Japan, The Nation-State
Japan, the Nation-State Japan, an island nation with a history if two thousand years, was one of the first non-European countries to win recognation as a modern nation-state. The example of Japan is particularly interesting because almost all its people have the same history, racial characteristics, and way of life. In Japan people can truly talk about their sate simply as a nation, for the state is constituted by one national group. Edwin O. Reischauer, former head of the United States Embassy in Japan, has written, “Japan constitutes what may be the world’s most perfect nation-state: a clear-cut geographic unit containing almost all of the people of distinctive culture and languange and virtually no one else.” All of the five characteristics ofe the modern state are present in Japan. The first is territory. The Japanese state is located on a group of island. Japan’s territory is easy to define, and its boundaries are easy to show on maps. It has always be