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Australia is a middle power caught between rising dependence on China, which seeks a sinocentric region, and growing security reliance on the U.S., which strives for a trans-Pacific community supporting universal values. In light of the Sino-U.S. identity gap and different concepts of regionalism, its response becomes clearer.

AbstractIn 2010–12, Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated without the Yasukuni Shrine or Chinese human rights violations in the forefront. To improve relations, attention should turn to what I label the ideological, sectoral, and horizontal dimensions of a national identity gap between these countries. They have each figured in the decline and offer more promise than the temporal dimension, with its symbols of wartime memories, and the vertical dimension, where sensitive Chinese internal affairs are at stake. The sectoral dimension comprises political, economic, and also cultural national identity, each of which has grown more intense in China, while cultural identity is still a force in Japan. Establishing an East Asian community is now the centerpiece in the hope that the horizontal dimension will be an impetus for mutual understanding, yet the notion of community is repeated with no sign of a shared vision of the outside world, whether the US role or the international arena and regionalism. With South Korea, their partner in trilateralism and North Korea's transformation at the crux of all three of these dimensions, this paper emphasizes the way divergent views of the peninsula keep growing in importance for bilateral relations. It suggests ways to reframe relations through cooperation over Korea. As difficult as Korean relations are for both states, it is a test case for their identity gap.

During 2009-2011, Chinese writings on South Korea and the history of the Korean nation grew more somber in tone. They widened the national identity gap at the same time the gap was being widened with the United States and Japan. Views of successive periods grew more negative. Chinese authors wrote that Koreans should look back with gratitude rather than resentment at having been China's neighbor in premodern times. They sided with North Korea and Roh Moo-hyun in their stress on insufficient South Korean vigilance in dealing with collaborators and the legacy of Japan's occupation. Mainstream Chinese coverage of the Korean War ignores who invaded and why in order to emphasize the US entry into the war as an imperialist aggressor and China's just involvement. The legacy of the anticommunism of the Cold War era is deemed to persist after both the democratization of South Korea and the normalization with Chin a that followed. Thus, history pervades Chinese writings on South Korea. North Korea fares much better by comparison. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)