to do withinternationalism in the sense that ‘us’ cannot be identified without specifying ‘thems’ (Taylor 1995,
7). ‘We’ cannot be alone in the modern world system and, therefore, need a geo-historical context inwhich we can be ‘us’.

Conclusion: the reality and ideology of the nation-state
As I argued in my previous paper (Yamazaki 2002), the New Right ideology clearly emerged inJapanese state politics in the second half of the 1990s after the socio-political unrest in the middleof the decade. I identified its emergence in the LDP-led Obuchi Cabinet from 1998-2000. After theMori Cabinet (2000-2001) abruptly succeeded Obuchi due to his sudden death, Prime Minister
Koizumi appeared from Mori’s faction in the highly populist atmosphere. 14 It seems that Koizumi
also devoted himself to the development of the New Right ideology in Japan in the recovery ofJapan’s neo-liberal economy, the participation of Japan’s SDF in the U.S. military campaign against
14

According to the public opinion surveys by the Asahi Shimbun, Koizumi achieved the highest rate ofsupport (84%) in May 2005 one month after his inauguration, and the average rate of support for him is 50%
during his terms from 2001-2006, which is the second highest of the postwar Japanese Prime Ministers.

11

Afghanistan and Iraq (see Yamazaki 2006), and the reinterpretation of Japan’s militarist past.
I argued that neo-conservatism in Japan would seek to restore Japan’s constitutional,
military, and national subjectivity (Yamazaki 2002). At a glance, the politics Koizumi pursued
represents such restoration. His ‘tough’ posture against China and South Korea, particularly theformer, seems to be a kind of performance to signify Japan’s subjectivity in the domain ofinterstateness. However, his foreign policy has been rather subject to that of the U.S. as seen in
Japan’s swift cooperation with the U.S. military campaigns against Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore
I argue that neo-conservatism as promoted by Koizumi is diplomatically selective. It may insist on
restoring Japan’s subjectivity against Northeast Asia but not against the U.S. It may express somefrustration with the imposition of the current Constitution on Japan by the U.S. but not overtly
criticize the U.S. postwar hegemony in the West Pacific. Thus it can be said that theinterterritoriality and internationality between Japan and neighboring countries have contributed to
the recent selective reconstruction of Japanese subjectivity and national identity.
As Taylor (1994) points out the processes of globalization or detteritorialization make it
increasingly difficult to contain particular socio-economic processes within a state territory. In orderto understand and cope with the complexity of the processes that Japan is facing, it becomes
necessary to resituate Japan in the time-space context of East Asia by employing the perspective of
the multiplicity of nation-states, rather than drawing on the classic singular model of thenation-state. As I have argued, Japan’s political economy has been embedded in East Asia and has
influenced domestic socio-economic issues and public opinions accordingly. Without understanding
such political economic contextuality, it would be difficult to shape any effective foreign/domestic
policy. When we discuss Japan’s foreign/domestic policy or national identity politics in the context
of East Asia, one criterion for such policy or politics would be how capable it is of theinterconnectedness with other nations, states, and territories surrounding Japan.

12References
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No. 1, pp. 35-50

15Figure 1. Newspaper coverage on North Korea's conducts from 1985-2005.
Taepodongsuspicious boat & North Korea

abduction & North Korea

2500

Number of articles

2000

1500

1000

500

04

03

02

01

00

99

05
20

20

20

20

20

20

19

97

96

98
19

19

19

95

93

94

19

19

19

91

90

92
19

19

19

88

87

89
19

19

19

86
19

19

85

0

Year

Note: Shown are the numbers of articles containing three (combinations of) words: tepodon (Taepodong),fushinsen (suspicious boat) & kitachosen (North Korea), and rachi (abduction) & kitachosen (North Korea).
Source: Asahi shimbun sha (2006).

16

Figure 2. Japan’s territorial water, EEZ, and disputed territories (islands).

A
Territorial water

B
Contiguous Zones

Exclusive
EconomicZones (EEZ)

C

Notes: A: The Northern Territories, B: Takashima Island, C: The Senkaku Islands.
Base map: http://www2.ttcn.ne.jp/~honkawa/9410.html (accessed 17 September 2006).

17

Figure 3. Newspaper coverage on disputed territories from 1985-2005.
Takashima & territory

Senkaku & territory

Northern Territories

1000
900
800

Number of articles

700
600
500
400
300
200
100

19
85
19
86
19
87
19
88
19
89
19
90
19
91
19
92
19
93
19
94
19
95
19
96
19
97
19
98
19
99
20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05

0

Year

Note: Shown are the numbers of articles containing three (combinations of) words: takeshima & ryodo(territory), senkaku & ryodo (territory), and hoppo ryodo (Northern Territories).
Source: Asahi shimbun sha (2006).

18

Figure 4. Japanese’ felt closeness to other countries/regions in 1995 and 2005.
80
70
60
50
% 40

1995
2005

30
20
10
0

U.S.A

RussiaChina

S. KoreaCountry/Region

Sources: Naikakufu (1995, 2005).

19

SE. Asia

SW. Asia

W. EuropeTable 1. Inter-perceptions between three countries in 2002 and 2005.
Chinese to Japan
Do not feel close Feel close
2002
66.5
2005
71.1
Japanese to China
Do not feel close Feel close
2002
42.7
2005
56.9
South Koreans to Japan
Do not feel close Feel close
2001
69.4
2005
79.3
Japanese to South Korea
Do not feel close Feel close
2001
42.2
2005
41.1
Sources: Nippon resachi senta (2005a, b).

20

25.5
16.0

54.8
16.1

30.0
17.9

53.1
32.0

%
Do not know/NA
8.0
13.0
%
Do not know/NA
8.0
26.7
%
Do not know/NA
0.6
2.8
%
Do not know/NA
4.7
27.0

Table 2. Three reasons for NOT feeling close to other countries in 2002 and 2005.
Not feeling close to Japan/China due to:%ChineseJapanese
Perception of history
69.2
44.4
Territorial issue
50.6
34.4
Anti-Japanese/Chinese sentiment
47.4
76.0
Not feeling close to Japan/South Korea due to:%SouthJapanese
Koreans
Perception of history
78.2
43.6
Territorial issue
87.4
45.1
Anti-Japanese/Korean sentiment
66.4
66.8
Sources: Nippon resachi senta (2005a, b).

Table 3. Prime Minister's visit to Yasukuni (War) Shrine.

ChineseSouth
Koreans
Japanese%
Approve Object
Do not know/NA
3.0
82.2
14.8
14.2

76.9

8.8

35.4

35.2

29.3

Sources: Nippon resachi senta (2005a, b).

21