‘East is East, and West is West’: a survey of EU images in Japan’s public discourses

Article is part of a special issue ‘Beyond self-perception: the others’ view of the European Union’.

Abstract:

The world’s leading economy, the EU, is emerging as an influential political power on the world stage. In particular, the EU’s steady and profitable trade relations with Asia are being balanced increasingly with the growing political involvement of the EU in Asia. In this context, the EU’s relations with the most powerful players in the Asian region (Japan specifically) is of a paramount interest to the political practitioners and scholars. This paper aims to provide a systematic account for the perceptions and images of the EU existing in Japan’s public discourses of news media, national policy- and decision-makers, the business community and civil society. The reputable Japanese news media are found to portray the EU using neutral-to-positive assessments depicting it as a similarly thinking international partner, an important economic counterpart and a model to be critically considered for replication. Yet, the study argues a split in perceptions of the EU between Japan’s political and business elites on the one hand, and the general public and civil society sector on the other, with the EU consistently ‘slipping off the radars’ of the latter.