Image matters, not only for corporate brands and public figures, but for countries.  A positive national image confers “soft power” and makes “hard power” resources both less necessary and less threatening.  Japan is often ranked among the most attractive countries in the world, but its negative image in China and South Korea bedevils diplomacy with two of its closest neighbors.  The negativity of Chinese and South Korean views is puzzling, moreover, since many of Japan’s other former adversaries have developed very positive attitudes toward Japan.

Explanations of why Japan is disliked intensely in some quarters despite a generally positive image around the world usually point either to the legacy of Japan’s imperial expansion within Asia or to domestic political motives for demonizing Japan.  A careful review of diplomatic history during the past century shows, however, that historical memory, power politics, and domestic pressures by themselves offer a poor account of ups and downs in Japan’s image. 

My forthcoming book, Seeing Japan, draws on the rapidly growing literature on emotion and politics to offer a more complete picture of how Japan is seen in China and South Korea.  Distinct emotional complexes shape attitudes in different issue areas—ranging from territorial disputes to constitutional reform, and from remembrance of the past to alliance politics in the present.  Drawing evidence from case histories, elite statements, and text analysis of newspaper editorials, this book makes the case that attitudes toward Japan in Beijing and Seoul are more changeable than is commonly appreciated and that Japan can improve its standing in the region, but not without overcoming some challenging domestic hurdles of its own.