Patriotism in East Asia

Jun-Hyeok Kwak, Koichiro Matsuda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138091993
• eBook ISBN: 9781317816010
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Global Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Current territorial disputes between the Northeast Asian countries have stimulated a resurgence of bellicose nationalism, and threaten to upset recent efforts to achieve regional cooperation and economic integration in East Asia. Alongside this, debates over pre-1945 Japanese wartime atrocities, aggravated by still unresolved territorial disputes between Japan and its neighbours have triggered diplomatic conflicts in Japanese-South Korean relations, virulent anti-Japanese protests in China, and a dramatic increase of right-wing nationalism in Japan. Many have perceived these phenomena as inevitable corollaries, inasmuch as they regard the Northeast Asian countries as historically homogeneous and nationalistic states, and have begun to question the feasibility of the post-Cold War efforts to replace nationalism with a moderate version of civic solidarity.

This book contributes to the debates surrounding patriotism and nationalism in Northeast Asia, and investigates the feasibility of non-ethnocentric patriotism in countries across the region. In doing so, it highlights the differences between Asian and Western concepts of republican patriotism via theoretical discussions of the evolving discourses on nationalism, patriotism, democracy and civic solidarity. The chapters combine theoretical discussion with historical case studies such as modern state building in late Qing Dynasty; nineteenth century Japanese political thought; and the twentieth century Korean independence movement. In turn, the contributors explore the possibilities for republican patriotism in contemporary Northeast Asia, with a focus on the Chinese term minzu, and the possibilities it holds for an alternative configuration of national identity in the age of globalization; Maruyama Masao's theories of nationalism in Japan; the National Security Law in South Korea, and the impact it has had on the country's political culture; and the Taiwanese movement for self-governance.

Patriotism in East Asia will appeal to students and scholars of Asian politics, political theory, Asian history and peace studies, as well as to those interested in issues of nationalism.

Part I

Introduction

1  Patriotism in East Asian context

Jun-Hyeok Kwak and Koichiro Matsuda

The current territorial disputes between the Northeast Asian countries stimulate a resurgence of bellicose nationalism and threaten to upset recent efforts to achieve regional cooperation and economic integration in Northeast Asia. Debates over pre-1945 Japanese wartime atrocities, aggravated as they were by the still unresolved territorial disputes between Japan and its neighbors (South Korea, China, and Russia), have triggered diplomatic conflicts in Japanese–ROK relations, virulent anti-Japanese protests in China, and a dramatic increase of right-wing nationalism in Japan.

Many analysts appear to perceive these phenomena as inevitable corollaries, inasmuch as they regard the Northeast Asian countries as historically homogeneous and nationalistic states. In a similar vein, the various observers of Northeast Asian power politics have started to question the feasibility of the post-Cold War efforts to replace nationalism with a moderate version of civic solidarity.

Although these observations are not wholly inaccurate, they may be superficial if they overlook the statist inspiration that has been fused deeply with the conflation of patriotism or proto-types of patriotism into nationalism in the Northeast Asian countries. Actually, in the Northeast Asian countries, the complicated legacies of statist inspiration, rather than ‘nationalism’ itself, play a decisive role in depreciating academic and civic engagements to reconcile nationalistic commonalities with moral obligations to humanity. In any case, the current resurgence of virulent nationalism in Northeast Asia requires us to investigate not merely the question of what brings nationalism back into politics but also the issue of why the notion of ‘patriotism without nationalism’ is still not particularly persuasive in the Northeast Asian context.

In this context, the recent increase of scholarly interest in republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries was a quite predictable phenomenon. On the one hand, the rapidly developing Northeast Asian countries are increasingly prone to regard civic solidarity as an alternative to ethnocentric nationalism, the latter being incompatible with the global demands for ethnic diversity in the present era of multiculturalism. On the other hand, concordantly with the rise of China, the Northeast Asian countries face a need for peaceful coexistence, which requires the supplementation of strong nationalism with a ‘soft’ version of collective commonality. In this context, republican patriotism has been considered a substitute ensuring the loyalty of citizens to a political community without appealing to the public myth of ethnic homogeneity.

However, the general appropriation of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries is far from what it supposes to be. First, although republican patriotism presupposes the free and equal polity for civic allegiance, discussions over republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries do not take seriously the requirements of a free and equal republic into their accounts. Apart from liberty as non-domination to which a republic should live up, narratives of republican republicanism are predicated upon the national identity as defined by the privileging particularity of national culture. This selective appropriation of republican patriotism may have been associated with the sociopolitical cultures of the Northeast Asian countries in which patriotism is perceived as identical with nationalism. But it is still question-begging when we are witnessing that an adherent of republican patriotism is directed to the love of one’s country in an unreflective way succinctly symbolized by the sentiment “I love my country unconditionally.”

Second, the artificiality of patriotic feeling has been dissociated with narratives of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries. According to Maurizio Viroli, love of the fatherland is not so much a natural sentiment but an artificial feeling which can be cultivated only through the citizen’s experience of freedom and equality in a republic. Interestingly, most discourses on republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries are prone to pass over the artificiality of patriotic feeling in silence or to defend the love of the fatherland as natural affection for one’s country and compatriots. This propensity to regard patriotic feeling as a natural affection has a long history in the Northeast Asian countries. Since the first translation of patriotism conceptualized the naturalness of patriotic loyalty into its moral connotation, 愛國 (love of the fatherland) has been designating an extension of filial duty, rather than a civic allegiance to political principles, such as freedom and equality. As a result, republican patriotism has been criticized by liberals along the same lines as civic nationalism and communitarian patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries.

Third, while republican patriotism emphasizes a transition of the love of the fatherland to the love for humanity, in scholarly debates over republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries few serious efforts have been made to delineate the need for this transition. Narratives of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries explicitly or implicitly encourage a public conviction that one’s own country should be considered superior to all others. Certainly, republican patriotism requires civic pride through which citizens can be inspired to feel gratitude toward their political community, fidelity toward their traditions, and a willingness to ensure that their political community remains free and prosperous. But the advocacy of republican patriotism does not entail a public belief that one’s own country should be superior to others. In contrast, the pervasive image of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries is preoccupied with patriotic pleasures in economic and military grandiose, in which love for the fatherland is not accompanied with the recognition that in one respect or another, a foreign country may be more admirable than one’s own country. Unlike the constitutional patriotism endorsed by neo-Kantian scholars, republican patriotism, at least in the Northeast Asian countries, has been relatively insulated from debates over moral obligations to humanity and normative foundations for regional cooperation.

Based on these observations, analyzing the normative foundations of republican patriotism in Northeast Asian context, we will explore a theoretical supplement by which republican patriotism can be appropriated properly in non-Western practices. First, juxtaposing the perceptions of patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries with the notion of ‘patriotism without nationalism’ in republican patriotism, we will investigate what must be supplemented for the proper appropriation of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries where we can hardly find a republican culture corresponding to North American and European republican traditions. Second, examining why there has been such a weak response to moral obligations toward humanity in discussions over republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries, we will develop the moral and political means by which to construct a non-ethnocentric model of conflict resolution in the Northeast Asian countries.

In this context, each chapter in this volume illuminates the conundrum of patriotism from diverse theoretical or historical points of view.

In the first chapter of Part II, Duncan Ivison reviews the question of what motivates citizenship and examines whether patriotism can be the answer, through interpreting and criticizing arguments provided by contemporary political philosophers. It has become a general agreement among them, despite a divergence of philosophical views, that citizenship cannot be effective unless it is reinforced by a sense of belonging. It is not realistic to expect each individual to use their reason individually at every aspect of life. Even if this were possible, it would not make an effective contribution to the welfare of the political community to which one belongs. If we can define patriotism as an indispensable sense of belonging to a political community, then what are the conditions of patriotism worth respecting in our globalized world? It is obvious that a sense of belonging to any specific “race,” “culture,” “religion,” or “language group” must not be counted. Then how can we assess the feasibility of building “ethical patriotism” grounded on diversity and plurality of values and worldviews? Citizenship reinforced by patriotism would be effective only if people commit ethically, not to any specific criterion of identity, but to the process of deliberation among individuals or groups who have diverse views on values of life. Ivison approaches the question by carefully scrutinizing the arguments of such contemporary political thinkers as Habermas, MacIntyre, Viroli, and Tully.

Focusing more on ‘republican patriotism’ and its possible realization in the Northeast Asian context, Jun-Hyeok Kwak (Chapter 3) investigates what must be supplemented for the proper appropriation of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries where one can hardly find a republican culture corresponding to North American and European republican traditions. He believes that the appropriation of republican patriotism in the Northeast Asian context is double-edged. On the one hand, republican patriotism justifies loyalty to one particular culture as the need of human beings for rootedness; on the other hand, it also has to come to terms with the ideal of the republic which is nothing but an abstract principle. With this counter-proposition in republican patriotism, he explores a theoretical supplement by which republican patriotism can be appropriated properly in the Northeast Asian context. Specifically, juxtaposing the perceptions of patriotism in the Northeast Asian countries with the notion of ‘patriotism without nationalism’ in republican patriotism, he makes two arguments. First, he claims that republican patriotism endorsing the role of shared cultural roots in shaping civic solidarity should be refined further by paying more attention to loyalty to liberty as non-domination rather than loyalty to one particular culture. Second, he argues that liberty as non-domination can provide us with an intermediate ideal conducive to regulate differences in opinion and power through democratic deliberation.

Part III of the volume focuses on historical inquires. Contributors illuminate the multi-furcated ways of concocting or obliviating patriotism as distinct from nationalism in the early modernity of Northeast Asia. Qiang Li focuses on the visions of modern state-building of the late Qing Chinese reformers Yan Fu and Liang Qichao, and examines whether their claims for establishing patriotism in the mindset of Chinese people had any element comparable to Viroli’s definition of republican patriotism. Li points out that the critical challenge that Yan and Liang faced was how to turn the decrepit Chinese empire into a modern “multi-ethnic” state, rather than a typical nation-state. This is a fresh take, since the prevailing view has seen these Chinese reformers as nationalists under the influence of the modern nationalism originated in Western countries. Though it is true that Yan and Liang introduced the idea of modern nationalism from the works by Western political thinkers or Japanese translations of them, Qiang emphasizes that the true aim which Yan and Liang pursued was not enlightening Chinese people on the idea of one nation under one state but bringing an alternative vision of a polity of “multi-ethnic entity.” Compared to Korea or Japan which also aspired to establish a modern nation-state but held a smaller territory and less population diversity, the task for China was more challenging. Yan and Liang selectively adopted the evolutionary theory of state and society which enabled them to envision the future China as a political community standing beyond a mono-ethnic nation-state.

In Chapter 5 Koichiro Matsuda analyzes the terminology and intentions of Japanese political thinkers in the late nineteenth century when they introduced the idea of patriotism into the arena of political arguments at the time of Japan’s rapid Westernization and modernization. It occurred in the 1860s when the Western vocabulary of “patriotism” entered Japan, and one who took a major role in introducing it was Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901), a leading political/social thinker of the day. By referring to Blackstone, J. S. Mill, and de Tocqueville, Fukuzawa distinguished patriotism from emotional attachment to a national community. Fukuzawa defined patriotism as a political principle grounded on a sense of responsibility to a polity: which would lead to acceptance of its legitimacy and consent to its implementation of power. Fukuzawa recognized that patriotism would bring about a sense of identity but the identity had to derive from the political consent by each individual citizen. This sense of identity was distinguished from the sense of belonging to any particular cultural, religious, or language group. On the other hand, however, Fukuzawa was anxious about whether patriotism based on individual reason could effectively take hold in the people’s mind. Therefore, he also stressed that conditions favorable to nurturing patriotism should be historical products of a nation. This composite justification of patriotism based on individual reason and national history at the same time raised arguments among not only Fukuzawa’s contemporaries but also in succeeding generations, and it still affects today’s debates on how patriotism can be defended as a political norm.

Jun-Hyeok Kwak’s chapter on Yi Kwangsu (1892–1950), a vanguard of modern Korean literature but also an infamous Japanese collaborator, probes the philosophical motives which inspired Yi, a radical reformer in his earlier life, to become an admirer of Japanese imperialism. Yi was a leading figure in the Korean independence movement until the 1930s. He studied in Japan, took an active role in the independence movement of young Korean students in Japan, and participated in establishing the Korean government-in-exile in Shanghai. He published a number of influential literary works and political articles advocating radical reformation of Korean culture and the fortification of Korean people’s minds in order to achieve national independence. However, after his arrest by the Japanese imperial authority, he turned into a Japanese collaborator and advocated “imperial patriotism,” meaning integrating Korean attachment to their homeland into a loyalty to the Japanese colonial empire. Kwak interprets Yi’s conversion not as a result of defeatism or disguise forced by Japanese oppression; Yi’s conversion was rooted in his ardent aspiration for building a modern ego identity in the mind of Koreans. Kwak describes it as a “politics of domination” searching for a strong self-identity which finally, and ironically, turned into admiring the political power that dominates over others, even if it was Japanese imperialism. This tragedy caused by the desire for building a self-identity through dominating others has a non-negligible implication for today’s world, full as it is of identity politics.

Part IV of this volume deals with the probability of republican patriotism in the present Northeast Asian context. Naran Bilik discusses the conceptual complexity of a Chinese term minzu (usually translated as “nationalities”). The meaning of minzu contains plurality and also potentiality to envision an alternative configuration of national identity in the age of globalization. Though the term itself can be found in classical documents, the concept of minzu obtained a political significance through the efforts by Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen, and other political reformers who introduced the idea of the modern political “nation” crafted in Western political debates. Even in contemporary China, however, the definition of minzu has perplexing ambiguity and every usage of it is heavily politically loaded. What Bilik warns critically against is the cultural assimilationism ideologically associated with the concept of minzu. Since the days of ancient Chinese dynasties, there has been an unceasing aspiration to dominate “peripheral” ethnic groups under the imperial rule of the “central” power. The modern introduction of the concept of minzu opened a new horizon to envision a political nation consisting of multi-ethnic groups. For several decades after the Communist revolution, however, the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of global class struggle dominated the political discourse in China and multi-ethnicity was categorized as a subordinate problem to be overcome by the triumph of Communism in the future. Today, when Marxist theory about class and nationality had faded, China faces the double-edged challenge of building a sense of unity as a nation and a sense of respect for the diversity of ethnicities at the same time. Bilik argues that embedding civic patriotism in the Chinese people’s mindset will be a desirable solution to the difficult task that China is tackling.

Hajime Inuzuka in Chapter 8 focuses on the theoretical formation of nationalism by Maruyama Masao, a political theorist and historian who was widely acclaimed in the intellectual circles of post-1945 Japan. Maruyama defended modern nationalism as long as it implied a sense of duty and commitment to a political community by an individual citizen. He distinguished it from what he called the “ultra-nationalism” of military-dominated Japan. As early as in his prewar works, Maruyama claimed the difference between the sense of political duty based on civic responsibility and the conformism rooted in irrational ethno-centrism. In this sense his standpoint was similar to what we call “civic republicanism,” though he did not use this specific term. After the collapse of Japanese imperialism, Japanese public opinion generally turned to negate everything associated with nationalistic sentiments. In contrast, Maruyama adopted a stance against the current, and defended “healthy” nationalism as a motivation for democratization of Japan. He ascribed the failure of Japanese “ultra-nationalism” to its reliance on the mobilization of ethno-centric excitement and its neglect of citizenship education. While he harshly criticized the ideological mobilization of nationalist sentiments by “Japanese fascism,” he claimed that democratization of post-1945 Japan had to be motivated by a sense of attachment to the “nation.”

Danielle Chubb detects how the National Security Law (NSL), a symbolic product of the division of South and North Korea, has affected South Korean political culture in building a mindset of “statist nationalism.” The NSL, legislated in 1948, made Communism and any political act or opinion sympathetic to North Korea illegal. As a result, it not only justified the suppression of democratic movements but also served “as a tool of domination, revealing the limitations of South Korean nationalistic discourse as a pluralistic force.” The key role of the “statist nationalism” in the formation of national identity in the Republic of Korea collided seriously with the idea of a single unified Korean nation. All successive governments, even after the democratization of the ROK, have struggled with the national identity issue. Moreover, the persistent “statism” has exerted a negative effect on the formation of republican patriotism in ROK. The democratic claims of ROK citizens have often been oriented to stronger political leadership, rather than to stronger voluntary solidarity of citizens.

Mike Lan Shi-chi in Chapter 10 analyzes the Taiwanese movement for achieving self-governance in the 1920s, and characterizes it as an endeavor to establish a “public sphere” in Taiwanese society. The “Petition Movement” for establishing a Taiwanese parliament under Japanese colonial rule has been generally described as a kind of lukewarm resistance against Japanese imperialism. Lan analyzes the articles published in the Taiwan nationalist journal Tai Oan Chheng Lian (Taiwan Youth), and reevaluates the role of the journal taken in formulating a “public sphere” in which contesting views on Taiwanese cultural identity were disputed. The achievements made in course of the “Petition Movement” and the public debates that Tai Oan Chheng Lian evoked were not only the entrenchment of a sense of Taiwanese national identity, but also the experience of a “public sphere” which enabled open contestation of different political views and opinions.

Part II

General overview

2 Patriotism, diversity, and belonging

Duncan Ivison

I.

One of the great challenges of contemporary politics remains how best to reconcile the deep pluralism of our societies with forms of human solidarity, both within and across borders. This is as true for polities in Australasia and North America, as it is for those in North or Southeast Asia. You cannot have effective legal systems without high levels of trust and transparency. You cannot have effective social welfare systems without a collective willingness to forgo some of your income or wealth for the sake of others. You cannot have peaceful transitions between rival governments or political parties without a broader commitment to the well-being of the political community as a whole. You cannot address major challenges such as the effects of climate change, or profound economic change, without citizens being motivated in some way by a sense of the common good to participate in collective action to address these problems in the right spirit. Citizenship requires a sense of belonging, if it is to be more than simply a legal status. And yet what kind of belonging is compatible with deep diversity, as well as...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: General overview
• Part III: Historical inquiries
• Part IV: Reinterpreting patriotism in East Asian countries
• Index