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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Using a comparative, interdisciplinary approach, Nationalism in Asia analyzes currents of nationalism in five contemporary Asian societies: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea.
- Explores the ways in which nationalism is expressed, embraced, challenged, and resisted in contemporary China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea using a comparative, interdisciplinary approach
- Provides an important trans-national and trans-regional analysis by looking at five countries that span Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia
- Features comparative analysis of identity politics, democracy, economic policy, nation branding, sports, shared trauma, memory and culture wars, territorial disputes, national security and minorities
- Offers an accessible, thematic narrative written for non-specialists, including a detailed and up-to-date bibliography
- Gives readers an in-depth understanding of the ramifications of nationalism in these countries for the future of Asia
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Maps
Introduction
Nationalism
Asian Five
Framework
21st-Century Geopolitical Context
Peaceful Prospects?
Part I: National Identity
1 The Idea of Nation
Forgetting
Legacies
2 Contemporary Culture Wars and National Identity
Japan
China
Incredible India?
Indonesia
South Korea
3 Nation Branding Confronts Troubling Realities
Pollution
Payola
Press
Poverty
Patriarchy
Part II: Political Economy and Spectacle
4 Economic Nationalism
Japan
South Korea
Indonesia
India
China
Crisis and Economic Nationalism
Repercussions of the Lehman Shock
5 Democracy and Nationalism
Democracy and Asian Values
Which Asian Values?
Democratization
Odd State Out
Democratization and Nationalism
One-Party Rule
6 Sports Nationalism
Cricket
World Baseball Classic
East Asian Olympics
Olympic Redemption and Nation Branding
World Cup 2002
Commonwealth Games 2010
Part III: Shackles of the Past
7 Chosen and Unchosen Traumas
China
India
Japan
South Korea
Indonesia
8 Museums and Memorials
India
Indonesia
China
Japan
South Korea
9 Textbook Nationalism and Memory Wars
Hindu Nationalism and Textbooks
Indonesia’s Discordant Continuities
Japan’s Textbook Battles
Textbooks and Reconciliation?
Memory Wars
Missed Opportunity?
Politicizing the Past, Imperiling the Future
Vanishing Comfort Women
Conclusion
Part IV: Flashpoints and Fringes
10 Nationalism and Territorial Disputes
East Asia
Russo-Japanese Dissensus
Sino-Japanese Brinksmanship: The Senkaku/Diaoyu Dispute
Distractions and Agendas
Dokdo/Takeshima: Islands of Eternal Dispute
Kashmir
Othering the Muslim Menace
India’s Tibet?
East Timor
11 Nationalism and the Fringes
China’s Fringes
Indian Muslims
Insurgent India
Indonesia
Japan
Select Bibliographical Guide to Nationalisms in Asia
I Introduction and National Identity
II Political Economy and Spectacle
III Shackles of the Past
IV Flashpoints and Fringes
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Maps
1 Asia
2 Northeast Asia
3 China
4 Southeast Asia
5 South China Sea: Disputed Claims
6 India
7 Map of Kashmir showing disputed regions
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 The Hiroshima Dome Attests to the Folly of Nationalism.
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Tokyo’s Controversial Yasukuni Shrine Honoring War Dead.
Figure 2.2 The Red Fort Is a Mughal-Era Architectural Gem Where Indian Leaders Celebrate Independence Day.
Figure 2.3 National Monument Known as Monas in Central Jakarta Commemorating Indonesian Struggle for Independence.
Figure 2.4 Comfort Woman Statue across from Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Trans-Pacific Partnership Stokes Anxieties in Japan.
Figure 4.2 Indian Activists Condemn Rich Countries’ Fleecing of the Poor to Maintain Affluent Lifestyles.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Indian Activists Seek to End Corruption because It Undermines Democracy Throughout Asia.
Figure 5.2 Ink Mark Indicates Voter Has Voted in India.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1 Nanjing Massacre Museum Provides Guidance to Visitors.
Figure 7.2 Golden Temple, Sikh Holy Site Attacked by Indian Security Forces in 1984.
Figure 7.3 Wartime Soldiers from South and North Korea Embrace Above the Gap That Still Separates the Peninsula.
Figure 7.4 Bas Relief Depicting Indonesian Horrors of 1965 Pancasila Sakti Monument.
Chapter 08
Figure 8.1 Memorial to Military Officers Whose Murder in 1965 Sparked Widespread Massacres.
Figure 8.2 Nanjing Massacre Victim.
Figure 8.3 China Asserts That the Japanese Massacred 300,000 Chinese.
Figure 8.4 The Handprint Plaza Is Emblazoned with Vermilion Handprints of Chinese Veterans from the 1937–1945 Sino-Japanese Conflict.
Figure 8.5 Commemorating the 20,000 Koreans Who Died in the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima.
Figure 8.6 Seodaemun Prison Museum Attests to Horrors of Japanese Colonial Rule.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Museum Visitors Can Have Their Photo Taken with Dokdo as Backdrop.
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Nationalism in Asia
A History Since 1945
Jeff Kingston
This edition first published 2017© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Jeff Kingston / It is handprints of veterans of the Sino-Japanese war 1937–45 at the Jinchuan Museum near Chengdu, China.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Temple University Japan’s Dean Bruce Stronach, Associate Dean Alistair Howard, and Mariko Nagai, Director of Research, for their support of my research, fieldwork and writing, and Jonathan Wu, Assistant Dean for Academic Programs, for his deft scheduling of my teaching duties. I also want to thank Robert Dujarric, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, who recruits excellent research assistant interns. I am especially grateful to Chaninart Chunaharakchote, Sora Yang and Kimmin Jung for their extensive research assistance and to Eriko Kawaguchi and Mai Mitsui who have provided invaluable administrative support. Tom Boardman, our librarian, has been proactively helpful in tracking down material and alerting me to relevant publications.
I am grateful to the editorial crew at Wiley-Blackwell, especially Tessa Harvey for commissioning this book, and special thanks to Peter Coveney for picking up the baton when she retired and graciously shepherding the manuscript through the entire process before retiring. Kudos also to Brian Stone and Jayne Fargnoli for bringing the book out, Boston-based Katie DiFolco in marketing, UK-based Sarah Pearsall for copyediting and to the Spi Global production crew in India, making this a globe-spanning effort. I also want to thank anonymous reviewers and numerous colleagues who have shared their insights, offered suggestions and helped improve the final product. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Machiko for her unstinting support, and her father, Eichiro Osawa, who died at age 94 in early 2015 as this project was nearing completion. I trust he is singing with the angels on the sunny side of the street where he always seemed to be, perhaps walking with Rhubarb, our shibainu whose exuberance over 15 years (1999–2014) never failed to lift my spirits.
Maps
1 Asia
2 Northeast Asia
3 China
4 Southeast Asia
5 South China Sea: Disputed Claims
6 India
7 Map of Kashmir showing disputed regions
Introduction
If World War III ever breaks out, its origins will not lie in the Middle East, South Asia or Eastern Europe. It is in East Asia—where the strategic interests of China, the United States, and their respective partners intersect, that the geopolitical stakes, diplomatic tensions, and potential for a global explosion are highest.
Gareth Evans, former foreign minister of Australia, Japan Times (January 14, 2015)
Gareth Evans’ warning about East Asia being the most likely site for a global conflagration is reason enough to probe deeper into the sources of regional tensions that are elucidated in the following pages. One need not be an alarmist or an economist to appreciate the increasing global importance of Asia. To understand the implications of the global geopolitical shift back to Asia after a two-century hiatus, it is critically important to examine the shared regional history and to appreciate how the end of colonial domination brought on by World War II, and legacies of that era, has shaped nationalistic attitudes. It is essential not to underestimate the power of the ghosts of the past to haunt 21st-century Asia and how they animate contemporary nationalism and influence national identity. Explaining this dynamic is one of the main goals of this book.
Nationalism
Nationalism is ever in search of an enemy. As such it is an abiding concern because it raises the risks of conflict, not just between nations, but also within nations. Nationalism is a modern ideology that draws on history, religion, beliefs, customs and traditions to establish a commonality and intense bonds of group solidarity that serve the purposes of the nation state (Smith 1995). Precisely because nationalism is so useful to the state, it involves myth-making, selective memories and dubious interpretations to construct the basis of a common identity and shared past that arouses and inspires. It involves forgetting that which divides or is inconvenient so that the Idea of nation can arouse “the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future” (Renan 1882).
Nationalism is so useful because it justifies state policies, endorses leaders’ aspirations and confers legitimacy on those who invoke it. By helping to construct unity based on shared identity, nationalism is crucial to establishing a sense of nation, an imagined community of affinity, belonging and communion that highlights distinctions between those who are part of the group and those who are not (Anderson 2006). Thus nationalism involves an intense “othering,” drawing physical and psychological borders that exclude in ways that intensify a sense of belonging and solidarity among those who are included. Tensions that arise from nationalism can thus target other nations or those who reside within the national boundaries who are not part of the mainstream and are thus excluded or marginalized. The populist passions aroused, however, can careen out of state control, leading to unintended consequences, spreading like wildfire at the grassroots. Since the affairs of state and demands of international diplomacy often require compromises or concessions, nationalism can thus prove inconvenient and discrediting to those in power. Leaders often find that unleashing the genie of nationalism is easier than getting it back into the bottle.
There is also the risk of stoking what Ramachandra Guha (2012) calls “little nationalisms.” This refers to the identity politics of groups residing within the national territory that feel excluded, mistreated, overlooked or overwhelmed by the mainstream nationalism. These threats or slights to minority identity can serve as the basis of autonomy or secessionist movements by political and diplomatic means, or in some cases insurgency, terrorism or other weapons of the weak. Like mainstream nationalisms, little nationalisms construct a common identity and shared history that is deployed to forge unity and advance agendas in their territory or community within the larger nation. To the extent that little nationalisms subvert the legitimacy of the prevailing mainstream nationalism, or resort to violence, they provoke a backlash because such subversion is an assault on the crucial idea of unity that is the foundation of the nation. This sabotage and treachery begets state-sponsored violence that inflames little nationalisms, strengthening solidarity in support of challenging the state and thereby igniting a cycle of violence. Guha also warns about the ugliness of little nationalisms, cautioning against glorifying or romanticizing what can deteriorate into sectarian thuggery and random violence in response to state repression.
There is a vast literature that specifies, complicates and interrogates theories of nationalism, but for our purposes, the succinct summary above can serve as a working definition/understanding that suffices for the narrative history that follows. This book focuses on how nationalism is embraced, expressed, contested, asserted and manipulated and how the confluence of these currents shapes national identity and destiny. In doing so, we explore the shackles of the past and how they influence contemporary attitudes and behavior.
Asian Five
Here the focus is on China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea, five critically important nations in Asia that will play a key role in how the world’s future plays out. Together they account for nearly 3 billion people, about 40% of the world’s population, and account for about 25% of global GDP, with each ranking in the top 16 world economies. Four of the countries are in the top 10 for defense spending: China #2, Japan #8, India #9 and South Korea #10; and China and India are nuclear powers. China spends more on defense, $144 billion in 2014, than the other four focus nations combined. The ongoing modernization of the armed forces in each nation is increasing military capabilities across the region, one that is beset by various territorial disputes and lingering animosities related to previous conflicts and unresolved historical grievances. As we discuss throughout the book, there is no shortage of flashpoints in the region; hence a need to understand the basis and context for these disputes. India is the hegemon of South Asia; Indonesia dominates Southeast Asia; while China, Japan and South Korea are navigating the uncharted waters of a massive shift in geopolitical power in East Asia favoring Beijing at the expense of Tokyo, a process influenced significantly by the US alliances with Japan and South Korea. Indonesia, India, China and Japan also face significant internal tensions that arise from clashes of culture, religion or ethnicity within national borders and in some cases a backlash against the encroachment of mainstream nationalism on minority communities and their sense of threatened identity.
Framework
The target audience is university students and global citizens curious about understanding Asia in the 21st century. There is no attempt to add to the rich theoretical literature on nationalism as this project addresses the need for a narrative history and thematic analysis of nationalism in Asia. Rather than a series of nation-specific chapters, here the emphasis is on cross-national comparison of selected topics that illustrate the impact of nationalism in Asia since World War II and what this portends. In order to do so, nationalism is contextualized so that readers can understand how it fits into the wider mosaic of each nation’s history. It is evident that past traumas cast a long shadow in 21st-century Asia that animates and sways identity politics relevant to comprehending nationalist sentiments and regional dynamics. The clinging to grievances, the selective amnesia and jingoistic swaggering are the basis of battles within and between nations on diverse battlefields ranging from textbooks and museums to territorial flashpoints.
The book is organized as follows. In the first section—National Identity—we explore the Idea of nation in each of the five nations that are the focus of this book: China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. Chapter 1 examines what these respective Ideas are and the leaders who played decisive roles in shaping their nations. Chapter 2 focuses on the legacies they bestowed and how these have been contested in recent decades as the Idea of nation has evolved. Chapter 3 focuses on national identity as represented in nation branding and soft power, while probing the gap between desired image and reality. The second section—Political Economy and Spectacle—shifts to examining nationalism and national identity in terms of economic policies (Chapter 4), democracy (Chapter 5) and sports (Chapter 6). This section imparts important context for understanding these societies, their varying trajectories and some key touchstones of national identity. Section III—Shackles of the Past—turns to the past and why it is relevant to understanding the present. Chapter 7 is about some of the key traumas that have shaped national identity and animate post-World War II nationalism. Chapter 8 examines museums as sites of collective memory and recrimination that provide insights on how the past is conveyed and wielded with an eye to contemporary purposes. Chapter 9 further develops this theme in focusing on textbooks. The fourth section—Flashpoints and Fringes—elucidates the implications of nationalism, internationally and domestically. Chapter 10 focuses on the origins and consequences of territorial disputes between nations, while Chapter 11 sketches some of the consequences of mainstream nationalism for domestic minorities and the backlash of ‘little nationalisms” that contest their marginalization.
This overview of a wide range of themes spanning five nations introduces readers to the vast subject of nationalism in contemporary Asia, with the aim of stimulating curiosity in delving deeper into areas of specific interest. In order to assist in further research there is a subject-organized bibliography pointing readers to some key articles and books.
21st-Century Geopolitical Context
China’s growing assertiveness in challenging the regional status quo and recalibrating it to serve Beijing’s interests has sparked an arc of anxiety that stretches from Tokyo, Seoul, Hanoi and Manila to Sydney, Jakarta, Naypyidaw and New Delhi. Is this shared concern propelling a US-led containment policy in the region, targeting China? Beijing is convinced this is the case, pointing to the so-called Obama Pivot to Asia, involving a planned shift of US military assets that has yet to materialize and enhanced security cooperation with regional partners where many of the dominant 21st-century issues will be decided. Some analysts wonder if China’s rise can be managed peacefully, while others counter that its track record is unthreatening and that its aspirations are about regaining the central role in regional affairs it exercised until the advent of western imperialism in the 19th century. And, isn’t China acting just like other major powers? Problematically the US and Chinese governments have grown accustomed to getting their way, raising questions about whether the two dominant powers in Asia can continue to both compete and cooperate. Probably they can, but what if they can’t?
India, the other Asian nation with a billion-plus population and impressive economic growth in recent years, is leveraging its position to maximum advantage, wooed by the US, Japan and Australia to offset China’s growing regional power, while also seeking improved relations with Beijing for economic benefit and strategic reassurance on their shared border. India is also threatened by Beijing’s “string of pearls” strategy of gaining access to ports in the Indian Ocean in order to project its growing naval power. While China promotes this as a maritime Silk Road, New Delhi sees an encircling initiative driven more by military considerations than commercial interests. Aside from a border war with China in 1962, India has fought four wars with Pakistan, three of them related to the disputed territory of Kashmir. Kashmir remains a volatile flashpoint, while Pakistani support for terrorist raids in India heightens the risk of retribution and the potential for skirmishing to escalate. Cozier relations between Beijing and Islamabad are evident in the Chinese-bankrolled and -built Gwadar deep-water port project in western Pakistan on the Arabian Sea, situated near the mouth of the Persian Gulf where much of China’s imported oil and gas transits. This is a key link in China’s string of pearls. India is also concerned about Beijing’s increased support for weapons sales and nuclear energy projects in Pakistan, its arch-enemy.
Similar to India’s nuclear standoff with Pakistan, Seoul faces an existential crisis across its border with nuclear-armed North Korea, where the imperatives of regime survival complicate hopes for reunification of the entire peninsula. But, one asks, on whose terms? China and the US have a common strategic interest in managing a soft-landing for the North Korean regime, but divergent views on how to proceed that are echoed in their respective client states. South Korea’s growing economic dependence on China calls for a hedging strategy, but even if it is sensible to forge closer ties with Japan and thereby enhance the trilateral security alliance involving Washington, bitter enmities from the Japanese colonial era still resonate loudly in contemporary public discourse. Indeed, Beijing and Seoul have developed solidarity over their shared history with Japan and perceptions that Tokyo is again trying to whitewash this past. Indonesia, aside from squabbles with Australia, faces a relatively benign external environment.
There is a basis for cautious optimism that Gareth Evans’ warning about East Asia, while valid, is an unlikely outcome. Of course that is what European diplomats, the so-called “sleepwalkers,” were saying on the eve of WWI when it was assumed that strong economic ties between Germany and Great Britain made war unthinkable until the nightmare erupted (Clark 2013). Yet again the stakes are high and the losses would be incalculable, so the risk of regional or global conflagration seems very remote, or so we hope. Layered and extensive economic interdependence within Asia and between Asian nations and the US and Europe is a stabilizing factor that provides ballast in stormy seas. While the risk of conflicts within the region cannot be dismissed given the numerous flashpoints and tensions detailed in the following pages, the recent record on inter-state conflict is encouraging.
Peaceful Prospects?
Much of Asia has enjoyed a prolonged spell of peace since the late 1970s. To clarify, the East Asian peace refers to the lack of major violent conflicts between states over the past four decades. Two exceptions to this peace are the brief Indo-Pakistan war in 1999, a relatively small-scale conflict, and China’s ill-fated 1979 incursion into Vietnam, also brief, but with heavy losses on both sides. Beijing learned the hard way what Washington already knew about Vietnamese tenacity.
While there are many competing theories about why the East Asian peace has prevailed and differing assessments about whether it will persist, there has been a significant degree of state violence directed within national borders (Kivimäki 2011; Weissmann 2012; Goldsmith 2014). Civil unrest, ethnic and sectarian conflict and secessionist insurgencies serve as a sobering counterpoint to the regional peace, and here it is argued that nationalism is a salient factor in domestic turmoil. Nationalism is one of many factors that have sustained antipathies, sabotaged reconciliation, limited governments’ room for maneuver and judicious compromise, while amplifying anxieties that undermine trust and cooperation between fellow citizens, accentuating divides between communities. No country knows the costs more than Myanmar (formerly Burma) where multiple ethnic insurgencies have flared since the middle of the 20th century. The military justifies its outsized role in Myanmar in terms of preserving the unity of the nation, crushing those who seek independence or greater autonomy. Similar instances of endemic violence are evident in India and Indonesia, while China has also had to cope with restive frontiers.
How nationalism will influence Asia’s future is a subject of considerable speculation. Predicting the future is not featured prominently here, but for what it is worth, it seems there are good reasons to expect that the Asian peace will persist and that cooler heads will prevail despite hotheaded nationalism. This doesn’t mean everyone should assume complacently that there is nothing to worry about. Formal and informal mechanisms designed to help manage conflicts and prevent escalation provide a basis for cautious optimism that conflict will not engulf the region. But warnings by Evans and others serve as stark reminders that preserving the peace requires constant attention aimed at reducing risk factors, and that neglect to do so may prove destabilizing.
Nationalism is not one of the most urgent risks to regional peace, but it is a salient factor that complicates the task of conflict prevention and managing tensions. Strategic rivalry, and the inherent risks of a rising China challenging a status quo promoted and protected by the US, is the main threat to regional peace. History does not hold many inspiring examples of status quo powers ceding enough to accommodate the aspirations of a rising power or the rising power settling for much less than it expects. The most recent example in Asia involves Japan and its ill-fated efforts to join and modify the status quo in its favor from 1895 to 1945. Rebuffed by the western powers, feeling bottled up and treated with racist condescension, Japan embarked on war to achieve its aims. This ended in tragedy for Japan and the region, a nightmare that still resonates loudly even now. Inadvertently, however, Japan did hasten decolonization and unshackle the nationalisms that define the region and its tensions which we discuss in the following chapters. Although there are some striking parallels between 21st-century China and Imperial Japan, the differences are profound, as is the international system, cautioning against exaggerating the threat. Clearly, China’s foreign policy has become more assertive, ratcheting up tensions with its extravagant maritime territorial claims, but it has also demonstrated restraint in pursuing its agenda, pushing forward and falling back in what amounts to a long diplomatic game in a situation where time appears to be on its side.
Cautious optimism on inter-state conflict in Asia is tempered by the relative fragility of peace between Pakistan and India and risks on the Korean Peninsula. Kashmir remains a potent source of tensions that could boil over again, and, given the nuclear option, a horrific scenario to contemplate. The tense standoff between the two Koreas could also spiral out of control, but China and the US have much at stake in averting such a scenario. Both nations also have much at stake in the East China Sea and South China Sea, a fraught situation of overlapping claims by China and its neighbors. Diplomatic and military maneuvering over these rival claims is driven and constrained by the Sino-US strategic rivalry and their respective interests. For the US, the stakes are arguably higher in the East China Sea because that involves Tokyo’s worries that its security alliance with Washington might prove unreliable, unwilling to risk its extensive interests in China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu, as the disputed rocky islets are named by Tokyo and Beijing respectively. Meanwhile, China is constructing a military base closer to where any action might take place in this evolving flashpoint.
The risks of nationalism are arguably greater domestically than internationally. As noted above, Asia has enjoyed four decades of almost uninterrupted peace between nations, but the region has been beset by extensive internal conflict. Mainstream nationalism “others” minority groups inside the national borders, making them a target of discrimination, marginalization and sometimes violence, thereby alienating these minorities and sparking tensions that can escalate into communal clashes and insurgency. Whether targeting ethnic, religious or linguistic differences, or a combination thereof, the tendency of the state to acquiesce to or indeed actively promote mainstream jingoism and communal politics is destabilizing. Communities that are marginalized, find ambitions thwarted, feel they are treated unfairly or endure the indignities of discrimination have good reasons not to buy into the mainstream Idea of nation and are open to alternatives. As we discuss in subsequent chapters, identity politics, chauvinism and resource exploitation at the expense of minorities in China, India and Indonesia have provoked rioting, bloodshed and acts of terrorism. These problems will persist. In the far more ethnically homogeneous Japan, the situation is quite different, but identity politics among Okinawans has been mobilized against the extensive presence of the US military bases on their islands, and resentment towards Tokyo for foisting this on them. A recrudescent nationalism among Japan’s conservative political elite generates other risks, notably hate speech targeting the large ethnic Korean minority in Japan, and orchestrated attacks on liberals and liberal institutions. These assaults spill over into international relations because the goal is to retract or dilute official Japanese admission of wrongdoing in the wartime and colonial eras and promote a valorizing and vindicating history that is unacceptable to those that suffered most from Japanese imperialism—Chinese and Koreans. In trying to regain national dignity, Japanese conservatives are trampling on that of Japan’s past victims and in doing so tarnishing their own while roiling regional relations.
Nationalism has a checkered reputation for good reasons. George Orwell famously commented that it is “the worst enemy of peace.” Nationalism feeds on grievance and unifies by recalling the shared struggle of overcoming past traumas. It is blinding and repressive, feeds on insecurities and appeals to primordial instincts. Problematically it also serves as the ideological basis for the modern state and thus shapes its agenda.
India’s Nobel Literature laureate Rabindranath Tagore was also deeply wary of nationalism; thus it is ironic that a poem he wrote in 1911 and set to music in 1919 was adopted as the Indian national anthem in 1950, after his death. He wrote:
Nationalism is a great menace. It is many countries packed in one geographical receptacle. They create huge eddies with their passions, and they feel dizzily inebriated with the mere velocity of their whirling movement, taking that to be freedom. (Tagore 1917, 144)
In a similar vein, Haruki Murakami (2012), a Japanese author with a 21st-century global cult following, also deplores nationalism writing:
It’s like cheap alcohol. It gets you drunk after only a few shots and makes you hysterical. It makes you speak loudly and act rudely … but after your drunken rampage you are left with nothing but an awful headache the next morning.
In his view, territorial disputes are an inescapable consequence of dividing humanity into countries with national borders. When such disputes are refracted through “nationalist sentiment,” they become dangerous situations with no exit. As such, “We must be careful about politicians and polemicists who lavish us with this cheap alcohol and allow things to get out of control” (Murakami 2012).
Now let’s turn to the Idea of nation and those who have distilled this powerful brew and bequeathed not only hangovers, but also shaped national identities on the anvil of history in the wake of World War II.
Part INational Identity
1The Idea of Nation
Sketching the Idea of a nation is an audacious undertaking, particularly in Asia’s plural and complex societies that are endowed with a rich ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic diversity, where ideas are in competition and evolving, in a region that has experienced profound changes since 1945. Yet in broad brushes it is useful to delineate the shared conceptual framework that embodies a sense of national identity and speaks to the abiding question of who we are. Concepts of nation pre-date our post-1945 timeframe, but without straying too far into the distant past it is useful to examine the process of agitation and consolidation and how nation states in Asia came to be. Who projected what onto the broad canvas of nation and to what extent have their ideas held or been reevaluated and with what consequences?
I am inspired by Sunil Khilnani’s, The Idea of India (1997), a tour de force that captures India’s idea of itself and asserts that there is a broad and resilient consensus about what that idea is. Perhaps, but it does seem that the cultural wars we discuss later in this chapter and the next indicate that this broad acceptance is challenged in India, just as in all our focus nations where people are contesting, shaping and seeking 21st-century identities. With the exception of China where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Mao Zedong was monolithic in power and scope, crushing dissent and any forces deemed counter-revolutionary, the nations have endured political competition and bouts of authoritarian rule, contexts in which longstanding fault lines have been a recurring source of tension and contestation. Defining a nation always raises questions about who is in and who is not, based on various criteria such as ethnicity, language, religion and customs that marginalize, divide and antagonize in ways that arouse nationalist sentiments.
The first step involves a strong leader—for better or worse. In our five countries, five leaders put their stamp on the idea of nation that emerged from the aftermath of war and revolution. Mao Zedong in China, Jawaharlal Nehru in India, Sukarno in Indonesia, Park Chung-hee in South Korea and, with some caveats, Shigeru Yoshida in Japan, were the architects of their post-1945 nations.
Secondly, in each of our nations a strong central state was key to the Idea of nation even if not always realized. Mao, Nehru and Sukarno had been leaders in their nation’s struggle for independence and were keenly aware of the need to consolidate their power, and sought unquestioned authority to tackle the massive socio-economic problems they faced in trying to construct a unified nation with a strong and stable government. In addressing the pressing needs of the people, the legacies of colonialism in India and Indonesia, and imperial domination of China, contributed little to economic development or modernization. Japan already had a strong central state and the indirect nature of the US Occupation meant that it relied heavily on that state to remake Japan. This reliance reinforced the power of Tokyo’s central bureaucracy. South Korea had the legacy of Japanese colonial rule and a relatively well-developed administrative structure and infrastructure to build on, although these legacies remain controversial among Koreans given the reluctance to credit Japan with any positive influences.
Thirdly, the nationalist resentments aroused by imperial humiliation powerfully shaped the Idea of nation. Japan is an outlier in this group because Japan was not colonized or subjugated by any imperial power and had already established a constitutional monarchy with a functioning democracy and representative government prior to 1945. It does share, however, the sense of humiliation and rancor stemming from having to submit to imperial domination. The unequal treaties imposed in the mid-19th century motivated Meiji-era (1868–1912) modernization efforts aimed at creating conditions that would enable Japan to revise the treaties by catching up with the West. The leaders who plunged Japan into war from the 1930s deeply resented entrenched western racism, a sentiment shared by nationalist leaders throughout Asia. Following defeat, the US Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952 was an intense period of reinventing Japan directed by an outside power, while China, India and Indonesia sought their own way forward from the debilitating consequences of imperialism. South Korea, like China, was baptized by a horrific civil war (1950–1953) and faced similar challenges to overcome the devastation. Unlike mainland China, the Korean Peninsula remained divided after its civil war, a division that persists until now. Like Japan, South Korea has been a client state of the US during and since the Cold War (1947–1989), and Seoul was also heavily dependent on, and influenced by, Washington in its formative years. The term client state means that security and foreign policy in both nations is subordinate to Washington’s agenda and interests.
Subjugation and humiliation at the hands of imperial powers resonated powerfully among people in new nations who faced dire circumstances, ones that could be blamed persuasively on the former regimes. India had Great Britain, Indonesia had The Netherlands, while China and South Korea had Japan to blame. All of these nations could draw on shared traumas, while legitimacy was bestowed on the new leaders who provided a vision infused with hope. The Idea of nation also drew on powerful possibilities opened by realization of self-determination, overthrow of old orders and a sense of mission. Equally, perceptions of continued external manipulation and intervention remained resilient.
By contrast, Japan as the defeated aggressor occupied by the US was not in a position to blame anyone but its own military and political leaders. Nonetheless, it awkwardly embraces the narrative of “victim,” awkward because it joined western nations in colonizing and subjugating Asia. The powerful discourse of Japan’s victimization that has come to dominate wartime memories perturbs its former victims in East Asia (see Chapters 7, 8 and 9). During Japan’s long war against Asia (1931–1945) it invoked past humiliations and resentment about a biased and racist international order, asserting unconvincingly that its invasions and occupation were part of a Pan-Asian crusade for liberation from western colonial rule, but after 1945 it was not able to tap these well-springs of identity because of all the devastation it inflicted in Asia. Yet in recent years this war has become contemporary Japan’s chosen trauma and reactionaries have made headway in promoting the myth of Pan-Asian liberation and justifying the war as a defensive response to western hostility and encirclement. Thus in a triumph of chutzpah over history, one that only works within Japan’s borders, the selective exhumation of the painful wartime past highlights suffering endured, overshadowing what its wartime leaders perpetrated.
Fourthly, the five nations split on the issue of ethnic identity as the basis of the Idea of nation. India and Indonesia celebrate diversity as intrinsic to their national identities, in contrast to Japan and South Korea which emphasize their relative homogeneity, while China tries to have it both ways, paying lip service to diversity while promoting a Han-centric identity. An Idea of nation based on common culture, language and ethnicity does not require quite the same tending and continual reinforcement. Diversity places an emphasis and burden on tolerance as a virtue, which is not always realized in China, India and Indonesia (or anywhere else). The ethnic Han in China have been inadequately attentive to minority sensitivities, especially the Muslim Uighurs and Tibetan Buddhists, as we discuss in Chapter 11. Other minorities that don’t pose a threat because they lack the capacity to resist have done relatively better.
Nations also pick and choose which aspects of their past to celebrate. Mao Zedong sought to eradicate China’s common Confucian identity, seeing this as one of the impediments to modernization, and replace it with Maoism, a cult of personality mixed with communism, but customs and traditions proved resilient and have made a comeback as the government now promotes Confucius Institutes around the world to nurture influence and project soft power. The convulsions under the banner of promoting a Maoist identity had an enormous impact on Chinese society in the second half of the 20th century, but the economic reforms unleashed by Deng Xiaoping since 1978 have marginalized Maoism as a source of collective identity even as he remains revered as a revolutionary.
Religion and language are another source of identity cohesion—and division. In Indonesia, ethnic Javanese hailing from its most populous island have dominated the state since independence, generating regional resentments against a Java-centric Idea of Indonesia, but 90% of the population share an Islamic orientation, creating considerable common ground for understanding and empathy, if not always unity. The national motto is Unity in Diversity, a bold assertion that belies the inherent challenges in achieving this. The spread of the Indonesian language around the archipelago since 1945 has had a powerful unifying impact even as linguistic and ethnic differences remain powerful countercurrents. India is predominantly Hindu, but, as with Indonesian Islam, it is not practiced or embraced monolithically; while Hindi, the most widely spoken language, shares official status with regional languages; and English serves as a lingua franca. India also has a huge Muslim population that remains marginalized and poorly integrated, while the multitudinous ethnic and cultural variations in the sub-continent belie assertions of a shared vision. Yet, vibrant regional identities are subsumed within the inclusive Idea of India and portrayed as one of its strengths.
Each of our nations embraces a transcendent civilizational identity drawing on a rich and established heritage and history stretching back several centuries. In the context of this venerated and glorified past, the shocks of imperialism can be viewed as a prolonged and disruptive interregnum. This past is usefully malleable, accommodating various interpretations and lessons to be learned depending on the needs of the day. In some respects, all of our nations nurture a sense of a shared past and collective destiny that taps into this civilizational identity, while also brooding about the humiliations inflicted during the imperial encounter. The Idea of nation is embellished in reference to bygone eras of glory and splendor. Close scrutiny of the ‘glorious past’ in each of our countries yields inconsistencies and inglorious moments that are not part of the official story, but that is precisely the point; nationalism nurtures a convenient all-embracing history for contemporary use. The distant past can be invoked to ratify the current order, and if priorities shift, this can be recalibrated to match changing circumstances.
India’s prevailing Idea involves tension between secular and religious values and between (and within) religions. Contemporary religious antagonisms are traced to Partition in 1947, involving the tumultuous movement of over 12 million Hindus and Muslims that ensued when the British presided over the hasty establishment of an independent India and Pakistan, thus dividing the sub-continent and sowing seeds of discord. Great Britain’s rushed exit was to avoid becoming embroiled in civil war at a time when it had limited resources, faced difficulties in recovering from World War II and appetite for Empire had ebbed. During the upheaval as many as one million people were killed as newly displaced refugees moved across the new borders to join the presumed relative safety of majority religious communities. Following Partition, about 10% of India’s population was Muslim, climbing now to about 15%, numbering almost 180 million, the world’s third largest Muslim population. Overall, India’s Muslims remain economically marginalized and poorly integrated. Islam is India’s other great tradition (Mughal dynasty 1526–1707), but it is not monolithic and features various sects (Sufi, Shia, Ahmadiyya), caste divisions and stratification according to ancestry. India’s national identity is inseparable from the concept, and still robust practice, of caste, the finely delineated social hierarchy that defines one’s status from birth based on Hindu precepts. The large Sikh minority denies this caste hierarchy and has carved out a relatively successful place in Indian society, but was tragically targeted by Hindu violence in 1984, a stark reminder of the consequences of assertive majority nationalism for minorities, which we discuss in Chapter 11. The multitudinous ethnic and cultural variations in the sub-continent further challenge assertions of a shared vision or common heritage, which has been managed by elaborating and improvising an encompassing Idea of India that embraces immense diversity, if not always successfully.
Each of the national Ideas is fundamentally secular. In China, this was uncontroversial since the communists were eager to root out what it dismissed as feudal practices and superstitions. In secularism, Nehru and Sukarno saw a path to modernity, which was was threatened by religion and sectarian violence. Japan’s secularism was born in the ashes of surrender when the US constitutionally separated the state from religion and Emperor Hirohito renounced his divinity. He had been the head priest of State Shinto, a Japanese animist religion that became intertwined with Japan’s Holy War in Asia and goal of extending the Emperor’s realm. As such it was implicated in and discredited by the wartime debacle. The American-led Occupation of Japan peeled religion away from the basic structure of democratic government that was hijacked by militarists in the 1930s. The Idea of South Korea is also secular, one liberated from the impositions of Japan’s empire that is imbued with US influences and the modernizing policies of the state.
Forgetting
Forgetting is crucial to the Idea of nation in the sense of putting aside or burying whatever contradicts or undermines the core of the unifying and inspiring identity. Forgetting is expedient, artful and necessary, serving to bridge gaps, forge a shared consciousness and overcome divisive memories and experiences. But such concessions are difficult to sustain, festering within the nation, setting the stage for future battles. There are good reasons to put aside the unresolved and painful memories, but associated undercurrents also pull at the fabric of identity and generate tensions. Forgetting they were embarking on mission impossible was crucial to the nation-building projects of Nehru and Sukarno as they tried to stitch together sprawling nations out of unpromising colonial legacies. South Koreans also had a need for forgetting as many had collaborated with the Japanese and could thus be looked upon as traitors to the nation. But many of the collaborators had the skills, training, networks and wherewithal to help South Korea recover from war, and therefore gained positions of power and influence. Park Chung-hee, the general who took power in a military coup in 1961, served in the Japanese colonial army—an army that repressed Korean independence activists and supported Japan’s empire. Park presided over an authoritarian state that imposed a collective forgetting because building Korea’s future was considered more important than settling its past, and those in power had much to lose from historical scrutiny. Indeed, Park normalized relations with Japan in 1965, receiving $800 million in grants and loans from Tokyo to cover all compensation claims related to the colonial era; but because there was no apology, reconciliation has proven elusive. Sukarno also had dubious ties with the Japanese that were best forgotten. His collaboration involved actively assisting in the mobilization of romusha (forced labor), a program that claimed more than a million lives, and acquiesced to forced rice deliveries that drove many families to the brink of starvation. Throughout the war, however, he remained a stalwart cheerleader for Japan’s Holy War, seeing this as Indonesia’s best chance for ending Dutch colonial rule. Japan failed to reciprocate Sukarno’s unequivocal support, infuriating and humiliating him by granting independence sooner to other Southeast Asian nations, but refusing Indonesia until it was clear the war was lost and Tokyo had no choice in the matter. This also was something to forget so that the nation could move forward.
Japan also had good reasons for forgetting, especially since the public had supported the war in Asia (1931–1945), at least until the consequences of the national folly rebounded, inflicting horrific devastation on Japan’s cities and people. Also to be forgotten were the stunning continuities between Japan’s wartime and postwar elite, embodied in Emperor Hirohito, senior political leaders and bureaucrats. The Americans rehabilitated the conservative elite that had planned and waged war because they could deliver a successful postwar recovery and political stability suitably deferential to US interests and their Cold War anti-communist agenda. The US also protected Japan from demands for a reckoning about its shared past with Asia and significant reparations that might slow recovery. Allying with the US, and relying on it for protection, also took a leap of forgetfulness as America had firebombed 66 Japanese cities and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated half a million civilians. Forgetting was thus central to the postwar Idea of Japan because remembering would raise too many awkward questions for those with much influence and lots to lose. A mere 12 years after the war, Nobusuke Kishi, a Class A war crimes suspect, became prime minister in 1957, a remarkable act of forgetting unthinkable in postwar Germany. His grandson, Shinzo Abe, subsequently became prime minister (2006–2007, 2012–) and seeks to rehabilitate Japan’s wartime history while shedding constraints on Japan’s military embodied in its pacifist Constitution.
Figure 1.1 The Hiroshima Dome Attests to the Folly of Nationalism.
Photo © Jeff Kingston.
Indeed, in 2015 Abe’s statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II elevated an exonerating revisionist narrative of history to Japan’s official policy. The vague and ambiguous references to past misdeeds, the inadequate recognition of Japanese aggression and the horrors inflicted, the minimalist nods toward contrition, and putting an end to apology are now state policy. This is a major watershed in Japan’s postwar history that digs a deep diplomatic hole and tarnishes the nation’s significant and praiseworthy achievements of the past seven decades.
There was a very interesting contrast in the 70th anniversary commemoration statements by Abe and Emperor Akihito that highlights the ongoing political divide between the revisionists and most Japanese in their understanding of how the nation got to where it is today. Noting the deaths of more than 3 million Japanese during World War II, Abe asserted: “The peace we enjoy today exists only upon such precious sacrifices. And therein lies the origin of postwar Japan” (Abe Statement, August 14, 2015, Prime Minister’s Office Japan). This assertion that wartime sacrifices begot contemporary peace is the revisionist conceit, one that Emperor Akihito clearly rejected on August 15, 2015. He said:
Our country today enjoys peace and prosperity, thanks to the ceaseless efforts made by the people of Japan toward recovery from the devastation of the war and toward development, always backed by their earnest desire for the continuation of peace. (Address by His Majesty the Emperor on the Occasion of the Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead, August 15, 2015, Imperial Household Agency)
Peace and prosperity, in the Emperor’s view, did not come from treating the Japanese people like cannon fodder during the war, but rather was based on their postwar efforts to overcome the tragedy inflicted by the nation’s warmongering leaders. The Emperor has been a vigorous and popular advocate for a national identity based on pacifism that most Japanese support.
Like Japan’s revisionists, Mao also embraced selective remembering. The Kuomintang (KMT) had done most of the fighting and, unlike the CCP, had grounds to claim credit for helping to defeat Japan. This too was forgotten for the time being as the CCP and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) portrayed themselves as the saviors of the nation and the KMT were vilified as corrupt stooges of the US. Mao then proceeded to inflict a series of catastrophes on the Chinese, most notably the twin tragedies of the Great Famine (1958–1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), traumatic events that also needed forgetting, facilitated by China’s authoritarian state and repression of dissent. In 1972, when Japan and China normalized relations, Mao thanked the visiting Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka for the invaluable assistance of the Imperial Armed Forces in helping the communists to victory by inflicting heavy losses on the KMT. Mao’s gesture of reconciliation involved focusing blame on military leaders and absolving the Japanese people of responsibility for the horrific devastation inflicted on China, claiming an estimated 10–15 million lives from 1931 to 1945.
Forgetting, however, is challenged by those seeking to exhume the buried memories and experiences, drawing attention to what has been ignored. The reasons for remembering are as varied as those for forgetting, but it can be driven by personal loss, political agendas and changing geo-political considerations. For the Idea to prevail in the first place often required aggressive disremembering, leaving scars to be avenged. In a democracy, the Idea of nation can be hotly contested. Nehru’s secularism prevailed over religious communalism, but not by much. Hindutva religious chauvinists never accepted defeat, never conceded, and so the battles have simmered and flared over the ensuing decades. Inclusiveness appeals to liberals as a fundamentally reasonable principle to defend, but for religious zealots this is a target, a sacrilege to be overturned. They have not forgotten Partition or other religion-based grievances and see no reason to support the compromise and concessions of forgetting. In Indonesia, Sukarno also managed to overcome zealous support for an Islamic state, establishing a government based on secular principles that were strongly supported by most nationalist leaders and, crucially, the army. But in an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, shifting religion to the side and asserting tolerance required constant vigilance. From the outset, Islamic leaders challenged the new Republic of Indonesia, claiming they had been betrayed by ‘forgotten’ promises of the Jakarta Charter of 1945 that elevated Islam to a central position in the Idea of nation. True or not, it was an effective call to arms that challenged Sukarno’s Idea. Indonesian unity was threatened by separatist Islamic rebellions throughout the 1950s, forcing Sukarno to recalibrate the Idea by concentrating power in the executive and relying on his powers of persuasion and compromise along with the security forces. Sukarno visited Beijing in 1956 and was impressed by what he encountered, seeing what a stronger, less democratic state might achieve. Always ambivalent about western-style parliamentary government, Sukarno reconsidered the Idea of secular, representative democracy, siding with the military in moving to Guided Democracy, eschewing elections and serving as guide. Alas, as we discuss in Chapters 5, 7 and 8, he steered the nation into crisis, leading to his ouster and the ensuing massacres of 1965–1966. This required another collective forgetting under the New Order government that succeeded him.
The military assumed the reins of power under General Suharto and in 1967 the New Order was proclaimed, an authoritarian government that put the final nail in democracy, stamping out dissent and free elections, while also strengthening secularism. Sukarno’s free-wheeling improvised Idea traded on his charisma, but was discredited by the prevailing sense of chaos and the growing despair of poverty. The New Order Idea of Indonesia was praetorian, espousing stability and development for a people who knew neither. It also drew on a conceit of selective memory, portraying the military as the saviors of the nation. The military had “saved” a largely Islamic nation from godless communism, then quickly moved to strictly control Islam’s political role. The military, paramilitary and religious groups that carried out the bloody purges in 1965–1966 were never held accountable for the massacres of as many as one million people; responsibility for the slaughter was shifted onto the Partai Kommunis Indonesia, the Indonesian communist party, and its alleged plans to take power through a coup. The actual perpetrators were represented throughout the highest levels of the New Order government that ruled between 1967 and 1998, facilitating a collective amnesia, at least on the surface. But with the end of the New Order in 1998, that horrific chapter is currently being disinterred and subject to ongoing reconsideration. Incrementally, the organized forgetting of the mass carnage is receding, and there has been fitful progress in exhuming the painful memories, but accountability remains unfinished business. While passage of time matters—most of those responsible for the bloodbath have died—these events remain embarrassing for powerful institutions such as the military and religious groups who stand to lose considerable credibility if held accountable for the deep scars they inflicted on the nation, a burden they have shirked ever since.
For China, forgetfulness about policy bungling and unachieved targets was part of Mao’s surreal style, but the Great Forgetting began after his death in 1976 with economic reforms in 1978 that abandoned Mao’s bedrock communist principles. Deng hit the reset button because Maoism was an abject failure and his legacy risked dragging the CCP into the grave with him. Of course the official view now is that Mao was 70% right, but the other 30% includes some whopping megaflops. Mao’s manmade disasters are not forgotten, but he remains almost universally admired by Chinese because they are continually reminded that he led the CCP to victory in the 1949 revolution. Like all of our founding fathers, Mao is a flawed figure, but perhaps the most egregiously so, and it is thus not surprising that the evolving Idea of China repudiates almost everything he stood for. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is the official euphemism for this stunning apostasy.
Legacies
The Idea of nation was sown in the poisoned soil of imperialism, colonial subjugation and humiliations that bred resentments. These same resentments were subsequently nurtured during the Cold War. What happened in the first half of the 20th century left an indelible imprint on the leaders and the ideas they projected onto their nations. The poverty and scars, physical and psychological, which lingered in the postwar era could be attributed persuasively to imperialism and war. China and
