Border studies is an unknown field of study in Japan but has a certain presence in the West Coast of the US and Europe. The Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS), initiated in 1976 by US-Mexico borderlands researchers in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, has gradually expanded its sphere of influence to include the US-Canadian borderlands, and currently is the largest borderlands society in the Western Social Science Association in the US. The International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU) at Durham University, established in 1989 at the beginning of the post-Cold War era, conducts research for boundary management and for the peaceful resolution of territorial issues. Border Regions in Transition (BRIT), whose first gathering was in Berlin in 1994, grew from a European into an overseas network, including North and South America.
However, East Asia and Eurasia have remained isolated and segregated from the networks of worldwide border studies. Though Japan is an island nation faced with serious border issues, most of Japan's inhabitants are unaware of the realities surrounding Japan's borders. Moreover, the “international” border studies community knows little about Russia and China because of linguistic barriers (most resources are not available in English) and political barriers (too delicate for study in the former communist borderlands).
What aspects of border studies currently should we focus on? Border studies originally focused on international law theory and geographic practice for the allocation, delimitation, demarcation and management of boundaries. As time passed, border studies advanced beyond the sovereign and territorial characteristics in a “physical” sense and deepened its scope to include “mental” (metaphysical) analysis of border and border-related representations. Perceptions of the border are also factored in. For example, where is the line separating “Europe/non-Europe” in the consciousness of the people in “common” Europe? What is “Asia”? Is an “Asian value” shared among Asian people? This kind of “mental” border studies should be integrated collaboratively with studies focusing on the more “visible” and “physical” issues of demarcation, migration and its management on/around the borderlands.
In a few words, sociology, cultural studies and the other humanities hold undiscovered potential and offer opportunities to explore new frontiers of border studies in collaboration with the “old” disciplines.
We would like you to join our project to reshape Japan's border studies and to develop an inter-disciplinary and multi-spherical research field.

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Borders play important roles in the so-called Westphalian system where sovereign-nation states divide global space and co-exist. Borders determine to what geographical extent the political power, economic regulations, language and social relations influence on the people and activities. Concurrently, when national borders are established, a modern capitalist market economy becomes the dominant economic system. The capitalist system was developed under the sovereign state system because each state needed to develop its own economy mainly through mercantilist policies. Thus, for a long time, borders functioned as a political, legal and economic barrier to the outside world.
However, globalization changed the concept of border. Increasing transaction of money, goods, migration and information seem to undermine the function of borders. However, this article argues that this massive cross-border transaction happens because of the separation of political, legal and economic spheres. Money, goods and people move because they seek preferential exchange rates, interest rates, wages and purchasing power. These differences stem from differences in political, legal and economic systems, and it can only be possible if borders divide a geographical sphere. In other words, “borderless” or cross-border activities happen only in a “borderful” world. This article addresses the case of European integration and scrutinizes the role and meaning of borders in Europe, where market integration is more advanced, but still there are various national systems have remained to control the market.
In this analysis of political economy of borders, it employs two different analytical concepts of borders. The first is the ontological border: the physical existence at the edge of a geographical territory. The second is the institutional border: legal and conceptual borders that do not necessarily require physical existence, such as cyber space control or extraterritorial taxation.
Although the role and meaning of border has changed due to globalization, it only happened at the ontological border, and the institutional border remains unchanged. Even in the EU, states maintain a certain level of control because they are responsible for internal affairs (particularly security and employment) and refuse outside intervention. There is a clear distinction between ontological and institutional borders: the integration of Europe certainly transformed the nature of borders from physical barriers to a geographical line, but EU member states maintain their legal and political jurisdiction to use institutional borders for protecting their society. These findings suggest that it is necessary to distinguish the concept of border by its functions, and researchers need to take into account changes in the roles and meanings of border.

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Making use of newly declassified materials, mainly from Russian archives, this paper examines four cases in which the shifting of borders was on Stalin's agenda, although the acquisition of territory was not necessarily the main goal. All of these proposed/threatened border adjustments took place during 1944–1946, as Stalin's tank armies and diplomacy, flush with victory, recaptured much of the irredenta lost at the end of the Tsarist period. Two cases presented below took place in Europe and the other two in Asia, with consequences extending the length of “Slavic Eurasia” from Germany to Japan.
In the first three cases, Stalin's main goals, hidden behind border changes linked to arguments regarding territory, nationality, population and history, were to maintain lines of communication into Central Europe and buffer Siberia's soft underbelly. The rival great powers, the US and Britain, ultimately sanctioned these changes at the expense of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and China to the benefit of Romania, Mongolia and the USSR. In all three negotiations, Stalin managed to position himself as an arbiter, sitting in judgment with Churchill between “Lublin” and “London” Poles; listening sympathetically to conflicting Central European claims in the second case; and “balancing” between Mongolian and Chinese demands in the third. Stalin basically achieved his goals in all three cases.
In the Iran/Turkey case, Stalin's veiled goals were a more fundamental threat to the emerging postwar order, aiming at oil concessions in Iran and a naval base at the Dardanelles. Contrary to his Marxist assumptions, competition for spheres of strategic and commercial interest among capitalists did not split Britain and the US. Instead they united to thwart him, first by implying support (Churchill regarding Turkey in 1944 and Ambassador Smith (US) regarding oil in March 1946) and then abandoning these offers.
What we learn from these cases is that Stalin's cookbook of border-making always made use of the same ingredients, roughly matching Stalin's complex calculation of modern power. Geopolitics was favored, but this might privilege the acquisition of military lines of communication, of strategic resources, or of population, instead of territory per se. Additionally, since border-making invariably involved borderlands with their nationality patchwork and passions, Stalin, with a long history of nationality work from his early days in the Bolshevik party, developed special initiatives along these lines. He proved particularly adept at mobilizing and supporting grassroots ethnic and political emotions, while supplying arms, money and encouragement to magnify their visibility. Local movements at the borders put pressure on his diplomatic interlocutors, while instigating nationalist fervor obscured the judgment of his enemies. Once they had served their purpose in Stalin's “Great Game,” local actors were liable to be discarded.

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This paper focuses on Ryukyuans and Koreans living in Taiwan after the end of the Second World War, and by drawing a comparison of disparity in treatment between these two ethnic groups, examines the Chinese Nationalist government's seizure of Taiwan.
The theme of this paper is “vicarious decolonization.” As a consequence, neither the ruling power (suzerain: Japan), nor the ruled (colony: Taiwan) were involved in the actual process of decolonization. For this reason the decolonization of Taiwan can be deemed to have been carried out vicariously.
In this paper, I begin by discussing the Chinese Nationalist government's post-war relations with the Ryukyu Islands and the Korean Peninsula. Then, against the background of the collapse of the Japanese colonial empire and the Chinese Nationalist government's seizure of power, I compare the repatriation and conscription of the Ryukyuans and Koreans living in Taiwan by the Chinese Nationalist government by focusing the discussion on the drawing of boundaries among ethnic groups in Taiwan. Finally, I discuss the role played by the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan's post-war decolonization.
Although the repatriation of the Ryukyuans and Koreans occurred slightly apart, there was little actual difference in the processes of repatriation. Soldiers and army personnel were repatriated at an early stage, followed by the repatriation of ordinary residents. The Chinese Nationalist government actively pursued the conscription of experts and engineers deemed useful for governing Taiwan.
However, the conscripted experts and engineers were all outsiders, and the concept of conscription was nothing more than a temporary measure by the Chinese Nationalist government to secure its rule of Taiwan. The system of conscription conducted by the Chinese Nationalist government was a miniature copy of the pre-existing structure formerly adopted by Japan. Although there were some Ryukyuans amongst the experts and engineers working in the administration and research organizations, most positions were occupied by those born on the Japanese mainland. The fact that no Koreans can be found on the list of conscripts implies that Koreans were not included as part of the administrative side within the governing structure of the former colony of Taiwan.
The Chinese Nationalist government's policy of repatriation and conscription of “Japanese people” reestablished borders among ethnic groups in Taiwan, and resulted in the vicarious decolonization and withdrawal of Taiwan from the Japanese colonial empire, while at the same time, through a continuation of existing occupation policies, was oriented toward maintaining the status quo.

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The purpose of this study is to explain how border issues affect the fundamental nature of Gulf countries. Two-thirds of the world's oil reserves are found in the Gulf region. Therefore, questions regarding borders take on extra significance. Not only are they important in their traditional role of demarcating nation-state boundaries, but their drawing directly affects a state's resources. Many previous studies of border issues in the Gulf have been based primarily from the viewpoints of history and international law. However, it is equally important to pay attention to how borders, via their role in allotting the size of a state's oil or gas reserves, affect a state's structure. This paper will focus on two examples from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
First, I provide a general review of the border issues and their historical background in Gulf countries. In addition, I examine the state structure of the UAE and how border issues and the federal system are related to resource allocation and foreign affairs. Second, I focus on border issues between the UAE and Iran over three islands (i.e., the Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu Musa). This issue, dating back from 1971, is arguably the biggest ongoing border issue in the Gulf, a blot on generally good political and economic Iranian-Emirati relations. Third, I discuss the border issue between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the 2000s. Originally settled by negotiation in 1974, the issue flared up again in 2005 when the UAE claimed a different border line (and therefore a different oil field) after Sheikh Zayed, the first president of the UAE, passed away.
While many border issues have been settled in the Gulf, the outstanding two cases of the UAE suggest that border issues remain a key issue. Today, political, economic, and regional integration is progressing apace in the Gulf, thus, these cohesive forces are, to some degree, papering over fissures created by border issues. In the case of the UAE, the federal government is only the negotiator on border issues by constitution; however, the emirate of Abu Dhabi has much more control over such matters whereas the smaller emirates, even if they are more directly affected, lack suitable diplomatic channels. Overall, these issues must be handled on an individual basis, as circumstances, reactions, goals, measures and countermeasures are often specific to each case, even if the underlying dynamic of border issues is mostly the same.

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The debate on Amazonia tends to center on the dilemma over development versus environment. This article analyzes the Amazonia development policies in the context of changing conceptions of borderland defense, influenced by geopolitical thinking, under the military and civilian regimes of Brazil before the establishment of the new protection system in 2002.
The military regimes of South America once embraced the expanded ideas of national security doctrine which included not only external security (territorial defense) but also internal security (maintenance of order) and economic development as tasks of the military. The Amazonia development plans of those governments put the emphasis on the economic dimension on one hand, and on the other hand aimed to relocate the poor from the city to the borderland (a land without a people for a people without a land) because poverty was regarded as a recruitment tool for guerillas.
The PCN (Northern Trench Project), elaborated during the transition period to a civilian regime, focused on security rather than on the economy, making much of the threats concerning Columbia's leftist guerillas, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and illegal mining of natural resources. The PCN was condemned by some for being an instrument of the military to maintain their influence on the civilian regime and for militarizing the borderland.
By the end of the Cold War, the idea of national security of the military had been de-ideologized (i.e., the abandonment of anti-communism or anti-revolutionism) and turned itself to the defense of territorial sovereignty. Triggered by the Rio Summit and the 500th anniversary of the New Continent, pressure from international public opinion demanding the protection of the environment and the indigenous peoples of Amazonia was regarded by the military as a precursor to the internationalization of the borderland.
To ensure the execution of the law (presence of the military) and the protection of the environment and Amazonia's indigenous peoples, the Amazonia Surveillance System/Amazonia Protection System (SIVAM/SIPAM) was introduced. This system, aiming to monitor and protect the region with high-tech instruments like monitoring satellites, a radar fence or patrols, came into operation in 2002 under Cardoso's administration and now the international co-use plan of this system is in progress.

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A number of victims of human rights violations and their groups have lately launched campaigns to seek reparations from multinational corporations by gaining access to foreign judicial systems. They have formed transnational advocacy networks with other non-governmental actors to mobilize international support for their campaigns. The advent of these transnational victims' movements reflects that the victims have become less insistent on seeking reparations from their own governments and that there is a growing tendency for the issues of reparation payments to be settled through interactions between private actors across national borders.
The purpose of this paper is to explore factors underlying the transnationalization of victims' movements by employing the concept of “political and legal opportunity structures.” The paper also examines how the “political and legal opportunity structures” has been affected by two developments ushered in by economic globalization, namely, structural changes in the international political economy, and the advent of new social movements opposing globalization. Finally, the paper presents a case study on the Khulumani Support Group, the largest organization of Apartheid victims in South Africa.
In the late 1990s, the South African government adopted neoliberal economic policies in order to cope with the mounting pressure of globalization. As the government gave priority to helping boost corporate activities and to encouraging inflows of foreign capital, it became reluctant to collect wealth taxes from domestic and multinational corporations to pay reparations to Apartheid victims. Within the country, this narrowed down the “political and legal opportunity structures” through which Apartheid victims could press for reparation payments.
Internationally, however, economic globalization spurred the emergence of new types of transnational social movements around the world dedicated to the cause of anti-globalization. Economic globalization has also raised international awareness about the legal responsibilities that multinational corporations must assume for their complicity in human rights violations in developing countries. Khulumani managed to team up with one of the new transnational movements and a group of U.S. lawyers active in filing lawsuits against corporations involved in human rights abuses. This transnational network gave Khulumani access to the U.S. judicial system. In other words, a new “political and legal opportunity structure” was opened at an international level, enabling Khulumani to seek reparations from multinational corporations. And Khulumani actually filed a case with a U.S. court against a group of multinational corporations.
The economic globalization process transformed the existing “political and legal opportunity structures” both at the domestic and at the international levels, and induced the Apartheid victims' movement to go multinational.

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Borders around the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (hereinafter referred to as North Korea) consist of the China-North Korea border, the Russia-North Korea border, the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) between North Korea and the Republic of Korea (hereinafter referred to as South Korea) on the land and the Northern Limit Line (NLL) between North Korea and South Korea on the sea.
The 1,400-kilometer China-North Korea border is North Korea's longest land border. There are three railway borders and sixteen road checkpoints along this border. Around 50% of North Korea's foreign trade passes through this border. It is the most important and most frequented route for North Koreans to have access to the outside world. Eight international flights and four international trains cross this border each week. Unofficial exchange of goods and information over this border is also common.
The 17-kilometer Russia-North Korea border is connected by railway only. The only border-crossing point is between Khasan, Russia and Tumangang, North Korea. A railway reconstruction project is underway to restore the railway between Khasan and Rajin Port, North Korea and to modernize Ra-jin Port's Pier 3.
The 248-kilometer MDL was determined by the cease-fire agreement signed on June 27, 1953, ending the Korean War. More than 30% of North Korea's foreign trade passes through this border and the NLL. There is an industrial complex in North Korea just across this border. Kaesong Industrial Region is 70 kilometers north of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. More than 500 South Korean engineers and managers stay in this region even after heightened tension over the NLL between both Koreas.
On both sides, the distinction between friend and foe has been impetuously put into practice domestically in the political life of both countries. Antipathy against the other side has become an instrument of governance on both sides. People in both Koreas have suffered from this mindset.
The establishment of a mutual agreement on how to locate North Korea in a new order in a post-Cold War era will have a significant impact on not only North Korea but also the surrounding countries, i.e. China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. Northeast Asia, as a sub-region, can be untied from the residua of the Cold War and can establish an international order based on sovereign equality for the first time since this region's modernization.

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The expansion and convergence of Japan's “borders” at first glance looks natural. However, if we shift it to the “periphery,” one can see some artificialness. Previous research discussed Japan's border and boundary, presenting novel views on Japan's past and present.
As an island nation, Japan has been beset with problems and conflicts. It is difficult to attribute these contradictions by using simple oppositional relations such as the ‘central’ and the ‘periphery.’ The formation of modern Japan as an island nation is a product of peripherally located islands integrated towards the central mainland. On the other hand, the fact that war, coercion, and competition among islands ended diversification cannot be overlooked.
The boundary formation of Japan's islands possibly went through four phases: “blur,” a bound area without a defined range but with a spread; “zone,” a boundary with a recognized width; “dashed line,” a confirmed but unofficial line demarcating sphere of influence); and “solid line,” a legally defined border.
This change may have been affected by the expansion of the power sphere and the island groups being separated by the straits. However, ancient Japan, or Wa, could not have had territorial ambition towards the Asian continent. On the contrary, Wa acquired its authority from the Chinese and was on its way to building a unified legal state. The straits were a buffer zone between ancient Japan and China and Korea.
Soon, Japan's sphere of power expanded to distant islands by developing an occupational foundation. In the modern era, to the west and to the south, Japan expanded to the Korean peninsula and the inlands of the Asian continent, and eventually expanded to the Inner and the Outer South Seas. In those areas, the use of armed forces to wage war assumed a major role in the formation of the “border.” To the north, despite Japan's peaceful acquisition of Chishima, the history of border transformation, after the complete occupation of Sakhalin following the Russo-Japanese War, has been irrevocably tied to war.
This article reconsiders the meaning of the Japan's ‘border’ and the processes that lead from its expansion to its reduction following World War II. This will be done by highlighting the issues and problems relating to border islands. The author pays particular attention to islands where turbulent changes lead to confusion in the society, to decline, and to being ‘peripheralized.’ Examining how these border islands managed hardships will prove indispensable for viewing and establishing policies on Japan's future border islands.
There have been arguments against studying the meaning of “boundaries” in the context of Japanese history, but this article challenges the present conditions.

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The 1970s was an era of crisis and internationalization for Japan-U.S. relations. Both governments started to settle their bilateral conflicts for their policy cooperation which was required in the changing international environment at that time. To clarify the character of this change, this paper examines the bilateral negotiation of Tokai reprocessing plant held in 1977.
In the late 1970s, the U.S. government attempted to rebuild international nuclear nonproliferation system by limiting peaceful nuclear power development such as spent nuclear fuel reprocessing technology. Carter administration took the office in 1977 and called its allies to stop reprocessing. However, Carter's new policy was highly problematic since reprocessing was a key technology in energy policies of other developed countries such as Japan. As Tokai reprocessing plant was planned to begin operation in 1977 and an approval from Washington was required for its operation, they need a settlement.
At the first bilateral talk in April, Washington opposed firmly to the operation. On the other hand, international opposition grew rapidly against the new U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy. Western European countries were especially sensitive to it since it could ban further export of nuclear-related technology to developing countries.
Washington started to consider a compromise since Tokyo was the only close ally showing its approval to a framework of new nonproliferation policy. At the second meeting, the United States offered a proposal to alter Tokai plant more resistant to nuclear proliferation by technical modification. Although Japanese government opposed to the modification, they agreed to do a research about possible technical alternatives at Tokai Mura, Japan. As a result of this joint research and other investigations, however, Washington gave up all the technical solutions. Finally, at the third meeting at the end of August, Carter decided to permit the operation without any modification in return of Tokyo's agreement to reconsider reprocessing and suspend large scale Plutonium use for the moment.
The above examination shows two aspects of the Japan-U.S. relations in the1970s. One is that Tokyo had an option to refine the U.S. foreign policy and participate in international politics by supporting Washington. In contrast to European countries that stopped the U.S. nonproliferation policy by refusing to cooperate, Japan did the same thing by aligning with the United States.
The other is decreased importance of the bilateral relationship itself for the U.S. government, while Japan's substantive contribution to the U.S. foreign policy became a must to the United States. In sum, although both countries agreed to coordinate their policy objectives in the 1970s, this success became a basis of further bilateral conflicts on the way of implementing those goals.

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