German-East Asian Encounters and Entanglements

Affinity in Culture and Politics Since 1945

Joanne Miyang Cho

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367633974
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000337501
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This volume surveys transnational encounters and entanglements between Germany and East Asia since 1945, a period that has witnessed unprecedented global connections between the two regions. It examines their sociopolitical and cultural connections through a variety of media. Since 1945, cultural flow between Germany and East Asia has increasingly become bidirectional, spurred by East Asian economies' unprecedented growth. In exploring their dynamic and evolving relations, this volume emphasizes how they have negotiated their differences and have frequently cooperated toward common goals in meeting the challenges of the contemporary world. Given their long-standing historical differences, their post-1945 relations reveal a surprisingly high degree of affinity in many areas. To show how they have deeply shaped each other's views, this volume presents 12 chapters by scholars from the fields of history, sinology, sociology, literature, music, and film. Topics include cultural topics, such as German and Swiss writers on East Asia (Enzensberg, Muschg, and Kreitz), Japanese writer on Germany (Tezuka and Tawada), German commemorative culture in Korea, Beethoven in China, metal music in Germany and Japan, diary films on Japan (Wenders), as well as sociopolitical topics, such as Sino– East German diplomacy, Germans and Korean democracy, and Japanes and Korean communities in Germany.

1 Historical Survey, Historiography, and Organization

Joanne Miyang Cho

This volume surveys transnational encounters and entanglements between Germany and three East Asian nations, namely the Republic of Korea (the ROK), Japan, and the People’s Republic of China (the PRC) from 1945 to the present. It examines their social and political connections, as well as their cultural connections, through a variety of media. During this period, which is often referred to as the age of globalization, there has been an unprecedented amount of interaction between these two regions. The frequency of this engagement is particularly remarkable given the enormous geographical distance between them, situated as they are on opposite ends of the globe. In exploring their dynamic and evolving relations, this volume highlights not only connectedness but also entanglement and hybridity. It shows how these nations have negotiated their differences and frequently cooperated toward common goals in meeting the challenges of the contemporary world. Despite their long-standing historical and cultural differences, Germany and East Asia have been able to reach a surprisingly high degree of affinity in a number of areas. In contrast to the pre-1945 period, when the direction of this cultural flow was predominantly from Germany to East Asia, relations in the post-1945 era have become increasingly bidirectional, spurred in part by the East Asian nations’ unprecedented economic growth. In the twenty-first century, they have become equal global partners.

This present volume contributes to the field of German Asian Studies, which has emerged over the course of the last two decades.¹ Especially in the last decade, an array of new works dealing with a variety of topics in this area have appeared. It has emerged as a rich field, and its relevance will continue to grow as globalization continues to strengthen these relationships. Before getting into too much detail, however, it would be useful to explain the choice of East Asia in delineating the scope of this volume. Since Asia, broadly defined, represents 60% of the world population and includes many different societies and cultures, creating subfields makes the study of the field more manageable. One potentially useful model is the book series Palgrave Studies in Asian German Studies, which limits its scope to East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Even so, this is still a huge field, representing 55% of the world population as of 2020 (East Asia makes up 22%).² Furthermore, these regions of Asia are still quite diverse in terms of their religious identities, history, levels of industrialization, and political systems. This volume therefore specifically focuses on German relations with East Asian nations. While each of the nations in East Asia has its own unique history, they still share many similarities in history, society, economy, religion, philosophy, and culture. Moreover, their connections with Germany show several close similarities. With respect to its historiography, German–East Asian studies is still in a somewhat nascent phase and thus more work in this area is highly desirable.

This volume captures important moments in German–East Asian relations since 1945. As a thematic volume, it considers both German influences on East Asia as well as East Asian influences on Germany from a variety of perspectives, highlighting their connections and entanglements culturally, socially, and politically. This chapter specifically addresses three aspects related to this edited volume. First, it presents a brief survey of German–East Asian relations since 1945. While the East Asian nations share several important commonalities in their respective relations to Germany, each has also had its own unique relationship with Germany. Second, it explores the historiographical landscape on German–East Asian relations since 1945 by examining edited works that have appeared in recent years. It explores works that analyze German relations with the individual East Asian countries, as well as works that probe German relations with the East Asian region. Third, it presents the key arguments of the 12 chapters in the 4 parts. Topics include sociopolitical issues, such as diplomacy, democratization, and immigrant communities, as well as cultural themes, such as commemorative culture, literature, music, graphic novels/manga, and film. Together, the essays testify to the extent that Germany and East Asia have become entangled since 1945. They also show how cultural flows in this transnational relationship have become increasingly bidirectional, in contrast to the pre-1945 period.

A Brief Survey of German–East Asian Relations since 1945

In this brief outline of post-1945 German–East Asian relations, a key concept is the idea of bidirectional cultural flow. This is an important corrective to models of cultural flow in which only one direction of influence, from the center to the periphery, is analyzed. As described by Lynn Hunt, “globalization means interdependence (a two-way relationship), not simply the absorption of Western values (a one-way process).” Thus, scholarly cooperation between Western and non-Western specialists is necessary in order “to understand[ing] the jointly constructed process of globalization.”³ Despite the historical reality of bidirectional cultural flow, one often makes the mistake of exclusively examining short-term relationships, and thus only seeing a one-directional transmission of influence. But if one were to look from a long-term perspective, what at first appears as a one-way cultural flow is instead revealed to be bidirectional. This is why Thomas Adam differentiates intercultural transfer from concepts that show one-directional relationship such as “Europeanization, Americanization, and cultural diffusion,” because it sees “exchange processes always occur[ing] in both directions, if one considers a time frame of more than a century.”⁴ One of the best examples of bidirectional cultural transfer is the case of postwar German–East Asian relations. During the first half of their modern relationship, between the late nineteenth century and World War II, cultural transfer traveled mainly from the West/Germany to East Asia. Since 1945, however, cultural exchange has become increasingly bidirectional. A brief survey of their relationship from 1945 to the present reveals the process by which they have become equal partners.

When one looks at the post-1945 German–South Korean relationship, one immediately observes their common Cold War fates, as nations divided along ideological and political lines. Following the Korean War (1950–1953), the two countries reestablished their diplomatic relationship in 1955. South Korea, for its part, sought economic cooperation with the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG). More specifically, it pursued “German technology related to the utilization of natural resources,” seeing such technology transfer as “a type of German development aid.”⁵ Both countries “issued a protocol on economic and technical cooperation in 1961,” creating the framework for future FRG capital assistance to South Korea. When this assistance ended in 1982, South Korea had received “loans totaling 590 million Deutschmarks,” mainly for infrastructure. In addition, South Korea received “a number of commercial loans” from West Germany, mainly for industrial projects. By providing “as much as 17.5% of public credit” to South Korea in 1962–1965, the FRG played “an important role” in the Park military regime’s first five-year economic plan (1962–1966).⁶

Economic cooperation between the two countries deepened as a result of West Germany’s Gastarbeiter program. During the years 1963–1977, about 18,000 Korean nurses and miners were employed in West Germany. Because some did not return to Korea, they helped establish a sizable Korean population in Germany, which now numbers around 30,000. The Gastarbeiter program also helped the Korean economy, as these workers sent a significant percentage of their earnings back to Korea, “the equivalent of roughly 50 million US dollars” per year.⁷ The two countries’ good economic relations were, however, temporarily derailed because of the so-called East Berlin Affair. This refers to an incident in 1967 during which the Korean Central Intelligence Agency kidnapped a number of South Korean citizens from West German soil and returned them to Seoul without the knowledge of the West German government. These Koreans were charged with breaking South Korea’s national security laws related to contact with or visits to North Korea. One well-known victim of this state-orchestrated kidnapping was the Korean–German composer, Isang Yun (1917–1995), who was imprisoned from 1967 to 1969 and was only later released in response to a protest petition signed by some 200 leading Western artists. German–South Korean political relations, however, quickly normalized following visits by leaders on both sides. Foreign Minister Walter Scheel visited Seoul in 1970 to sign a German–Korean cultural agreement and an agreement establishing a vocational school in South Korea. He also helped secure the release of other abductees who were still imprisoned. In 1979, several high-level officials (Korea’s special envoy Kim Jong-Pil and the German federal minister for economic affairs Otto Graf Lambsdorff) visited each other’s country, further improving the relationship.⁸

Since 1990, national leaders have frequently made trips back and forth between the two countries. The German chancellors Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schröder, and Angela Merkel, as well as German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, have all visited South Korea. Conversely, all democratically elected South Korean presidents, including the current president Moon Jae-In, have visited Germany.⁹ Among these visits by Korean presidents to Germany, Kim Dae-Jung’s visit to Germany in March 2000 particularly stands out. He gave an address at the Freie University in Berlin, “Lessons of German Reunification and the Korean Peninsula,” in support of his so-called Sunshine Policy. As a result, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer decided to open diplomatic relations with North Korea in 2000. Similarly, Richard von Weizsäcker supported President Kim’s Sunshine Policy in a 2005 speech, in which he compared it to Willy Brandt’s successful Ostpolitik.¹⁰ Many South Koreans are still obsessed with the fall of the Berlin Wall two decades ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• 1 Historical Survey, Historiography, and Organization
• Part I Political and Social Connections since 1945
• Part II East Asian Transnational Communities since 1945
• Part III Literary Connections since 1945
• Part IV Filmic and Musical Connections since 1945
• List of Contributors
• Index