The Research Of Japan’s Identity In The Asia-Pacific

After World War Ⅱ, Japan is the first country to advocate to establish the Pacific Economic Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan has put forward to many official or semi-official ideas on the Asia-Pacific regional cooperation, and has co-founded the APEC with Australia in1989. In this process, why did Japanese decision-makers put forward to different ideas on the Asia-Pacific regional cooperation and according to them, what should be contained in the Asia-Pacific region cooperation? What kind of role does Japan play in in regional cooperation? Understanding these issues accurately help to understand the substance of Japan’s policy ideas in Asia-Pacific regional cooperation and to understand the variation of Japan’s "identity" in Asia-Pacific region.The rapid economic development after the war promoted Japan to become a Western country, but Japan always lay the edge position among Allies both for Japan itself and for the West. On the other hand, although Japan’s post-war diplomacy stressed that he is " one of Asian countries ", however, due to historical reasons and asymmetric power compared with other Asian countries, Japan hasn’t been accepted by Asian countries. During postwar decades, Japan has appeared such an awkward set of identity in the Asia Pacific region. With the mentality of "edge " nation, Japan’s regional identity has always been defined by some sense of insecurity. Indeterminacy of its positioning makes Japan put itself to the group of regional cooperation to try to determine its position in the region by promoting regional cooperation.Considering "edge" mentality of Japan in the international system as a starting point, this paper attempts to combine with the identity theory of international politics to review the Japan’s development process of providing its identity in the region to avoid its identity crisis, and explore the evolution characteristics of Japan’s Pacific Regionalism history. For the first chapter, author will define the identity theory, then importe it to Japan’s regional identity. For the second chapter, author will discuss how did Japan explore its identity back to an " Asian member " during postwar decades, and how did Japan fail in getting the initiative on Asian issues. For the third chapter, author will disscuss that Japan redefined the Pacific region during building a new identity in the Pacific region and made "Pacific" even more diversification and proliferation,and ultimately formed the Asia-Pacific identity combining "Asia" with " Pacific". Finally, author will generally talk about Japan’s new exploration of identity under the interaction of "East Asia" and "Asia-Pacific". As a final conclusion author sumed up the indeterminacy appeared in Japan’s exploring history of Asia-Pacific regional identity. Undoubtedly, Asia-Pacific region that appears more vibrant and institutionalized will become Japan’s main stage to redefine its regional identity and to play a greater political role.