This book not only treats Japan's relationship with China during the 1970s as a foreign policy discourse, but also sheds new light on the relationship by analysing how Japan's nationalist discourse has shaped it. After the defeat of Japan in 1945, with its negative impact on national identity and national consciousness, the Japanese Right and the Left both developed different explanations and nationalist discourses. The relationship with China was used by both sides. Robert Hoppen's main argument is that “changes in the international political environment and Japan–China relations transformed the China problem from a powerful support for Leftist and progressive constructions of identity into a support for the postwar conservative political order and the nationalist narratives that supported it” (p. 6). Facing Japan's submission to American Cold War policy, many on the Left initially identified with the success of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) revolution and with the national liberation struggles in Asia which fitted nicely into their nationalist narrative. This was actively supported by China's leaders when their main struggle was against “American imperialism” and support for nationalist liberation movements. When the PRC developed a closer relationship with Western countries after 1971 in order to fight “Soviet hegemonism,” and encouraged revisionist conservative historical narratives, many on Japanese Left distanced themselves from Beijing while the mainstream conservatives championed relations with the PRC. Hoppens argues that the latter did so mostly not for normative reasons, but because the PRC's changes made relations with it more convenient for conservative positions and nationalist narratives, leading later to what the author calls a “conservative triumphalism.” The author contests the view that Japanese policy towards the PRC in the 1970s was easy submission (e.g. by abandoning Taiwan) or even masochistic (e.g. sacrificing national pride), arguing that the government stuck it out against Chinese demands (e.g. the anti-hegemony clause or a stronger sense of responsibility towards the past) in order to cope with domestic nationalist opposition. Hoppens contends that war guilt or war responsibility played a role in the development of positive relations with China in the 1970s but did not determine Japan's China policy. He devotes considerable space to this point when dealing with Japan's Official Development Aid (ODA) to China. One would have wished that he had also pointed out that while war guilt/returning favours for the PRC's renunciation of reparations was only a secondary consideration for Japan's ODA, the Chinese government made a clear link between the past and its expectations of ODA.

The main body of the book is an account of Japan's post-war China policy (focusing on the negotiations for the normalization of relations in 1972 and the 1978 Peace and Friendship Treaty) and an analysis of how the Left and the Right appropriated China policy for their respective nationalist discourses. The author does not bring any new facts about these negotiations but manages convincingly to show how China's changing position served the nationalist narrative of both camps at different times. This review cannot do justice to the author's wide-ranging analysis of the nationalist discourse by many Japanese intellectuals and political leaders and its linkage to Japan's China policy. After 1971, Japan's economic success (and the US decline) was interpreted by people like Ohira Masayoshi as a vindication of conservative policies and an opportunity for a more assertive foreign policy. Hoppens shows that even though Ohira was known as a political leader with a keen interest in advancing Japan's relationship with China, he was sceptical of the Japanese narrative that stressed the common culture and race of Japan and China, and rather based his approached on Japan's unique identity and national interests.

Just a few quibbles: it is regrettable that Hoppens in his treatment of the very nationalist Seirankai group did not touch on its position regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute, which has had a lasting effect on Japan–China relations. Ishihara Shintaro, a co-founder of the group, was obsessed with the dispute from its beginning, and he finally initiated the 2012 crisis with his intended purchase of some of the islands from their private owner. Hoppens is wrong to assert that the Japanese claim to the islands was “explicitly included in the agreement with the US returning Okinawa to Japan in 1972” (p. 179): the Japanese claim was at most implicitly included in the reversion agreement, as the US only admitted to returning administrative rights over Okinawa and the disputed islands, and consistently refused to comment on the islands’ legal status (i.e. the sovereignty), as the author himself writes on p. 186.

This book is a major contribution to the study of post-war Japan–China relations, and the role of nationalism and national identity in the approach of the Left and Right to Japan's China policy. Written and structured well, it will assist students as well as researchers to better understand the tortuous development of this important bilateral relationship.