Studies in Asian Security. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020. xii, 209 pp. US$70.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5036-1189-4.
Why are territorial disputes important, and for whom? Alexander Bukh’s study, focused on non-state actors over political elites, provides compelling evidence that disputes over territory in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are less about the strategic or material value of contested places, but instead are important as symbols for grassroots efforts within countries to mobilize narratives about territory and identity. By focusing on processes through which territorial disputes arise, he shows how territorial disputes and media discourses about them emerge at times of political and social crisis: they become “tools of contention or criticism against a perceived failure of the state” (5).
Bukh frames how “national identity entrepreneurs” developed narratives about disputed territory as rhetorical resources to challenge central government inaction, or as a means to protest perceived failures of government policies to address domestic challenges or problems abroad. Across four case studies, he documents how marginal offshore islands—territory he refers to as “empty signifiers”—became symbolically important. He carefully documents media campaigns in which actors in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan changed public perceptions of disputed territories, some more successfully than others. By showing how social processes shape identities, Bukh makes a strong case for a constructivist approach to understand how rival claims over territory emerge, as well as the diverse range of meanings associated with them.
Bukh draws from the notion of critical junctures put forth by Eric Hobsbawm and Anthony Giddens, as a “period(s) of significant social change that threatens or destroys social routines and creates both the permissive and the productive conditions for new agency” (14). Through this lens, Bukh evaluates the rise of campaigns to reclaim Japan’s Northern Territories and Takeshima islets, to advocate for media in South Korea’s Protect Dokdo movement, and to garner support for a Taiwanese student-led Protect Diaoyutai (Baodiao) initiative.
In each chapter, the author identifies key national identity entrepreneurs and engagements with national governments. The first chapter focuses on the Soviet Union’s occupation of eastern Hokkaido. Following World War II, grassroots entrepreneurs organized petitions and protests to call for the region’s return—initially due to perceived economic losses. Bukh argues that the Hokkaido Prefecture government supported the dispute as a means to politically challenge Japan’s central government in Tokyo. Chapter 2 focuses on Japan’s Shimane Prefecture, where entrepreneurs transformed the Takeshima islets into symbols of injustice amidst deteriorating relations with South Korea. He argues that the Takeshima cause was “instrumental in voicing prefectural discontent” (21), reflected in the 2005 Takeshima Day ordinance as a response to former Prime Minister Koizumi’s reforms.
Chapter 3 focuses on the Protect Dokdo movement in South Korea during the 1990s. Bukh’s innovation here is to juxtapose activists’ narratives with democratization movement goals to show how Protect Dokdo represents a broad effort to reimagine Korean national identity. He documents how the Korean national government both supported and co-opted the Dokdo narrative through financial grants and alliances with key individuals. By doing so, Protect Dokdo shifted from a critique of Korean government policy changes to an ontological struggle over identity and otherness with Japan.
Chapter 4 describes how Taiwanese student demonstrators led the Protect Diaoyutai (Baodiao) movement as a response to oil exploration and the decision by the United States to transfer the islands to Okinawa. The Baodiao movement represented an unsuccessful effort to revive Kuomintang aims to ensure Taiwan maintained prominence in international fora in response to the rapprochement of US-China relations and generational change.
Across the chapters, Bukh reveals how national identity entrepreneurs’ campaigns took shape as critiques of government inaction and polices. Territorial narratives became mechanisms for creating a shared sense of belonging, efforts to promote social cohesion at times of socio-economic strain. Protect Dokdo arose at a time of rising income inequality and sense of hopelessness among Korean youth. The campaign had a powerful effect on Korean society, manifested in pamphlets, rock concerts, and t-shirts—it was even featured in school textbooks. In effect, “‘Dokdo’ became an integral part of Korean collective memory” (159). In contrast, Taiwan’s Diaoyutai campaign had no supporting media apparatus (journals, museums, curriculum, t-shirts). It did not lead to policy or behaviour change, as its narrative did not reflect the “dominant identity discourse in the society” (161). The dispute over Japan’s Northern Territories is notable for articulating perceived ethnic and economic differences with Russia and Korea (162). In effect, a challenge over land became a crucible for the framing of Japanese national identity in relation to its Asian neighbours but also as an industrialized “Western” power.
Bukh’s careful reading of primary and secondary sources in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, supplemented by interviews, supports his main claims. One key contribution of the book is to shift the study of territorial disputes from a state-centred analysis towards a focus on nonstate actors: individual people, in often obscure places, advocating for alternatives. His study also underscores the importance of rhetorical and symbolic strategies for mobilizing political action. Choi and Yun identify how territorial disputes “involve more than states’ material interests. Instead, they reflect the relational identity of the self and the other. A disputed territory can become an icon of past history and present identity” (J. K. Choi and Y. S. Eun, “What does international relations theory tell us about territorial disputes and their resolution?” International Politics 55, no. 2 [2018], 141–159). Bukh’s study shows how and why some efforts succeeded in turning offshore territory into signs of history and identity, while other campaigns ultimately failed. While some of the chapters could have benefitted from clearer summaries and transitions, and some exposition of campaigns is overly detailed, Bukh’s layering of evidence—whether newspaper articles, interviews, or other media—supports a “thick description” of the shifting but ultimately meaningful construction of national narratives about identity and territory in Northeast Asia. It is a valuable contribution to the study of international relations in Asia, especially for showing how narratives about territorial disputes are semiotically deployed, interpreted, and transformed.
Ian Parker
University of California, San Diego