As the Indo-Naga peace process nears its finality, the longstanding competing territorial and identity claims between Nagas and Kukis in India’s northeastern state of Manipur remain unabated, with no earnest efforts to reconcile the two groups. The Kukis have a foreboding that the future Naga Peace Accord will be imposed on them as a fait accompli. Given the high stakes on both sides, New Delhi’s quest for durable peace in the region cannot afford to focus only on the Nagas—as though the concerns of the already beleaguered Kukis, or any other stakeholder, are dispensable at the altar of the Naga peace talks. Instead, New Delhi must display willingness, sensitivity, and finesse to consider how both groups’ legitimate concerns could be assuaged and reconciled.

Territorial disputes are complicated by the long-term vicious cycle of “rival” identities constructed by continuous interactions. The purpose of this study is to analyze how Japan’s commitments to certain types of collective identities affect bilateral relations with Russia, using two case studies that analyze how Russian political elites perceive Japan’s position on sensitive issues of international politics. By doing so, the study argues that Japan’s commitments to “Western” collective discourses in the international arena over the past decade have largely undermined relations with Russia, reducing the likelihood of significant progress on critical issues.

This article looks into how media representations of North Korean defectors reproduce the images of North Korean defectors, while paying particular attention to the contrasting voices of North Korean defectors which reflect self-presentation. The media-perpetuated image of North Korean defectors as displaced victims whose memories are mostly clustered around the oppressive regime fails to grasp the intersection of aspiration, determination, and agency of North Korean defectors. The self-presentation of North Korean defectors reveals that they are eager to be in charge of constructing and controlling their own images, which goes beyond hitherto nationalized, gendered, and ethnicized identities. Self-presentation, at the same time, is a product of strategic choices conditioned by social discourse and media representation.

The “rise of China,” especially within U.S. academic and policy circles, has been increasingly analyzed through a geopolitical lens. Yet geopolitics alone cannot account for the complex political mobilization of historical memory and how it frames any discussion of peace and cooperation in the region. Drawing on the concept of geobody, or how space and people are connected in a biopolitical manner, this article examines how the territorial disputes in the South China Sea are remaking the identity and interests of China. It develops an alternative theoretical understanding of China’s rise that focuses on identity (or geobody) politics, and explores the risks involved in a further escalation of tensions for peace and cooperation in the area, and in East Asia more generally.