April 30, 2008...10:18 am
Interesting bickering
My wife brought up an interesting point while we were talking about nationalism in Asia. I like hearing her take on things as she’s a Korean living in Japan studying alongside Chinese. She feels that, based on China’s long history of power in Asia, many Chinese today still consider Korea and Japan as simply an extension of China. (This was true in the past as well, and is the reason we don’t call Japan “Wa”, because an old Chinese emperor wrote a letter to the “region” addressing it as “the origin of the sun” [日 - Sun; 本 - Origin]) According to her, they may make a remark along the lines of, “It’s all part of China, anyway!”
This immediately struck me as amusing! While in Korea or Japan (or nearly any other country in the world for that matter) fingers are being pointed and there are shouts claiming differences between “us” and “them”, Chinese nationalism subsumes the rest of Asia, and it’s not a matter of “us” and “them”, but instead, “who cares because you are us.” Needless to say, this claim is not innocent, and only further angers citizens of other nations trying to establish themselves as being different or even superior.
But that their nationalism is established backwards is an interesting concept. Instead of claiming the country stands out amongst the rest, the claim is that other countries are in fact all part of the same thing.
4 Comments
April 30, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Hey - interesting post. I studied Ancient and Modern Chinese history as part of my undergraduate major, and I can tell you - this goes back a long, long way. You can also see a sort of historic unique nationalism when China leaves multiparty talks when others refuse to acknowledge China with some sort of figurative “tribute.” China has always thought of itself as the center of the world, literally and figuratively. It’s really interesting to see that play out.
By the way, I’ve heard from others that Chinese populations overseas are also still considered parts of China. This is problematic in areas like Singapore, Canada, various places in South America, and whatnot. It seems that Chinese citizenship / nationality is not something that one can shirk regardless of repatriating elsewhere. From China’s point of view, anyway.
April 30, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Agreeing with Deas, I’d say that Chinese nationalism sort of stems from the old belief of China as a center of civilization and culture. Korea and Japan would be viewed as mere extensions of China because those countries borrowed a lot of their culture and language from China. Looking at the history of Chinese influence/dominance, some Chinese nationalists might feel that their country does stand out as superior to Japan and Korea. Becoming part of the Chinese “us,” is submitting to China’s superiority.
May 1, 2008 at 1:00 am
And then on top of that, the Han ethnic group seems to think it is and should be in charge.
May 2, 2008 at 8:15 pm
This is not limited to Korea and Japan, but extends to any land that has ever been under Chinese domination. So you see a lot of contention over border areas with India, Russia, Vietnam, etc. and the question of autonomy for Tibet and Taiwan. In fact, Taiwan has a pretty strong historical case for independence, a long past association with Japan for instance, but because Taiwan has in the past “paid the tribute” they are forever more “part of China.” Let that be a warning to the world.
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