Years of Poems and Spirits

NYT ran an article (c) several days ago about two best selling comic books in Japan which expressed a mixture of abasing its two neighbors (China and Korea) and belonging to the more superior west.

Some highlights:
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today! … there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of.”

In another comic book, ”Introduction to China,” which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism … ”Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There’s nothing attractive.”

The author leveled some sharp criticism too:
Paranoia: “Today, China and South Korea’s rise to challenge Japan’s position as Asia’s economic, diplomatic and cultural leader is inspiring renewed xenophobia against them here.”

Japan’s “in-Asia but not of-Asia” “aspiration”: ” …nothing has changed since 1885, when one of modern Japan’s most influential intellectuals, Yukichi Fukuzawa, said Japan should emulate the advanced nations of the West and leave Asia by dissociating itself from its backward neighbors, especially China and Korea. ”

Jealousy: ”The ‘Hate Korea’ feelings have spread explosively since the World Cup,”

Whatever-that-is: “… the Japanese began acquiring Caucasian features in popular drawing. The biggest change occurred during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, when drawings of the war showed Japanese standing taller than Russians, with straight noses and other features that made them look more European than their European enemies. ”

The most worrysome:
“As nationalists and revisionists have come to dominate the public debate in Japan, figures advocating an honest view of history are being silenced, said Yutaka Yoshida, a historian at Hitotsubashi University.”

—For all I care, I’d rather leave this type of noise in the background. But they keep creeping up and up and up. To be fair: not all of the nonsense are from Japan.
—Even Prof. Bachman of my East Asia Politics class sent us this article. He attributed this to in-security among the Japanese.
—Not sure when the Japanese not expressing those thought during the 80s is necessarily a good thing.
—For a country with Japan’s achievement and statue, there should have been a civil liberal/progressive force that enlightens the mass using such adversity. Instead, this is just pure indulgence of their insular paranoia.
—I wouldn’t have posted this unless for a response from Japan quoted in a Chinese website (again wenxuecity … sigh)
—The equivalent of Wall Street Journal in Japan is screaming faul with this article (again if wenxuecity does not lie to me. I dare to quote this because based on the translation of other American news it seems genuine.)

Book Review: China’s Rise in Asia, by R. Sutter

China cannot be trusted and Robert Sutter tells us why. In pages after pages, the author gives ample reasons that, as a rising power, China has to be watched carefully.

According to Sutter’s theory, historically, China has had hegemonic ambitions. Not only she portrays her own struggles as of universal significance, she also keeps a close watch of countries around her periphery as if they are naturally within her sphere of influence. Her political leaders are hypersensitive to criticisms and tend to behave defensively. The Chinese plot their policies and strategies, not much guided by principles but mainly on a case-by-case bases. They are more likely to go after short-term gains than for long-term benefits. As a result, Chinese foreign policy tends to be capricious and disruptive. In Sino-US relations in particular, China has been long suspicious of U.S. ulterior motives and is actively hedging against U.S. policies through bilateral and regional actions.

In the same vein, Sutter views China’s recently totted “peaceful rising” with suspicion. Whether China has truly renounced aggressive posture in her international dealings, or she just says so to “bid time” in order to secure economic growth, remains to be seen. As how to engage a rising China, Sutter sees Bush administration’s approach as a potential model: keep her at arms length, do not give any unwarranted expectations (as Clinton administration has purportedly done), and stand firm.

My personal observation is, although there is some truth to many of his assertion, Sutter’s ultimate fallacy is that he uses a liberalist standard to criticize China in order to justify U.S. own realist strategy.

For example, Sutter interprets China’s proposal of opening its agricultural market to ASEAN countries as a way to undercut Japanese or Korean positions (p82). This is so anti-liberal for its Machiavellian motive, he seems to argue, it is yet another example of why China cannot be trusted. But even if we put aside the merit of such a decision in itself, and to look at parallels in U.S. policies, such a criticism is as unjustified as it is hypocritical. Since the WTO meeting in Cancun, U.S. Trade Representative has repeatedly offered to cut U.S. domestic agriculture subsides, not only to advance American agenda, but also to put pressure on the Europeans. The consensus in this case, however, is that America is exerting her leadership role in promoting Free Trade.

In his “China’s International Relations” essay in Samuel Kim’s book, Alastair Iain Johnston observed that some of the “China Threat” talks are self-fulfilling prophesies (has anyone mentioned Cuba being a victim of such prophesy?) I’d argue China Skeptics such as Sutter are no different. China’s in U.S. crosshair today is not entirely her own fault, it is more or less because what she is or what she can be, especially in a world according to the U.S. For example, other world powers-that-be, like the European Union, is never that concerned about China’s potential as another USSR. Other than some spousal disputes like economic matters, E.U. and China are getting along just fine—if not too close to U.S.’s liking, as in the recent case of proposed lifting of arms sales ban by the E.U. Even the herbivore countries living along the fringe of the dragon’s cave are not so concerned with impending subjugation as a result of China’s rise—as Sutter implies what could happen. On the contrary, some of them are acting as brakes to U.S. check on China. Even Australia told U.S. not to automatically count on her support had a conflict in Taiwan Strait broke out.

If Sutter does not consider himself as part of the China bashing gang, he must hold a very high standard of who is— maybe the likes of University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer? Around the same time I read this book, I heard a media interview with James McGregor, a businessman/author. Although his criticism of China is no less harsh at times, he is at least coherent—China is just another business opportunity. If your objective is to make profit, you will have to learn to live with reality. Unfortunately, for analysts like Mr. Sutter, their job is to constantly look out for the surreal.

Book Review: Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson

I read this book with great interest, partly because in the past summer, several big cities in China witnessed rambunctious protests over Japanese Prime Minister’s visits to the Yasukuni shrine. The two nations are supposedly exemplary actors in today’s global community: one boasts the 2nd largest economy among all nations. The other holds the record of continuous rate of GDP growth for the last 10 years. One is the 2nd largest contributor to the United Nations and aspires to become permanent Council member. The other already is one. What is even more intriguing is the close economic interdependency between the two, and equally connected societies: Shanghai hosts the largest overseas Japanese community. At the same time, there are more than 150,000 Chinese students attending Japanese universities and language schools .

Despite almost self-explanatory benefits, with presumably-catalytic example of European regional integration, the chemistry between the two nations remain rather explosive. It is with this observation in mind, thus with loaded expectations from a dedicated study of nationalism, that I find this book disappointing.

To be precise, I am objecting to both the goal of the book and its approach. In the Preface (for the 2nd Edition) and the Introduction, the author professed his struggle with the position Nationalism stands within Marxist paradigm. The seminal event that triggered this book, the 3rd Indochina War in the late 1970s was less typical a series of nationalistic conflicts than a Cold War reverberation in the region. However, the war was unsettling to the Marxists because the antagonists were all (at least self-proclaimed) socialist states, which should have transcended nationalism to embrace internationale. Hence was Tom Nairn’s admission, “The theory of nationalism represents Marxism’s great historical failure.” (p3)

In my view, that’s where Anderson’s book comes into the grand debate. Even if he can’t resurrect a “Ptolemaic phenomena”, Anderson offers to ameliorate the anxiety among the faithful by reducing the “anomaly” into a manufactured “imagination”. To someone like me who comes directly from a hotbed of nationalism, the notion that it can be explained within an ideology—but not itself an ideology—is a non-starter.

Further reading only deepened my doubts about the relevance of Anderson’s arguments . For example, he called nationalism “imagined community” because “… all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact … are imagined.” If so, the word “imagined” must have meant something else, or the entire New York Stock Exchange could be nothing but a big fantasy. When describing the creation of nationalism, Anderson repeatedly emphasized the role printing-capitalism played. To me, the correlation between the two is due more to historical timing than direct causality. The coming of vernacular media should have facilitated the spread of nationalism but an ideology can exist without mass medium. After all, various religions and schools of thought had entered our collective history centuries before the first printing press.

The underlying assumption of the book is that nationalism is a relatively modern product. “Modern”, in this context, not only denotes time proximity, but also allude to “Modernity”—the historical period after Medieval but before Post-colonialism. It is in this period, the author suggests, that all ingredients of nationalism come to being, among them secularization and print-capitalism. With this assumption, Anderson goes on de-constructing nationalism as manufactured (by self-serving Creoles), imposed (“official nationalism”) and constantly revisioned (e.g. “the reassurance of fratricide”).

It is only during his discussion of nationalism as a “portable” or “abstract” concept, did he come close to what I was looking for—nationalism as a unique (i.e. irreducible) social phenomenon. The irony is, there are so many excellent historical materials in the book that could have supported such an argument. In fact when the author has to provide interpretation of those events, particularly in a comparative setting, he seems to undermine his own conviction of nationalism as purely imagined. For example, when explaining why Russia was able to hold together under an imposed nationalism whereas the British Empire was not, Anderson pointed out that, in the domain of the latter, “[o]nly a minority of the subjected peoples had any long-standing religious, linguistic, cultural, or even political and economic, ties with the metropole.” (p92, italic added) Apparently, there are more to nationalism than sheer imagination.

Furthermore, is nationalism only a production of modernity as the author implied? I’d argue not. Wherever there are international conflicts, there will be defensive reactions. One product of such reactions is the mantra of “us” versus “others”. For example, Anderson thinks that the term “Greek” designates more a cultural identity than a national one. But what he really meant could only be subscribed to the ancient Athenians—who were amply nationalistic (in its broadest sense) in their dealings with other city-states. Half way around the globe, at about the same time in China, Confucius also proclaimed, “A China without monarch still fairs better then the Barbarians with one” (“夷狄之有君不如诸夏之亡也”)

Admittedly, those are not the words chanted at the street protests in China nowadays. However, the point is—is there a common thread that links the sentiments now and then? If there is one, could we call it nationalism or proto-nationalism (since there wasn’t a “nation” back then)? If not, is my definition too broad or Anderson’s too narrow? If so, however, is nationalism still a product of modernity—and thus imagined?