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Recent studies have increasingly argued that the Chinese leadership uses Japan’s imperialistic past as a tool for domestic and political bargaining. However, this argument fails to appreciate the embedded nature of negative memories within China. This article forwards an alternative argument by situating Japanese militaristic history within Chinese national identity. By examining a wide range of Chinese primary sources often underutilized by International Relations (IR) analysts, it moves...

On China's web, networked actors ranging from state agencies to private Internet users engage in highly active online discourse. Yet as diverse as this discourse may be, political content remains highly regulated, particularly on issues that affect the legitimacy of the ruling party. A prominent issue in this regard has been modern Chinese history, particularly the "national humiliation" that Japan inflicted on China's populace during events like the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. This article asks...

UNESCO’s ‘Memory of the World’ Programme promotes the preservation, universal access and public awareness of the world’s significant documents as the common heritage of all humankind. The inscription of the ‘Documents of Nanjing Massacre’ into the ‘Memory of the World’ Register in 2015 reflects an increasingly globalised concern in the post–Cold War era over the remembrance of war and atrocity. Yet it has reignited the tension between Japan and China, resulting in strong pressure on UNESCO to...

Beijing and Tokyo are currently involved in a zero-sum battle for soft power. Both governments are actively trying to shape how third party actors understand contested matters in their bilateral relationship. The dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is the most obvious flashpoint in this ongoing struggle for hearts and minds. A soft power battle might seem like an innocent endeavour, but by entrenching enmity and legitimizing armed conflict, it might actually translate into one where hard...

For several decades, Japan kept in place significant self-imposed constraints on its security policy even as its economy grew tremendously. While it has been argued that Japan refrained from enacting security policy change because of strong domestic pacifist or anti-militarist sentiments, recently, radical policy changes have nonetheless taken place. How can these changes be understood? The existing explanations typically see them as a response to objectively existing or constructed external...

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...

The past wrongdoings of states have received increased attention in recent years, resulting in calls for contrition and apologies. Most commentary has provided policy advice primarily on how former aggressors should handle such “history problems”. The present article, by contrast, draws on insights from research on recognition and ontological security to construct a framework for how external actors can use shaming and praising to influence the ways in which former aggressors deal with the...

In the 1990s, Japanese views of China were relatively positive. In the 2000s, however, views of China have deteriorated markedly and China has increasingly come to be seen as ‘anti-Japanese’. How can these developments, which took place despite increased economic interdependence, be understood? One seemingly obvious explanation is the occurrence of ‘anti-Japanese’ incidents in China since the mid-2000s. I suggest that these incidents per se do not fully explain the puzzle. Protests against...

Most international relations (IR) research on the role of collective memory and representations of the past gives the impression that these primarily matter for states constrained internationally by their history as aggressors, such as Japan. How former perpetrator states represent the past is seen as important for bilateral relations because it may affect perceptions in previously victimised states. Representations of the past in the victimised states are seldom dealt with. This article...

The idea that China's rise, and more specifically its increased material capabilities, are about to produce a power shift in East Asia raises the question whether the Chinese government's ability to produce effects through discursive power has also increased. The government's use of discourses about China's war against Japan is a conspicuous example of attempts to exercise discursive power. Has China's ability to use the past for political purposes increased as its material capabilities have...

Japan’s kyōkasho mondai (history textbook controversy) is at a crossroads. This article tries to exemplify it through the analysis of three issue areas at three levels (international, domestic, and societal). Internationally, the study looks into the failure of much anticipated joint history writing projects with China (2006–2010) and South Korea (2002–2005, 2007–2010). Domestically, this study problematises the recent politicisation of the textbook adoption system through the analysis of...

A body of critical academic literature has characterized the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a nation-building enterprise with reconciliation as its core. Although this literature is especially influential within South African scholarship, the association of the TRC with reconciliation has become a far wider orthodoxy. An engagement with the full range of the TRC's hearings, its institutional practice and its seven-volume report demonstrates a more contested...

This paper outlines the construction of the ‘‘official’’ archives of the South African apartheid state and the distorted view they contain concerning social and political realities. Therefore, the colonial and apartheid legacies are examined in a broader context as an oppressive social and political system, as well as in the more specific context of how their legacy is reflected in the official archives. The development and popular endorsement of the Freedom Charter of 1955 was a seminal moment...

The state of the public sector in South Africa is heavily influenced by particular histories of state administration related to the legacy of apartheid and the nature of the political transition to democracy. We suggest, however, that there is a paucity of scholarly work in the discipline of Public Administration which takes into account this legacy and the manner in which the public sector is embedded in broader social, political and economic relations. This has had significant consequences...

Recent thinking and practice in transitional justice suggest that victims and societies hold indivisible, perhaps even simultaneous, rights to truth, justice and reparations after gross human rights violations. This article analyses the advantages and drawbacks of such holistic approaches to transitional justice, through a case study of Chile’s second official truth commission, the ‘Valech Commission’. The article illustrates the politics of ongoing contestation about authoritarian era crimes...

This article serves as the general introduction by the guest editors to the first of two thematic issues of Archival Science that will explore the theme, "archives, records, and power." Archives as institutions and records as documents are generally seen by academic and other users, and by society generally, as passive resources to be .exploited for various historical and cultural purposes. Historians since the mid-nineteenth century, in pursuing the new scientific history, needed an archive...