Strong nationalisms have often been seen as impeding cooperation and reconciliation between states that have in the past been at war. This is especially the case in East Asia, where memories of Japanese aggression and colonialism have long disturbed bilateral relations between Japan and China and South Korea. Eunbin Chung's book Pride, Not Prejudice: National Identity as a Pacifying Force in East Asia challenges such arguments by proposing that the affirmation of national identities can, in fact, facilitate cooperation and reconciliation between states experiencing such problems. More specifically, the book borrows National Identity Affirmation (henceforth NIA) theory from psychology and argues that by affirming national identity, state leaders can more easily gain support for conciliatory policies and cooperation with other states, because if one's identity is affirmed, one becomes more secure and less defensive toward others. The book suggests that NIA can be seen not only as a theory, but also as a more realistic and promising way of improving relations and facilitating cooperation than attempts to replace national identities with regional or supranational identities.

While ultimately interested in relations between states, the book's empirical chapters are based on studies using quantitative analysis of material gathered through several surveys and experiments on individuals in Japan, China and South Korea. First, chapter four, based on field experiments in Japan, China and South Korea, shows that NIA increases trust. Second, chapter five reveals that NIA increases guilt recognition for wartime aggression and colonialism among Japanese respondents. Third, chapter six is concerned with images of other countries. It demonstrates, through surveys of South Korean respondents, that NIA is associated with more positive perceptions of other countries. Apart from these studies of how NIA influences general attitudes, two chapters contain applications to specific policy issues. Chapter six is concerned with South Korean attitudes toward the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Japan, an agreement on the bilateral sharing of military intelligence, in particular related to North Korea and China. In 2012, the South Korean and Japanese governments planned to sign the agreement. However, the signing of the agreement was cancelled in the last minute because of strong opposition within the South Korean public. This opposition has typically been attributed to anti-Japanese sentiment. The chapter shows that NIA made South Koreans more supportive of the agreement. Chapter seven goes on to focus on support among the Japanese public for reparations to South Korea and China for Japanese colonialism and wartime aggression. It demonstrates that NIA, by emphasising an element of identity that Japanese can be proud of, reduces defensiveness and makes Japanese respondents more supportive of such policies.

The book's main strength, as this reviewer sees it, is the comprehensiveness of its empirical analysis. The five empirical chapters explore the role of NIA through a number of surveys and experiments conducted in three countries. NIA is shown to make a difference across all these settings. The book's main contribution lies in how these empirical studies highlight the potential of NIA as a way of enabling the initiation of reconciliation and cooperation even in contexts where bitter memories make such initiatives difficult.

While it is empirically strong and presents an interesting and provocative argument, like in any book, there are nonetheless also issues that I believe can be questioned and discussed. The first of these concerns the book's understanding of cooperation, and specifically how it presents the GSOMIA military intelligence agreement between South Korea and Japan. The book suggests that opposition to GSOMIA in South Korea, and opposition to international cooperation more generally, is irrational and not based on an objective assessment of the situation. For example, it states that “fierce opposition against cooperation with a past adversary could be rooted in negative self-imagery rather than prudent calculations of self-benefit. When people had the chance to ‘see the larger picture’ of how they could benefit through a policy, they were able to objectively acknowledge the necessity of it” (p. 194). However, I would argue that issues such as security cooperation are bound up with uncertainty in various ways and are therefore not as straight-forward as implied. For example, even though participation in GSOMIA would enable South Korea to cooperate with Japan in the area of intelligence sharing related to North Korea and China, it is arguably necessary for any “prudent calculations of self-benefit” to take into account North Korea's and China's possible reactions as part of the “larger picture”. Since the book more broadly is concerned with cooperation and perceptions between not only South Korea and Japan, but also between these two countries and China, I find it especially relevant to consider how security cooperation between two of these states might have a negative influence on cooperation with the third state.

As a second concern, the book's limited discussion of NIA within actual political practice seems like a missed opportunity. While most of the book's enquiry consists of survey experiments, the concluding chapter presents an example of NIA in practice in the form of Barack Obama's speech on the reversal of US relations with Cuba. This is the only clear example I could find in the book of what actions resembling NIA in real world politics might look like. There is no explicit discussion of what specific NIA measures East Asian states could have taken to improve their relations. Instead, the final chapter contains several pages on the role of the United States in East Asia and how its behaviour influences relations in the region, along with calls for a “sensible diplomatic gesture from the United States” (p. 227). However, this discussion does not follow from the NIA theory. While bilateral episodes where relations between East Asian states improved are discussed in the book, such as the so-called honeymoon period in Sino-Japanese relations in the 1970s and early 1980s, these are not explicitly analysed through the theoretical lens of NIA. However, they could be analysed using NIA. For example, statements by Japanese prime ministers containing apologies to the victims of Japanese wartime aggression and colonialism strike me as textbook examples of NIA in practice. These statements contain not only apologies, but also constructions of Japanese identity. Before expressing “feelings of deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” for Japan's “colonial rule and aggression” in his famous 1995 speech, Japanese Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi (cited in Gustafsson Reference Gustafsson2015, p. 124) highlighted Japan's post-war achievements as something for the Japanese to be proud of:

This appears precisely like the kind of rhetorical use of NIA that the book argues could reduce defensiveness and increase support for apologies and other conciliatory policies. Just as Obama did in his Cuba speech (p. 222), by highlighting how different post-war Japan had become from wartime Japan, Murayama and other prime ministers have engaged in “temporal othering” of Japan's own past (Gustafsson Reference Gustafsson2016). By emphasising that Japanese have a lot to be proud of, Japanese prime ministers could be said to have used NIA to increase support for, and decrease opposition to, apologies and accompanying reparation policies.

Of course, despite Japanese apologies and reparation payments, the history problem has not gone away. This could be interpreted as NIA being insufficient on its own and needing to be accompanied or followed by other measures. One notable difference between Japanese apologies and the Cuban thaw is that Japan had to address both domestic and international audiences, while Obama mainly needed to address domestic audiences. Japanese prime ministers, even though they sought to increase domestic support, ultimately addressed Korean and Chinese audiences, whose receptivity to the statements played a key role. Additionally, in the case of Sino-Japanese relations, one factor that arguably has contributed to the deterioration of Japanese views of China is Chinese denial of the identity Japanese prime ministers constructed of post-war Japan as different from wartime Japan in the apology statements mentioned above (Gustafsson Reference Gustafsson2015, Reference Gustafsson2016). Consequently, one possible limitation of NIA might be its domestic focus, which does not take into account whether or not the identities constructed when NIA is practiced are recognised by international audiences.

A third issue concerns the book's argument that identities can be inward-looking and thus do not necessarily involve comparison. While it is possible to construct survey questions that give the impression that identities are constructed in an inward-looking way without comparison with others, I would argue that comparison is never far away. For example, if a respondent chooses “honesty” (p. 87) when asked what value is most important to Koreans, it arguably implies that Koreans are more honest than people from other countries. Similarly, in its treatment of the so-called Sino-Japanese honeymoon period, the book suggests that when Japan became an economic powerhouse, it allowed it to stress this aspect of its identity, be remorseful in relation to China and thereby improve bilateral relations. The book thus asserts that: “The basis of the newfound confidence and pride in Japanese national identity was inward-looking and did not entail comparison with or superiority over a contemporary out-group”. This is an interesting argument, and I would certainly agree that the fact that Japan stressed an aspect of its identity it could take pride in enabled this rapprochement. However, the book states in its description of this Japanese identity that “Japan gained economic superpower status”, and “the Japanese ‘developmental state’ model grew popular as a model to emulate in developing states” (p. 50). These statements appear to imply a comparative and relational understanding of identity. “Superpower status” is only possible if there are other states that lack such status and instead have a different kind of status, for example as minor powers, middle powers or great powers. In addition, the idea that developing states wanted to “emulate” the Japanese “developmental state model” similarly points to the existence of a comparative and relational identity construction. In such an identity construction, Japan is depicted as more economically and developmentally advanced while other states are seen as lagging behind within this domain. The amicable relations enjoyed during the Sino-Japanese honeymoon period in the 1970s and early 1980s, were based on mutual Chinese and Japanese recognition of key elements of the other's identity. Japan recognised China's identity as a victim of Japanese wartime aggression, by expressing regret for the war and providing China with Official Development Aid (ODA), which has often been viewed as unofficial war reparations. Meanwhile, Japan's provision of ODA and technological expertise to China confirmed Japan's identity as an economic great power. For example, when he visited Japan in 1978, Deng Xiaoping recognised Japan's identity as economically superior by stating: “We must admit our deficiencies. We are a backward country and we need to learn from Japan” (quoted in Gustafsson Reference Gustafsson2016, p. 622). As pointed out by one scholar (Watson Reference Watson2014, p. 107), both Japan and China “view bilateral aid through the lens of a hierarchical relationship”. In other words, Japan's identity as an economic superpower was far from inward-looking and the amicable relations during the honeymoon period were arguably sustained not just by strong national identities, but by strong national identities that the other state recognised.

In conclusion, this is a very interesting book that challenges conventional wisdom when it comes to the relationship between national identity and conflict. It successfully demonstrates the ameliorating effects of NIA at the individual level. In addition, it takes an important step toward suggesting ways of initiating the improvement of relations and overcoming historical animosity in practice. Future research has much to gain from engaging with these insights.