Nationalism in Asia

A History Since 1945

Jeff Kingston

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781118508190
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Australia y Oceanía

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

Part I
National Identity

1
The 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 ...