The three Chinatowns in Japan ─ located in Kobe, Yokohama, and Nagasaki, have similar histories, even in the redevelopment process after World War II. Today’s Kobe Chinatown ─ Nankinmachi, basically results from the redevelopment since the 1970s. Because of the damage caused by air attacks launched by the US during the war, it was imperative for Kobe government to reconstruct the city after the war. The city government prioritized the land readjustment project to revitalize the local civic life and commercial activities. The redevelopment of Nankinmachi was a part of it. And urgent demands originated from the commercial competition between two local commercial centers, Motomachi and Sannomiya, which were given impetus to this project. As a result, local residents were granted the initiative to rebuild the so-called Chinatown. With a perspective of social production of space, this paper explored the process of how Chinese-ness was conferred through discourse and built environment to redevelop a Chinatown, in Kobe. This paper argues that during the process, the original local cultural diversity was excluded; instead, a space of Chinese representation was socially produced by various actors, according to their political economic purposes. By looking closely in the 1970s and 1980s, this paper attempts to fill the missing period of Nankinmachi’s history. It aims to shed a new light on the turning point of Nankinmachi by examining the socio-cultural transformation. It hopes to contribute to deepen the understanding of Kobe’s unique socio-politico-economic relationship between Chinese overseas and local society.

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