Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Portland, ME: MerwinAsia; Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press [distributor], 2014. xix, 308 pp. (Illustrations.) US$75.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-937385-44-6; US$35.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-937385-43-9.
Memories of the past have always mattered in international politics, and it may not be an exaggeration to say that the East Asian region currently serves as one of the strongest reminders of this truism. At the time of writing, Japanese Prime Minster Abe Shinzō and Chinese President Xi Jinping had held the first Sino-Japanese summit since 2012, following territorial disputes over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Japan’s announcement to nationalize the islands had prompted emotional, large-scale anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, as well as a suspension of all high-level contact between the two states’ leaders. Such reactions were undoubtedly fuelled by memories (partly kept alive by the Communist regime to boost their legitimacy) of Japan’s invasion of China and its seizure of Chinese territory. Meanwhile, relations between Japan and South Korea remain in a deep “freeze,” with South Korean President Park Gyun-he continuing to refuse to meet Abe unless he alters his attitude towards “history issues,” including Korean “Comfort Women” and visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. It is clear that how Japanese imperialism is “remembered” has tremendous implications for the international relations of East Asia.
Given this context, the publication of Takashi Yoshida’s new monograph on war and peace museums in East Asia is guaranteed to be of interest to observers of the region’s politics and history. The book, which consists of seven chapters, is organized in a broadly thematic fashion. After providing a chronological survey of war museums in Imperial Japan and the rise of multiple voices of pacifism in the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in 1945, the author provides a broad survey of various Japanese war and peace museums. In doing so, Yoshida’s work makes a number of contributions. First, it serves as a valuable “museum guide” for researchers and students of East Asian history and politics. Yoshida provides us with detailed descriptions of the museums’ exhibits and the political messages behind them, as well as analysis on the socio-political context in which each museum emerged.
Second, through his detailed examinations of these museums, Yoshida is able to trace the gradual evolution of Japanese attitudes towards the Asia-Pacific War of 1931–45, as well as the politics of “remembering and forgetting.” Thus, while many Japanese war and peace museums are subjected to pressure from both conservative and progressive camps to adopt the “correct” attitude to history (chapter 6), Yoshida shows there has been a gradual acknowledgement of Japan both as a victim and perpetuator of war. Even museums that were founded primarily to remember events in which Japanese citizens suffered (such as the Himeyuri Peace Museum, the Voiceless Museum or the Centre on the Tokyo Raids and War Damages) examine Japanese aggression in their exhibits, distinguishing them from others that continue to stick to glorifying the heroism of the Japanese war dead (such as the Chiran-Town Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots). The overall picture of Japanese war memories that emerges from Yoshida’s careful empirical analysis is one of complexity, where competing narratives coexist uneasily with each other, vying for mainstream acceptance.
Yoshida’s third contribution is to put Japanese war and peace museums in a regional context by comparing them to Chinese and South Korean war and peace museums (chapter 7). In contrast to Japan, the author finds less scope for diversity in what is “remembered and forgotten” in terms of each state’s darker episodes of history. The museums examined remain (to different degrees) within the framework of state-led nationalism, leading the author to conclude that “[m]useums in China and South Korea seem more perpetuating a notion of ‘innocent-us’ and ‘savage-them’—and thereby inciting a divisive brand of patriotism (i.e., nationalism)—than on exposing the pervasive horrors of war and promoting peace” (236). In both countries, the emphasis remains firmly on highlighting Japanese atrocities, glorifying the heroic anti-Japan struggles by Chinese and Korean citizens, while frequently ignoring any historical wrongdoing committed by native regimes after Japan’s defeat (Park Chung-hee’s political repression, as well as Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution are cases in point).
This book provides a rich empirical account of the politics of memory in East Asia, and the author’s question of whether or not “patriotism contribute[s] to promoting peace in Northeast Asia” (231) provides us with much food for thought. There are nevertheless a number of points that could have made this already useful book even more valuable. First, on a somewhat technical point, given that the book serves as a “guide” to war and peace museums in Japan, a list of their addresses and other details would have been extremely beneficial in assisting researchers wishing to build on Yoshida’s work and conduct additional fieldwork to these sites of “remembering.” Second, while I am fully appreciative of the fact that the author’s strength lies in Japanese history, as well as the inherent difficulties in conducting multi-lingual research, given the title I would have liked to see more analysis on the Chinese and South Korean cases. In particular, it would have been interesting (and useful) to include more detailed analysis on the politics of memory in South Korea, which is a liberal democracy that tolerates—at least in theory—much more diverse historical narratives than an authoritarian one-party state like China. What are the political dynamics that seem to produce a much more homogenous “remembering” of the past? In what way does South Korean society differ from Japanese society in this regard? These points aside, Yoshida’s book will prove to be highly valuable for scholars and students of all levels and disciplines, particularly history and political science. It is a timely and a valuable addition to the literature.
Shogo Suzuki
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
pp. 930-932