Japan, Empire, and the Postwar Order: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges

This year, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Japan’s defeat in 1945 was a turning point that brought about the collapse of the Japanese empire and dramatic transformations in the East Asian order. Many of the region’s most contentious political and security issues today—including disputes over the Northern Territories/Southern Kurils, Takeshima/Dokdo, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and the South China Sea, as well as tensions over the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, and the so-called “Okinawa problem”—trace their origins to borders created or reshaped in the prewar imperial era and were subsequently entrenched as enduring regional conflicts during the postwar Cold War era. Yet these underlying historical contexts are often overlooked. This lecture surveys how East Asia’s regional order and Japan’s borders were transformed from the prewar to the postwar era, with particular attention to relations with Western powers. It then considers how these legacies continue to shape today’s political and security environment, while also exploring future possibilities for building a more stable and inclusive regional order.

 

Kimie Hara is Professor, Renison Research Professor, and Director of the Keiko and Charles Belair Centre for East Asian Studies at Renison University College, University of Waterloo, Canada. Her authored and edited books include Cold War Frontiers in the Asia-Pacific (2007), Japanese-Soviet/Russian Relations since 1945 (1998), The San Francisco System and Its Legacies (2015), East Asia–Arctic Relations (2014 eds. with Ken Coates), and Reconciliation and Symbiosis in East Asia from Comparative Perspectives (2025), among others. She received her Ph.D. from the Australian National University and has held visiting fellowships and professorships in Asia, North America, and Europe, including at the Universities of Tokyo, Kyoto, Wuhan, and Stockholm; Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco); International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS); East-West Center; and the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

 

This event is part of The Japan Seminar Series, presented by the Centre for the Study of Global Japan and the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.