Nikkan kaneki "muzukashisa" no kozu

The often-sensitive and acrimonious relations between Japan and South Korea are depicted by Japanese politicians and the media alike as a predicament in the bilateral relations. There is a debilitating sense of resignation over the purported inevitability of textbook controversy, vis-à-vis, irreconcilable interpretations of the past; as well as the territorial dispute revolving around Takeshima/Dokto. While the “reality” of extant diplomatic conflict cannot be avoided, there is nothing “inevitable”, nor “irrefutable”, about the “difficulty”, per se. By exploiting the intersection between Social Theory and International Relations Theory, I reveal that the bilateral “difficulty” is socially constructed, and as such, there is nothing inevitable about its perseverance.