The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia
Leo T. S. Ching
© 2019 Duke University Press.
https://archive.org/details/antijapanpolitic00chin
Anti-Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia 2019
by Leo T. S. Ching (Author)
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Although the Japanese empire rapidly dissolved following the end of World War II, the memories, mourning, and trauma of the nation's imperial exploits continue to haunt Korea, China, and Taiwan. In Anti-Japan Leo T. S. Ching traces the complex dynamics that shape persisting negative attitudes toward Japan throughout East Asia. Drawing on a mix of literature, film, testimonies, and popular culture, Ching shows how anti-Japanism stems from the failed efforts at decolonization and reconciliation, the Cold War and the ongoing U.S. military presence, and shifting geopolitical and economic conditions in the region.
At the same time, pro-Japan sentiments in Taiwan reveal a Taiwanese desire to recoup that which was lost after the Japanese empire fell.
Anti-Japanism, Ching contends, is less about Japan itself than it is about the real and imagined relationships between it and China, Korea, and Taiwan. Advocating for forms of healing that do not depend on state-based diplomacy, Ching suggests that reconciliation requires that Japan acknowledge and take responsibility for its imperial history.
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Editorial Reviews
"Anti-Japan is a timely analysis of the complex relationships among countries in East Asia as the political and economic power relationship in the region is rapidly reconstructed."―Linda Wang, International Social Science Review
“This creative, thought-provoking, and deeply insightful book speaks to multiple cross-disciplinary audiences, including specialists and general readers in East Asian history, culture, and politics. It would also be of interest to anyone interested in memory, postcolonial studies, nationalism, and postconflict resolution and reconciliation.”―Seo-Hyun Park, Journal of Asian Studies
“Leo Ching’s book Anti-Japan is a timely and relevant addition to the discussions surrounding the recent developments in Northeast Asia.”―Joon Oh, China Report
“This thought-provoking book will help readers reevaluate and contextualize various literary works, films, testimonies, music videos, video games, and other aspects of popular culture.... [T]his book provokes readers to reevaluate issues related to historical reconciliation in East Asia.”―Takashi Yoshida, Journal of Japanese Studies
“What Ching’s book does to set it apart from what is a fairly crowded field is to situate his analysis across the disciplinary boundaries of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and the burgeoning studies of affect and emotions.... This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book and deserves to be read widely.”―Caroline Rose, Pacific Affairs
Review
“Filled with innovative, unique, and sensitive insights, Anti-Japan offers a brilliantly crafted critique of nationalist responses to the incomplete decolonization of East Asia following World War II. Leo T. S. Ching interrogates the historicity and limits of these responses while painstakingly excavating the possibilities of reckoning with the violence and trauma produced by Japanese colonialism, imperialism, and militarism. Ching's work is transnational and postnationalist in the best sense.”
-- Takashi Fujitani, author of ― Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II
About the Author
Leo T. S. Ching is Associate Professor of Japanese and East Asian Cultural Studies at Duke University and author of Becoming "Japanese": Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation.
Product details
Publisher : Duke University Press Books; Illustrated edition (June 28, 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 176 pages
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Top reviews from the United States
Paul Barclay
5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging, learned, and sophisticated take on a very tough topicReviewed in the United States on April 21, 2021
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This book does an excellent job of putting the anti-Japanese protests in China of 2005 into a matrix of global cultural production. A patient and curious reader will learn much about the many intra-Asian and trans-Pacific frictions (and alliances) that hover around Anti-Japanism, through analyses and close readings of film, literature, and popular sentiment. I will keep returning to this volume for inspiration for how to think about history and memory in East Asia.
John July 19, 2021
A well written and important theoretical contribution, valuable for anyone working in East Asia studies, historical memory, international relations, or other related fields. The theory-heavy nature of the book makes it at least somewhat valuable for scholars of other regions.
One of the biggest advantages of this book is the length. At a slim 144 pages of text, this can be read in an afternoon or two, increasing the number of readers who would benefit from picking it up. Some of the theory may be a bit difficult for most undergrads though, unless accompanied with relevant lessons/background.
A gem of a book, strong recommend.
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Han-yu T.
1.0 out of 5 stars Good question yet terrible answers.....Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2020
The author doesn't answer the question in the book at all...
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ANTI-JAPAN: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia | By Leo T. S. Ching
Leo Ching has provided us with a welcome addition to the academic studies that focus on the ongoing tensions in East Asia relating to Japan’s imperial past and the legacy of conflict in the region. His key theme is anti-Japanism (in China and South Korea) contrasted with its constitutive Other pro-Japanism in Taiwan, arguing that anti-Japanism in East Asia is “the failure of decolonisation [and] … a manifestation of the changing geopolitical configuration of the region under the demands and strains of global capitalism” (3). The failure of decolonization itself is seen as a result of the post-Cold War context of American hegemony and a Japanese failure of de-imperialization (8). The anti-Japanism and pro-Japanism that has ensued represents the shifting of power relations in East Asia in the post-Cold War era today (15).
What Ching’s book does to set it apart from what is a fairly crowded field is to situate his analysis across the disciplinary boundaries of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and the burgeoning studies of affect and emotions. His case studies draw on a wide range of well-chosen cultural representations including film, literature, documentaries, and social media. In this way he offers a fresh and nuanced look at the complexities of anti- (and pro-) Japanese sentiments which so often dominate the political, social, and cultural agendas in the region.
The introduction charts the evolution of anti-Japanism in East Asia from its earliest manifestation in Korea and Taiwan in the late 1940s, through Hong Kong in the 1970s, to Chinese and South Korean protests over disputed islands and comfort women in the last decade or so. It also highlights the pro-Japanism in evidence in Taiwan, not just amongst the younger generation with their infatuation for Japanese popular culture, but also amongst the older dōsan generation, many of whom harbour a strong nostalgia for Japan. It then sets out the conceptual framework describing four distinctive attributes of anti-Japanism and pro-Japanism as narratives, performative acts, sentiments, and temporary fixes, which together allow for a range of positions on Japan. Thus, Ching notes that anti-Japanism is not static and while the form might be similar, “the content is often directed at local and present concerns that may or may not have anything to do with Japan” (14).
The chapters that follow consider different aspects of anti- and pro-Japanism starting with an analysis of the anti-American film Gojira and Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury in chapter 1, which serves to demonstrate the failure of decolonization in early postwar East Asia.
Chapter 2 considers the uses of the term Riben guizi, or “Japanese devils,” in Chinese popular culture, arguing that use of the term “performs an affective politics of recognition stemming from an ineluctable trauma of imperialist violence” (38).
Chapter 3 is a careful study of the sentiment of shame about sexual violence in the context of South Korean “comfort women,” analyzed through Byun Young-Joo’s documentary trilogy.
Moving on to Taiwan, chapter 4 explores the theme of nostalgia among the older generation of Taiwanese by analyzing recent Nihonjinron-style writings,
while chapter 5 takes a different tack and considers representations of love, or rather the “political concept of love” (100) through an analysis of four films (Gojira, Death by Hanging, Mohist Attack, and My Own Breathing) which Ching argues “offer glimpses of possibility for transnational and sub-national intimacies and affective belonging that transcend love of the nation and love of the same” (18).
Chapter 6 develops the argument about the potential for a different type of reconciliation: “reconciliation otherwise” (120). Using the novel Exceedingly Barbaric and the documentary film Finding Sayun, which offer different perspectives on two key historical events in Taiwan (the 1930 Musha Rebellion and the story of the Bell of Sayun), Ching outlines the possibilities of a non-state, transnational, inter-generational reconciliation. This point is further explored in the epilogue, which discusses the student-led protests in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan of 2014 and 2015. Ching suggests that these new movements “have the potential to forge transnational and regional political initiatives that can contribute to inter-Asian dialogue and activism” (133) through their shared characteristics, such as the importance of popular culture as a “common grammar,” concerns about the rise of China and the “general sense of precarity among young people in the region” (133).
Each chapter is carefully argued and the analysis is rigorous. I agree with the author that state-level reconciliation has fallen short, and that there is the “possibility of reconciliation without state intervention” (129)—indeed there were signs of this in the 1990s. But the reality of the situation at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century—with heightened tensions over the comfort women issue between Japan and South Korea and limited prospects of a deeper rapprochement between China and Japan—seems to have mitigated against substantive progress in that regard. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book and deserves to be read widely, not only by undergraduate and postgraduate students of the region, but by general readers looking for a perceptive and accessible insight into an important, timely, but complex topic.
Caroline Rose
University of Leeds, Leeds
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contents
Acknowledgments · ix
- Introduction. Anti- Japanism (and Pro- Japanism) in East Asia · 1
- one. When Bruce Lee Meets Gojira: Transimperial Characters, Anti- Japanism, Anti-Americanism, and the Failure of Decolonization · 19
- two. “Japanese Devils”: The Conditions and Limits of Anti-Japanism in China · 36
- three. Shameful Bodies, Bodily Shame: “Comfort Women” and Anti- Japanism in South Korea · 57
- four. Colonial Nostalgia or Postcolonial Anxiety: The Dōsan Generation In- Between “Retrocession” and “Defeat” · 80
- five. “In the Name of Love”: Critical Regionalism and Co-Viviality in Post East Asia · 98
- six. Reconciliation Otherwise: Intimacy, Indigeneity, and the Taiwan Difference · 115
- Epilogue. From Anti-Japanism to Decolonizing Democracy: Youth Protests in East Asia · 132
Notes · 143
References · 153
Index · 161
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反日: 東アジアにおける感情の政治 Tankobon Hardcover – August 11, 2021
by レオ・チン (著), 倉橋 耕平 (翻訳), 趙 相宇 (翻訳), & 3 more
4.6 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
日本はなぜ恨まれるのか?
近年アジアで繰り返された「反日デモ」を見るたびに、多くの日本人はこう感じたのではなかったか。「なぜいまだに我々は憎まれるのか」?と。本書はその要因を、戦後日本の脱植民地主義の失敗と、グローバル資本主義による東アジアの成長、そしてそれらの事態に対する日本社会の徹底的な無知にみる。台湾に生まれ、日本で育った著者が、東アジア全域をフィールドに日本への複雑な感情を多様な切り口で描き出し、対話と和解への道を探る。
「日本がなすべきことは、東アジアの和解と未来に向けた対話を始めるために、脱帝国化のプロセスに真摯に取り組むことである。それは、反日・親日主義に向き合うことに他ならない。」(本書より) ◎
目次
序章 東アジアの反日主義(と親日主義)
第1章 ブルース・リーとゴジラが出会う時
――帝国横断的なキャラクター、反日主義、反米主義、脱植民地化の失敗
第2章 「日本鬼子」
――中国における反日主義の条件とその限界
第3章 恥辱の身体、身体の恥辱
――「慰安婦」と韓国の反日主義
第4章 植民地時代へのノスタルジーまたはポストコロニアル時代の不安
――「光復」と「敗北」のはざまにいるドーサン世代
第5章 “愛という名のもとに"
――批判的地域主義とポスト東アジアの共生
第6章 もうひとつの和解
――親密性、先住民族性、そして台湾の異相
エピローグ 反日主義から脱植民地デモクラシーへ
――東アジアにおける若者の抗議運動
276 pages
著者について
レオ・チン
Leo T.S. Ching 荊子馨/1962年台北生まれ。カリフォルニア大学サンディエゴ校にてPh.D取得。現在、デューク大学アジア・中東研究学部教授。訳書に『ビカミング〈ジャパニーズ〉 植民地台湾におけるアイデンティティ形成のポリティクス』(菅野敦志訳、勁草書房)。
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倉橋耕平(くらはし・こうへい)
1982年生まれ。関西大学大学院社会学研究科博士後期課程修了。博士(社会学)。創価大学文学部准教授。『歴史修正主義とサブカルチャー 90年代保守言説のメディア文化』(青弓社)、『教養としての歴史問題』(共著、東洋経済新報社)など。
趙 相宇(ちょ・さんう)
1993年ソウル生まれ。京都大学大学院教育学研究科教育学環専攻博士後期課程修了。博士(教育学)。立命館大学産業社会学部特任助教。「3・1節の周年報道における対日感情の検討」(『京都大学大学院教育学研究科紀要』第65号)、「3・1節と8・15光復節の報道史」(『マス・コミュニケーション研究』第96号)など。
永冨 真梨(ながとみ・まり)
1979年生まれ。同志社大学大学院グローバル・スタディーズ研究科博士後期課程修了。博士(アメリカ研究)。摂南大学外国語学部外国語学科講師。「日中戦争開始前後の日本における周縁的男性像―灰田勝彦のカウボーイソング「いとしの黒馬よ」を例として」(『戦争社会学研究』第3巻)、「Remapping Country Music in the Pacific: Country Music and Masculinities in Post-War Japan, 1945–56」(『Journal of Popular Music Studies』 32 (2))など。
比護 遥(ひご・はるか)
1996年生まれ。京都大学大学院教育学研究科博士後期課程在籍、日本学術振興会特別研究員。『チャイニーズ・タイプライター』(訳書、トーマス・マラニー著、中央公論新社)、「抗戦期中国の読書と動員」(『現代中国研究』第45号)など。
輪島 裕介(わじま・ゆうすけ)
1974年生まれ。東京大学大学院人文社会系研究科博士後期課程修了。博士(文学)。大阪大学大学院文学研究科教授。『創られた「日本の心」神話』(光文社新書)、『踊る昭和歌謡』(NHK出版新書)など。
Product Details
Publisher : 人文書院 (August 11, 2021)
Publication date : August 11, 2021
Language : Japanese
Tankobon Hardcover : 276 pages
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Beka
5.0 out of 5 stars 興味深く読みました。Reviewed in Japan on November 1, 2021
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東アジアの第二次世界大戦後の感情の流れが、興味深く、面白かったです。特に、戦後日本の特殊な心性の分析が興味深かったですね。
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Acknowledgments
In August 2017, four Chinese men dressed in Second World War Japanese military uniforms posed at the Continental Bank Warehouse in Shanghai where Chinese troops fought the Japanese imperial army in 1937. In February 2018, two different men, also in Japanese military garb, struck various poses in front of a memorial site on Zijin Mountain in Nanjing where Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese army, also in 1937. The images went viral and predictably garnered strong and mostly negative reactions from netizens and unleashed a flood of criticisms against these youths in both mainstream and new media. The situation has escalated to the extent that China’s top legislative body, citing the Zijin case as an example, is proposing a “heroes and martyrs protection law” to punish people who “glorify wars or acts of invasion.” Even the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, joined the fray by calling them “scums among the Chinese people” (Huang 2018). What upsets the netizens and politicians alike, I surmise, is not only that these men dressed up as Japanese soldiers but also that they deliberately posed in front of memorial sites of Japanese aggression and Chinese resistance that formed the foundation of postwar anti- Japanism.
The uproar caused by these incidents also inspired a new neologism in cyberspace: jing- ri (精日), literally, “spiritually Japanese,” an abbreviation of jing- shen- ribenren, or Chinese people who identify themselves spiritually with the Japanese. The premise is that these misguided youths’ minds have been contaminated by Japan and, more importantly, they lacked proper understanding of Sino- Japanese history. The term is widely debated on Chinese websites, especially in relation to another term, ri- za (日杂), or “Japanized mongrel.” To many, the two phrases represent different degrees of affinity with Japan: the latter is a more radical or extreme form of the former. What is striking but unsurprising in the media coverage and online discussions of these incidents is the resort to normative nationalist discourse of collective shaming and the blame of historical amnesia. Two decades of state- led patriotic education and countless anti- Japanese tv dramas certainly couldn’t have anticipated the emergence of these jing- ri or ri- za elements in Chinese society!
The emergence of these acts and their accompanying neologisms, this book will argue, represent a shift of geopolitics whereby modern/colonial Japanese hegemony is giving way to the rise of China. This transimperial moment also signals the complete incorporation of China into global capitalism and the growing influence of Japanese popular culture despite official censorship and bans. The shift of global hegemony is always uneven, contradictory, and, at times, violent. While China has overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy, its cultural influence, especially in the realm of popular culture, lags far behind Cool Japan and the Korean Wave. It is noteworthy that some of the jing- ri offenders first tried out their Japanese uniforms in an animation convention where cosplaying well- known anime characters is a major part of fandom all over the world today. We should also attend to the prevalent new mediascape that continues to blur the line between virtuality and reality and the desire to seek attention and confirmation via multiple social media platforms. In a WeChat post attributed to one of the alleged cosplayers in front of the Warehouse in Shanghai, he describes in detail their successful “mission” and the “thrill” of photographing in the location at night before the watchful eyes of bystanders (Cao 2018).
The emergence of the jing- ri discourse certainly complicates the dominant anti- Japanism in Chinese society today. When I taught a session about popular culture in East Asia at Duke Kunshan University in spring 2017, I was surprised by the Chinese students’ familiarity and fluency with Japanese (and Korean) popular culture. They not only find ways to hop over the great firewall of China, but they also find much of Japanese popular culture translated and mediated through Taiwan and Hong Kong. Many of them are jing- ri but not in the spiritual definition of the word, but, as in its other meanings, to be skilled or proficient, in things about Japan. Howx Acknowledgments
ever, when I asked some of these students if there’s another anti- Japan protest, what would they do, many of them said they will, without hesitation, march on the streets. These students clearly separate consumption from identity: consuming Japanese commodities and culture does not mean that they are becoming Japanese. The reaction to the Japanese military cosplay and the students’ maneuvering between consumption and activism point to both the limits and relevance of nationalism today. Pro- and anti- Japanism need to be apprehended in their complexity, contradictions, and particular historical conjunctures. It is this messiness of the transimperial moment that the book is trying to address.
I began tracking anti- Japan demonstrations in the spring of 2005, largely due to personal reasons. I was making preliminary plans to take my then seven- year- old son to visit my father’s grave in Dandong, just outside of Shenyang city in northeastern China. It would have been my wife and son’s first trip to my father’s hometown. I visited there with my mother for the first time in 1988 to bring over his remains after he passed away in Japan. It was a trip of great importance to my mother, who still lives in Japan and has since remarried a Japanese man. It has always bothered her that while she and I had made occasional visits, her grandson has never met his long- distance relatives. Our plan brought her much joy and excitement. The only decision needed to be made was whether we would go through Japan first and travel together or simply meet up with her in China.
Then came the April anti- Japan demonstrations.
As the protests spread across several cities and amassed tens of thousands of people, anxious phone calls from my mother came more frequently. When a good-sized demonstration took place in Shenyang on April 17, 2005, my mother pressed the panic button and announced that the trip was off. She simply did not think it was safe for us to travel to China, despite my assurance that the protests would subside by the time we arrived and the obvious fact that we are not Japanese. She was not convinced. Images of violence and fury transmitted through the television screen were too vivid and immediate for her. My stepfather, a man who has experienced both the impoverishment of war defeat and the abundance of postwar economic growth, was obviously disturbed and perturbed by the demonstrations. He asked me on the phone incredulously: “Why do they still hate us? The war has long been over. Japan is a peace- loving country now. Why are they still so angry?”
The protests had subsided almost completely by the end of April. We, however, decided to postpone our travel until the summer. My stepfather’s seemingly genuine and naïve query, however, remained with me: “Why do they hate us?” “Why do they hate us?” has reverberation in the post- 9/11 American consciousness. In an interesting way, anti- Japanism and anti- Americanism converge on the question of identity and difference, us and them. For George W. Bush, “they” are simply haters of freedom and democracy; for Koizumi Jun’ichirō, “they” are merely Japan bashers who intend to endanger bilateral relations. For both leaders, “they” become an incommensurable difference that only serves to reconsolidate the self- assured identity of the “us.” What is lacking is any attempt at self- reflexivity on how the other is constituted through the actions of the self. Despite the myopia and ignorance of the political leaders, “Why do they hate us?” as an emotive response to anti- Japanism and anti- Americanism can become a crucial point of departure for critical thinking. Once we can shed the self- pity and innocence implied in the question “Why do they hate us?” we can move toward the politics of reconciliation.
It is impossible to acknowledge all the people who have provided opportunities for me to share some of the ideas presented in this book. I am grateful for their advice, criticism, and support. I thank the late Nancy Abelmann, Yan Hairong, Robert Tierney, Masamichi Inoue, Douglas Shoemaker, Shu- mei Shih, Katsu Endo, Cody Poulton, Richard King, the late Arif Dirlik, Kuan- Hsing Chen, Chua Beng Huat, Tomiyama Ichirō, Komagome Takeshi, Itagaki Ryūta, Soyoung Kim, Huang Mei- er, Ping hui Liao, Michael Bourdaghs, Ya- chung Chuang, Mariam B. Lam, Younghan Cho, John Treat, Lila Kurnia, Hyunjung Lee, Michael Berry, Rob Wilson, and many others. I thank both Reynolds Smith for helping me to clarify my thinking and writing and Ken Wissoker for his unwavering support and guidance. And I offer my gratitude to the two anonymous readers for their critical engagement and patience.
Part of chapter 2 was previously published in Sino- Japanese Transculturation: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the End of the Pacific War, ed. Richard King, Cody Poulton, and Katsuhiko Endo (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012); portions of chapter 4 and chapter 6 have appeared in Cultural Studies 26, no. 5 (2012) and boundary 2 45, no. 3 (2018), respectively.
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Introduction. Anti- Japanism (and Pro- Japanism) in East Asia
An early scene from Bodyguards of the Last Governor (1996; dir. Alfred Cheung), a satire on the impending 1997 handover of Hong Kong to mainland China, depicts a night rally against Japan. The outgoing British governor with his family in the motorcade is startled by the noise of a commotion. The camera pans across a crowd of seated protesters listening to a speech by a Hong Kong politician. Waving signs that read “Down with Japanese Militarism!” and “Diaoyu Islands Belong to China!” and repeating the politician’s chants of “Boycott Japanese goods!” and “Down with Japanese imperialism!” the crowd is orderly and enthusiastic. Amid the bustle, Lugo, who will become one of the bodyguards for the British- anointed last governor as a parting joke, shouts down the names of popular Japanese celebrities in 1990s Hong Kong, such as Kimura Takuya and Miyazaki Rie, and gives a satisfying grin to his wife sitting next to him. The camera then cuts to the politician who is now offstage. A female aide comes to his side and says that he must be tired and offers him some sushi for sustenance, of which he gladly partakes. The politician gets back on the stage and urges the crowd to toss away any clothing that is made in Japan. As others hurl away their socks, shoes, and so forth, Lugo’s wife reminds him that she bought his shirt at Sogo, the local Japanese department store. He haughtily takes it off and throw it away with glee. Beaming with excitement and crassly eyeing the bosoms of other female protesters, Lugo seizes the opportunity and cheers, “Those who are wearing Japanese underwear, throw them away!” Somewhat caught off gu ard by Lugo’s fervor, his wife
whispers to him and asks if she should take hers off too. Lugo hovers over her, as if to protect her from other prying eyes, and sheepishly utters, “No need for that, no need for that.”
Bodyguards of the Last Governor belongs to the Hong Kong cinema genre that is replete with crass inside jokes, political satire, and local references. The anti- Japanese scene described above, however, poignantly reveals the duality of “Japan” in postwar East Asia: Japan as former military violence and Japan as postwar economic and cultural desire. References to militarism and the disputed islands point to the unresolved historical trauma suffered by the Chinese people at the hands of the Japanese imperialists. The cry to boycott Japanese goods refers to the economic and cultural expansionism of postwar Japan in the region and beyond. The waves of anti- Japan banners allow the protesters (and film spectators) to easily draw a single line connecting Japan’s prewar political imperialism with its postwar new imperialism. However, the diegesis of the scenes described above refuses this facile and nationalistic reading of anti- imperialism. The references to sushi and Japan- made underwear, not to mention other Japanese commodities not featured in the film, only accentuate the pervasiveness of Japanese cultural penetration (as with other globalizing forces) into the lives and onto the bodies of the Hong Kongers, even as they fiercely protest against Japan.
The disjuncture between political demand and cultural acceptance in the film’s anti- Japan sequence renders visible the definitive form of anti- Japanism in postwar Asia: it is a paradox that defies simple definition and that is simultaneously about and not about “Japan.” The protest tells us less about the actually existing “Japan” than the context of “Hong Kong” in which anti- Japanism conjures certain desire and fantasy about the putative notion of Japan. In its most direct form, anti- Japanism is a criticism of Japan’s imperialist legacy and its reluctance to come to terms with that past and to accept its responsibilities with sincere apologies and proper redress. In its rallying and allegorical capacity to take Japan as an object of derision, anti- Japanism reveals much about domestic conditions in places such as Hong Kong, South Korea, or China. The film, after all, is a satirical displacement of the anxiety over the 1997 handover, and the anti- Japan scene can be interpreted as a mocking of the fickleness of political commitments among the Hong Kongers. But we must also ask: why do social anxieties and political concerns in postcolonial East Asia take the form of anti- Japanism? As I will argue here, anti- Japanism in East Asia is a symptom of unsettled historical trauma of the Japanese empire and its legacy. Or, in short, it is the failure of decolonization, on the one hand and, on the other hand, also a manifestation of the changing geopolitical configuration of the region under the demands and strains of global capitalism. The unilateral dominance of Japan in the region since the Meiji period is giving ways to more multilateral, and more contentious, relations to other East Asian nations, especially in the context of the rise of China.
Anti- Japanism in East Asia At a talk given at Duke University on book banning, the famed author Yan Lianke made a humorous remark on the absurdity of censorship in contemporary China. According to Yan, despite the plethora of conflicts with foreigners in modern Chinese history — the British come to mind immediately, but also Russians and Americans — only one such conflict, the Second Sino- Japanese War (1937 – 45), is allowed, and even encouraged, to be produced for public consumption in Chinese media, especially around the National Day. These anti- Japanese shows are so prevalent that Yan and his friends often joked that the number of Japanese characters killed in one year in Chinese films and tv dramas would amount to the entire population of Japan (127 million)! Yan has, however, seriously underestimated the number of Japanese casualties: of the two hundred or so tv dramas aired during prime time on all Chinese satellite channels in 2012, seventy were about the Second Sino- Japanese wars or spy wars. In Hengdian World Studio, the largest film studio in Asia, located in Zhejiang province, it is estimated that seven hundred million “Japanese soldiers” died at the hands of Chinese patriots that year alone!1
Anti- Japanism is neither new nor exclusive to East Asia. In the United States, for instance, there has been a long history of anti- Japan movements: immigration exclusion acts in the early 1900s, internment camps of Japanese Americans and anti- Japan mobilization during the Second World War, and Japan bashing in the 1980s. What is arguably common among all anti- Japanism in the United States is the fear of the Other manifested through racism, be it the threat of Japan as a competing imperialist power (after the Russo- Japanese War) or as an economic rival (after the Plaza Accord). For the United States, and perhaps for Europe as well, anti- Japanism arises when “Western” hegemony is threatened by the real or perceived rise of Japan, a non- Western, nonwhite empire. Anti- Japanism in East Asia requires a different interpretation and historicization than that of the United States although racism within Asia is growing amid mounting political tensions.
To begin, we need to distinguish at least two forms of anti- Japanism: “resist- Japan” (抗日) and “anti- Japan” (反日) in East Asia. “Resist Japan” is widely used in mainland China and the Sinophone world to convey the efforts and success of Chinese struggle against Japanese imperialism, especially during the eight- year “war of resistance” (1937 – 45). “Anti- Japanism” is a decidedly postwar phenomenon that saw its emergence in the immediate postwar years. Anti- Japanism was mobilized in newly “liberated” former colonies, such as Korea and Taiwan, for the building of political power to unify the “nation.”2 With the end of the Korean War and the consolidation of the Cold War structure in East Asia, anti- Japanism was soon replaced by anti- Communism and the imposition of martial laws in both countries. In the early 1970s, concomitant with Japanese economic expansionism into Southeast Asia and America’s decision to “return” the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands to Japan as part of the Ryūkyū/Okinawa reversion in 1972, anti-Japanese movements erupted in the region: the Malari Incident of 1974 and the Protest Diaoyu Island movements, for example.3 Anti- Japanism in the 1970s was a diasporic and transpacific movement led mainly by students from Hong Kong and Taiwan in the United States (Wang 2013). Anti- Japanism took on the form of a Chinese cultural nationalism with Bruce Lee as its filmic symbolic icon (see chapter 1). China, ironically, was not part of the first wave of postwar anti- Japanese movements. Lee’s films were banned from mainland China until the 1980s. The Communist regime was insisting on building bilateral relations with the Japanese as the two nations reestablished diplomatic relations in 1972. The early 1970s also saw the dissipation of the postwar 1960s antisecurity treaty and peace movement in Japan and coincided with Japan’s growing confidence and reentrance into the capitalist market without opposition in the region. It is therefore not a coincidence that Jon Halliday and Gavan McCormack’s Japanese Imperialism Today: “Co- prosperity in Greater East Asia,” was published in 1974, signaling a “return” of Japanese capital to its former empire as it shifted its lower- end manufacturing facilities to other developing nations in Asia.
Anti- Japanism gained momentum in the early 1980s with an economically confident Japan attempting to revise history textbooks by whitewashing its imperialist aggressions. In August 1991, Kim Hak- Soon, a former “comfort woman,” publicly testified about her experience as a sexual slave under the Japanese military during the Second World War and filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. Her “coming out” radically challenged the masculinist, patriarchal, and nationalist suppression and denial of sexual violence between the Korean and Japanese governments in the postwar years. Amid the Japanese government’s continued eschewal and abrogation, weekly Wednesday protests by former comfort women and their supporters are, to this day, held in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.
Another contentious issue that elicits strong anti- Japanese sentiments is memories and contention over the Nanking Massacre. The atrocity was tacitly acknowledged but strategically suppressed by the postwar governments of China, Japan, and the United States. It was not until the publications of Travels in China (1972) by the Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi, and The Rape of Nanking (1997) by the Chinese- American writer Iris Chang, that this historical event became politicized, especially in the 2000s with Japanese neoconservatives’ repudiation and Chinese insistence on their own victimization (Yoshida 2006).
In 2005, massive protests against Japan erupted throughout major cities in China. The protesters cited the Japanese government’s ambition to join the UN Security Council and former prime minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō’s continued visit to the Yasukuni Shrine that deified the Japanese war dead (and subjects of Japanese empire) as signs of a lack of remorse and reflection on the history of Japanese aggression as reasons for their outrage. Tensions between China and Japan have since continued unabated, as witnessed by the more violent Chinese protests in 2012 and by China’s own ambition to establish hegemony, including territorial claims that extend beyond East Asia to Southeast Asia. The cursory and selective account is to situate anti- Japanism within its historical conditions of possibility and its pattern of emergence, eruption and ebbing since the 1970s. It is also important to differentiate popular and official anti- Japanism although they are imbricated and implicated in ways that are difficult to separate completely. The comfort women’s demand for redress and reparation, based on years of denial and shaming, is qualitatively different from the Korean state’s own suppression and instrumental usage of anti- Japanism for its political gains, for example. However, the Korean government has no qualms about appropriating the plight of the comfort women for its political tussle with Japan. Similarly, the comfort women and their supporters often resort to nationalist discourse for their confrontation with the Japanese state.
As mentioned above, it is important to differentiate the various phrases used to describe both adverse and favorable feelings toward Japan. The range of these vocabularies not only differentiates Asian sentiments toward Japan from the West, but also charts the shifting nuances of “Japan” in Asia from empire to Cool Japan. Besides “resist Japan” and “anti- Japan” (mentioned earlier), there is “hate Japan” (仇日), which is used to describe the hatred for Japan as a sickness, an extreme condition of hostility, like an archenemy. Then there’s something like “repel Japan” (排日), which is mostly used during legal contexts of exclusion of Japanese immigration. Anti- Japanism has its constitutive Other in pro- Japanism or sentiments favoring Japan. This seemingly oppositional pair are interdependent and in fact share a similar fantasy or desire about some ideas of “Japan.” “Pro- Japan” (親日) has the sense of being intimate with Japan and is usually used by anti- Japanese nationalists when condemning those who collaborated with Japanese rule and who, by definition, betrayed the nation. This is particularly sensitive and incriminating in the postcolonial Korean context, where the chinilpai, or factions that collaborated with Japanese rule, are still being prosecuted today (Kwon 2015). In the Chinese context, those who conspired with the Japanese imperialists are simply called “betrayer of the Han race” (漢奸) or “running dogs” (走狗), signifying the centrality of the Chinese race and reducing abettors to subhumans. “Worship Japan” (崇日) denotes Japanophiles who harbor sentiments of reverence toward Japan, usually disparagingly referring to the Taiwanese preference for Japan over mainland China. In recent years, two terms, “loving Japan” (哈日) and “deep affection for Japan” (萌日), are deployed to characterize younger generations’ preference and addiction for Japanese popular culture in Taiwan and mainland China, respectively. What is significant in the new generations’ infatuation with Japanese popular culture is not only that it provides another option of consumption from American- dominant pop culture under global capitalism, but also that it signifies the increasing co- evalness among Asian youth and creating a transnational community of fandom that has the potential to transcend the parochialism and nationalism marred by previous generations’ personal and secondary experience of Japanese colonialism and imperialism.
Anti- Japanism and Americanism Bodyguards of the Last Governor’s parodic juxtaposition of “Japan” as both violence and desire is akin to what Yoshimi Shun’ya has argued about the presence of “America” in postwar Japan and Asia (Yoshimi and Buist 2003). Analyzing “America” from a region- wide context (but mainly focusing on Japan) from the perspective of people’s everyday consciousness, Yoshimi makes two important observations regarding postwar geopolitics in Asia: first, that the United States has displaced, replaced, and subsumed the Japanese empire in the region in the Cold War era. The American Occupation and policymakers have collaborated with the conservative Japanese government in making Japan the “economic” hub of Asia, reversing its original plan of radical demilitarization and democratization. Second, the geopolitical calculus of rehabilitating Japan as an economic pivot in the transpacific alliance — as part of a project to construct an anti- Communist bloc — created a division of labor among the Asian nations. Okinawa, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines bear the burden of large American military functions and installations. Meanwhile mainland Japan concentrated on economic development. As a result, according to Yoshimi, two “Americas” began to emerge on mainland Japan in the late 1950s: the America of violence, mainly surrounding military installations; and the America of desire, a model of middle- class lifestyle and consumption (Yoshimi and Buist 2003: 439). In postwar Asia and Japan, Yoshimi argues, “America” prohibits, seduces, and fragments. Hence, anti- Americanism and pro- Americanism are not binary oppositions but are intertwined, interdependent and intersecting in complicated and, at times, contradictory ways.
The “embrace” between America and Japan assured that America would be the sole inheritor of the Japanese empire. American postwar hegemony is a reconstruction of the Japanese empire that existed until the end of the war. The transfiguration of Japanese imperial order from wartime to postwar under America’s watch not only exonerated American violence during the war, but also obfuscated Japanese imperialism and colonialism in Asia. The symbol of this mutual “conditional forgiveness,” to borrow the phrase from Jacques Derrida (2001), is none other than the cenotaph erected at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, which reads “Please rest in peace, for the error shall not be repeated.” As Oda Makoto and others have argued, the ambiguity of the subject in the Japanese language does not specify who is responsible for the “error” (Tanaka 2007). Furthermore, if it was the Japanese, then they are compelled to apologize for a crime they did not commit, consequently absolving America’s crime of dropping the bombs. More symbolically for the Japanese empire in Asia, the Peace Center and the Memorial Park were commissioned to Tange Kenzō, who also designed the Commemorative Building Project for the Construction of Greater East Asia in 1942. The project was supposed to monumentalize the notorious concept of the Greater East Asian Co- Prosperity Sphere, the Japanese imperialist vision of regional unity to counter the West. The stylistic origin of the Memorial Park can be traced back to almost an identical ground plan for the Commemorative Building Project (Starrs 2001: 173). The connection and transformation between wartime and postwar can also be discerned in the construction of the Nagasaki Peace Park. The heiwa- kinen- zō, or peace statue, a massive masculine figure, was commissioned to a local sculptor, Kitamura Seibō, and completed in 1955. Kitamura was a member of the Imperial Art Association during the Asia/Pacific war. He had produced statues of military figures, and all were muscled, large, and combative. For example, he created the statue of Terauchi Misatake, who was instrumental in the annexation of the Korean Peninsula in 1910. The selection of Kitamura’s peace statue represents somewhat of a comeback of not only Kitamura’s career, but also his insistence of producing masculine military figures (now rearticulated as pacifism). Many of Kitamura’s wartime statues were either torn down, removed, or replaced by “feminine” figures that represent postwar pacifism (Otsuki 2016: 409). The Nagasaki Peace Statue then can be read as the recuperation of masculinity in postwar Japan as peace and democracy rather than war and militarism.
The transition, from empire to subimperialism, is not a continuation of the same, but is a reconfiguration of imperial and wartime militarism to postwar pacifism and democracy. In short, war defeat replaced decolonization (or deimperialization in Chen Kuan- Hsing’s usage [2010]) and the possibility of postcolonial reflexivity. It is in this postwar Cold War context of American hegemony and a Japanese failure of deimperialization that framed and hence inhibited the process of decolonization in the former Japanese empire. Unlike French or British where decolonization often accompanied violent struggles for independence, the end of the Japanese empire was a result of war defeat and was followed by the Cold War. If, in Japan, democracy and demilitarization replaced or hijacked the process of deimperialization, in the former colonies, postwar settlement and nationalist recuperation replaced decolonization as a radical political and cultural process. The lack of deimperialization of Japan and the decolonization of Japan’s former empire sowed the seeds of anti- Japanism in Asia that began to sprout in the early 1970s and continue to grow to this day. It is in the context of the Cold War suspension or obfuscation that Chen Kuan- Hsing calls for the simultaneous processes of deimperialization (for the former colonizer), decolonization (for the former colonized) and de – Cold War (for everyone) in East Asia and beyond (2010).
Asia’s Anti-Japanism and Japan’s Anti- Americanism Anti- Japanism finds its corollary in ethnonationalism. In this regard, anti- Japanism produces similar effects both outside and inside Japan in fanning nationalistic sentiments and operating through the binary discourse of “us” and “them.” Just like Japan’s anti- Americanism, Asia’s anti- Japanism, for the neoconservatives, is closely linked to nationalism and cultural solipsism. For the Japanese neoconservatives, anti- Americanism and anti- Japanism converge on the ways Japan was deformed and disfigured by its forcible transformation into a client status, inaugurating what has come to be known as the “long postwar” that the Japanese have been living since 1945. As a result, they seek to revitalize “Japanism” to counter Americanism and Asia’s anti- Japanism. Yamano Sharin, the author of the infamous manga Kenkanryū (Hating the Korean wave) (2005), calls anti- Japanism a “sickness.” Nishimura Kohyu, the journalist, considers anti- Japanism a “magma” that is erupting. Nishimura argues in The Structure of Anti- Japan (2012) that, in order for the Japanese to overcome “anti- Japanism,” they must begin by searching for the identity of Japan and the Japanese (17). This is to be done, according to Nishimura, by returning to history, culture, and tradition from a “linear” perspective. The reason that the Japanese do not possess a linear sense of history, he argues, is because of its war defeat and has been “ruled by the historical perspective that the past was evil” (19). The culprit of this truncated conceptualization of history is the American Occupation and those Japanese who embraced defeat and complied with policies from the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. Seven years and eight months of the occupation created a “blank of history” that severed historical continuity between the pre- and postwar generations. Nishimura then presses for the return of “autonomy” to Japan. He cites John Dower and Herbert Bix’s books as a continuation of American hegemony over Japan (20).4
After identifying the American Occupation as being responsible for Japan’s “nonlinear” historical consciousness, Nishimura turns to Asia and anti- Japanism. He places the “prototype” of anti- Japanism in 1982 when Chinese and Koreans protested against Japan’s textbook revisions. He sees the “structure of anti- Japanism” forming at this moment when Japanese leftists and media colluded with Asian nationalists in criticizing Japan (23). It is noteworthy that Nishimura uses the word “prototype” with anti- Japanism and locates its emergence only in the early 1980s. As I discussed above, one can trace the emergence of anti- Japanism in postwar East Asia as early as 1948 and definitely by the early 1970s. Nishimura seems to have developed a similar historical amnesia that he accuses others of having. Nishimura argues that anti- Japanism is endangering the Japanese identity that linked the Japanese people to the emperor and the imperial family (26). Along with the Greater East Asian War and the Nanjing Incident (his phrase), Nishimura cites the criticism of the imperial household as one of the attempts by the Chinese and Japanese leftists to destroy Japanese “memory.” For neoconservatives like Nishimura and others, anti-Japanism is an extension, if not an amplification, of Americanism that severs Japan from its history, culture, and the imperial system. Instead of embracing anti-Japanism in a self- reflexive way, the anger of the Asian neighbors simply rekindles the desire to reestablish Japan as a “normal” nation freed from its “masochist” view of history. To this extent, anti- Japanism becomes an alibi, an opportunity, to voice the conservatives’ long- standing anti- Americanism. Anti- Japanism and anti- Americanism coalesce in the form of reconstituting Japanism.
Anti- Japanism, Anti- Americanism, and Post – East Asia
The 2005 anti- Japan demonstration in China prompted many in Japan to ask a similar question in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in the United States: “Why do they hate us?” The question in itself is innocent enough. Yet it belies its simplicity as a rhetoric of feigned denial. The question works like a floating signifier, whereby different and competing answers or perspectives can be posited, debated, redefined, and related, depending on one’s political persuasion and worldview. Furthermore, the question also assumes a binary between a purported incommensurable “they” and “us” and the irreconcilable self- definition and foreign (mis)perception.
The images of the 2005 spring protests shocked the Japanese public in two ways. First, there was a general disbelief that Japan and the Japanese could be so despised by others. The issues of Japanese invasion and war responsibilities did not often sink in immediately. Rather, they appeared anachronistic, as if belonging to another era to another people. Second, people were bewildered at the modern cityscapes and rapid development seen on the news, which were utterly unthinkable due to the conventional image of China as backward and underdeveloped. In short, there was a gap between seeing and believing. As Mizoguchi Yūzō (2005) has pointed out, this disjuncture or gap between the actually existing China and Japan’s idea of China points to the historical fact that Japan does not have a shared experience with the global south and that Japan’s conceptualization of Asia, which is vital in its modern/colonial self- definition, is utterly out of date. Mizoguchi periodizes two moments of modernity: the first half from 1850 to 1950, and the second half from 1950 to 2050. There might be some problem with this periodization, but Mizoguchi’s point is that Japan’s conceptualization of Asia remains in that of the first half of modernity while the real Asia is far along toward the second half of modernity. In short, anti- Japanism points to the limit of modern Japanese thought on Asia. The modern/colonial framework that enabled Japan’s self- identity vis- à- vis the West and Asia is no longer feasible in grasping the fast- changing condition of globality. For the East Asian left, anti- Japanism also rekindles the question of Americanism. For scholars like Chen Kuan- Hsing, Sun Ge, and Baik Youngseo (2006), a “post – East Asia” world is only possible with the end of the American military presence as its premise. Inter- referencing among Asian peoples, or what Chen calls Asia as method, requires the de- Americanization in the region since the conceptualization of East Asia is itself an American invention in the Cold War period, as we have seen earlier. If modern/colonial East Asia is constituted primarily through Japanese imperialism and American neocolonialism, linking anti- Japanism and anti- Americanism might enable us to radically reconfigure and reconceptualize the region beyond the Japanese and American imaginary.
The Form of Anti- Japanism (and Pro- Japanism)
I want to suggest that anti- Japanism consists of at least four distinctive but interrelated sets of attributes: (1) a set of competing claims and narratives about Japan or, more precisely, the “idea” of Japan; (2) a set of performative acts and representations; (3) a set of emotions and sentiments; and (4) a set of temporary fixes to political, economic, and social crises. First, anti- Japanism is an exaggerated version of ideas, traits, and postures about Japan that are believed to be quite distinct from those of other cultures or countries. From “Japanese devils” to “economic animals,” negative images of Japan are first conjured as violating national sovereignty and sanctity. The claims can range from Japan’s refusal to come to terms with its imperialist past to Japan’s economic influence over domestic markets. Pro- Japanese sentiments also share similar, albeit favorable, hyperbolic representations of Japan. This does not mean that these claims are false or nonexistent, but that they are amplified, partial truths.5
Second, anti- Japanism operates on a collective level and is inherently social. Anti- Japanism often enacts itself in the form of public demonstration with slogans, posters, and flyers, with numbers that range from hundreds as in the Wednesdays demonstration in South Korea, to thousands, like in major cities in China in 2005 and 2012. What is important about the demonstrations is that they are demonstrative: they elicit certain visual representations that can be disseminated, circulated, and reproduced.
Third, anti- Japanism (and pro- Japanism) cannot substantiate itself without sentiments. Or, rather, sentiments can make anti- Japanism sustainable and produce collective catharsis. These feelings (experiential), emotions (social), and affects (unconscious and corporeal) all make the externalization of anti- Japanism possible. These sentiments, however, are not uniform or consistent. They are highly dependent on personal histories, collective memories, and contingencies of the protest milieu.
Finally, anti- Japanism ultimately reflects more on the anxieties and desires of the protesting society than on Japan itself. It is, in the final analysis, a displacement of social unease caused by political and economic upheavals. It represents temporary fixes to domestic political crises by projecting Japan in various forms, from threat to foe, from ally to refuge. That said, we must ask why this projection or deferral takes the form of anti- Japanism and not something else.
Anti- Japanism and its constitutive other, pro- Japanism, in East Asia is represented in the figure above, with each quadrant representing a range of possible positions. The figure is intended to convey the range of emotions and geopolitical positions between Japan and Asia. Quadrant I consists of moderate to neoconservative positions in Japan; quadrant II includes leftists and the internationalist critique of Japanese imperialism; quadrant III comprises various nationalist and anti- Japanese elements in China, the Koreas, and Taiwan; and finally, quadrant IV represents positions favorable to Japan, from the formerly colonized to contemporary youths obsessed with Japanese popular culture. The figure and its respective quadrants depict multiple relations that, due to historical and local conditions, cannot be easily collapsed into homogeneous pro- or anti- Japan sentiments. For example, colonial difference — the incommensurability between the colonizer and the colonized — signals different desires between the Japanese conservatives (quadrant I) and the Taiwanese imperial subjects (quadrant IV) although they share similar pro- Japan sentiments. I discuss this specifically in chapter 4.
It is important to note that, like any discursive formation, anti- Japanism is not static. While anti- Japanism in postwar Asia mostly takes on the form of demands for apologies and atonements for colonial wounds or war crimes (colonialism and imperialism), the content is often directed at local and present concerns that may or may not have anything to do with Ja pan. The degree of intensity of anti- Japanism is conditioned by the relative power relationship between Japan and other nations in the world system. Furthermore, the range of anti- Japanism spans several scales. From personal memories of Japanese atrocities to collective demands for redress and reparation, from the casual slur of “Japanese devils” to an official discourse of condemnation, anti- Japanism stirs feelings and emotions — anger, sadness, envy, and so on — that are intense, mixed, and at times contradictory.
In his thoughtful analysis of post – Cold War American hegemony, Chris Connery argues for the “continued necessity of anti- Americanism” today because, “in certain forms, anti- Americanism can be a key component of a powerful and effective anti- capitalist politics, and can preserve necessary and important spaces of counter- hegemony and critique” (2001: 400). Anti- Americanism, however, frequently and invariably takes the nation- state as its primary platform. And as Karatani Kōjin (2014) has argued, capital, nation, and the state form a Borromean knot, reinforcing and supplementing one another, depending on the crises and needs of capitalism. As a consequence, globalization would not entail the end of the nation or the state, as some have hoped. Instead, it only creates conditions for their rearticulations. In this regard, because global capitalism is a social relation and the ruling classes of all capitalist nation- states have a stake in the reproduction of capitalist social relations, Connery cautions that any anti- Americanism that strengthens the nation- state will be a double- edged sword. Nation- based and state- sanctioned anti- Americanism becomes dangerous and politically regressive when it is explicit in constructing the nation- state itself as an alternative social collectivity (403). Despite these shortcomings, Connery views anti- Americanism as having “an important structural capacity to link the energy of the negative to the sphere of global ideological reproduction” (403). Anti- Japanism in East Asia must be apprehended as this double- edged sword as well.
Not all anti- Japanism confers the same political desire or represents similar grievances against Japan. Anti- Japanism enacted by the former comfort women occupies very different structural and power relations to the Japanese state as compared to anti- Japanism fanned by the Chinese state to displace its citizens’ growing anxiety over precariousness and social unrest. Ethnonationalism and anti- Japanism work in complicity to prevent genuine exchange and reconciliation over historical issues and contemporary problems afflicting peoples in the region. Connery hopes anti- Americanism (despite his reservations mentioned above) can produce progressive social collectives against the universal nation- state that is the United States. I see anti- Japanism as less a panacea to Japanese capitalism or regional reconciliation. Instead, I argue that anti- Japanism (and pro- Japanism) represents a shifting of power relations in East Asia in the post – Cold War era. The rise of China has radically transformed the U.S.- Japan dominance of the region since the end of the Second World War. How to imagine an anti- Japanism (and its negative power) without falling into the trap of ethnonationalism remains a formidable challenge.
Chapter Outline The book is organized around the theme of anti- Japanism (and pro- Japanism, its constitutive Other) in three East Asian spaces: mainland China, South Korea, and Taiwan, with an emphasis on cultural representations, with “postcoloniality” and “sentimentality” as unifying concepts. Unlike the falls of the French and British empires, which were due to independence movements in their colonies, the dissolution of the formal Japanese empire occurred primarily through its war defeat. This particular demise of the empire has had two consequences that contributed to the failure of decolonization. First, for the Japanese, the overwhelming defeat at the hands of Americans, especially the dropping of the two bombs and subsequent occupation, contributed to the perception that Japan lost the war to the Americans and not to the Chinese. Furthermore, war defeat and postwar demilitarization conflated, if not replaced, questions of empire and decolonization. In relation to Taiwan, Japan’s defeat was appropriated by the nationalist government to contrast the heroic endeavors of the “liberating” regime and the “slave” mentality of the colonial Taiwanese, thus justifying the nationalist recolonization of the island. After four years of civil war ending in the Communist victory, the nationalist government relocated to Taiwan and the two regimes have been mired in the Cold War structure that continued, albeit in different form, to this day. The situation on the Korean Peninsula was similar. Independence was soon followed by a division into North and South Korea, the North propped up by the Communist Soviet Union and the South by the capitalist United States, which suited the exigencies of the emerging Cold War. The devastating Korean War further entrenched the divided system even in the so- called post – Cold War era. However, as I argue in chapter 4, the repression by the nationalist government in post- 1949 Taiwan and subsequent democ ratization prompted a “nostalgia” for an imagined Japan, a nostalgia that likely contributed to the stereotypical opposition between anti- Japanese Koreans and pro- Japanese Taiwanese. It is to address the failed decolonization within the not- yet- over Cold War that Chen Kuan- Hsing proposes decolonialization, deimperialization and de – Cold War as a three- pronged method to rethink and reengage Asia. My analysis and critique of anti- Japanism join Chen’s call for confronting the lack of decolonization in the Japanese empire and for reimagining a post – East Asia unencumbered by Cold War divisions and colonial legacies.
Naoki Sakai and others (2005) have argued that the myth of the mono- ethnic society cannot be debunked with merely empirical attempts to illuminate its truth or falsity. More importantly, Sakai recognizes that the “sense of being Japanese cannot be analyzed according to a methodology of the history of ideas, but rather functions through the emotional dimension” (3). It is this “sentiment of nationality” — the regime of representations of community constituted through the apparatuses of fantasies and imaginations within the modern national community — that undergirds and animates the emotions, feelings, and passions of national competition and divisions in the world today. My study, set within the context of anti- Japanese sentimentality in postwar postcolonial East Asia, comprises ways to analyze the “regime of fantasies and imaginations,” which Sakai sees as an important affective dimension of the modern national community. For example, I contrast the dominant (and masculine and culturalist) emotion of han (an unresolved resentment against injustice) with the notion of “shame” felt by the so- called military comfort women in South Korea. I argue that “shame,” or rather the overcoming of feelings of shame, offers a possible reconciliation for some comfort women, not with the Japanese state but with loved ones. Feelings of national “humiliation,” I argue, have animated Chinese anti- Japanism since the late 1980s. I trace the shifting meanings of the term “Japanese devils” as a trope to reflect on China’s own self- definition. In the case of Taiwan, I suggest that the sentiments of “sadness” and “nostalgia” dominate many elderly Taiwanese feelings for an imagined “Japan.” This nostalgia, I argue, has less to do with Japan than with resentment toward the neocolonialism of the Kuomintang regime in postwar Taiwan. These sentimentalities — han, shame, humiliation, nostalgia — form the collective and differentiated affects conditioned by the shifting geopolitical terrains in postwar postcolonial East Asia in the wake of Japanese imperialism and colonialism. Finally, it is to continue the line of argument of sentimentality that I attempt to articulate the political concept of “love” and intergenerational intimacy in the hope of imagining a transnational and subnational politics of affect in the conclusion.
Chapter 1, “When Bruce Lee Meets Gojira: Transimperial Characters, Anti- Japanism, Anti- Americanism, and the Failure of Decolonization,” argues that the symbolic anti- Americanism of Gojira (1954) and the anti- Japanism of Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (1974) constitute two axes of desire and fantasy that characterize the failure of decolonization in postwar East Asia. The sudden disappearance of the Japanese empire after Japan’s defeat, the subsequent American hegemony in the region during the Cold War, combined with entrenched authoritarian rule in former colonies, such as Taiwan and South Korea, and, finally, Japan’s postwar economic ascendancy all contributed to the suspension, if not outright repression, of legacies of the Japanese empire. It is only in the so- called post – Cold War era (and, in the case of China, the postsocialist era) that issues of Japanese empire — war responsibilities, territorial disputes, comfort women, the Yasukuni Shrine, and so forth — became contentious in the region’s public spheres.
Chapter 2, “ ‘Japanese Devils’: The Conditions and Limits of Anti- Japanism in China,” analyzes one instance of modern Sino- Japanese relations: the epithet “riben guizi,” or Japanese devils, in Chinese popular culture. I locate the representation of Japanese devils in four historical moments: late Sinocentric imperium, high imperialism, socialist nationalism, and postsocialist globalization. I suggest that while this “hate word” performs an affective politics of recognition stemming from an ineluctable trauma of imperialist violence, it ultimately fails to establish a politics of reconciliation. I argue that anti- Japanism in China is less about Japan itself than about China’s own self- image, mediated through its asymmetrical power relations with Japan throughout its modern history.
Chapter 3, “Shameful Bodies, Bodily Shame: ‘Comfort Women’ and Anti- Japanism in South Korea,” turns to the sentiment of shame regarding sexual violence. I analyze Byun Young- Joo’s trilogy about the comfort women through the affect of shame and the trope of the body. Unlike the culturalist sentiment of han in Korean nationalist discourse, shame, or rather the overcoming of shame, has the potential to negotiate and move forward the politics of reconciliation. If shame constitutes the affective dimension of these women’s existence, the aging body reminds us of the materiality of their suffering and the inevitable passage of time that fur ther underscores the cruelty of “postcolonial” violence. Juxtaposing and associating the visibly aged women’s bodies with that of Emperor Hirohito’s dying and concealed body and the nationalized mourning surrounding his death, I argue not only that the bodies are differentially valued and evaluated, but also that the cowardice of the imperial system once again abrogated the responsibility of the Showa emperor for Japanese imperialism and colonialism.
Unlike earlier chapters on anti- Japanism, chapter 4, “Colonial Nostalgia or Postcolonial Anxiety: The Dōsan Generation In- Between ‘Retrocession’ and ‘Defeat,’ ” explores the sentiment of nostalgia and intimacy toward Japanese colonialism, as displayed by former colonial subjects in Taiwan. I argue that the favorable and at times intense feelings toward “Japan” — imagined or real — must be seen as a desire to recuperate a sense of loss in both personal and historical terms. I understand their passion as a belated plea for recognition from the former colonizers of their marginalized existence since the end of formal colonialism. Their efforts, despite the obvious pro- Japan sentiments, interrupt two linear narratives of (1) colonialism ➝ retrocession ➝ nation- building and (2) colonialism ➝ war defeat ➝ nation- building schematics espoused and expounded by the Kuomintang government and by the Japanese state, respectively.
In chapter 5, “ ‘In the Name of Love’: Critical Regionalism and Co- Viviality in Post – East Asia,” I examine four representations of love, or instantiations of the political concept of love, in postwar postcolonial East Asia (in Gojira [1954], Death by Hanging [1968], Mohist Attack [1992 – 96], and My Own Breathing [1999]) that offer glimpses of possibility for transnational and subnational intimacies and affective belonging that transcend love of the nation and love of the same. Finally, using Taiwan and its seemingly pro- Japanese sentiments and its marginalization in East Asian geopolitics, I argue for a reconceptualization of the politics of reconciliation. In chapter 6, “Reconciliation Otherwise: Intimacy, Indigeneity, and the Taiwan Difference,” I read contrapuntally Tsushima Yūko’s novel Exceedingly Barbaric (2008) with Laha Mebow’s documentary film Finding Sayun (2010), and I argue for an intergenerational reconciliation that displaces both the colonial narrative and state- centric politics of compromise and settlement.
Notes
introduction
1. This information was retrieved from an article published in 2013 by Offbeat
China: http://offbeatchina.com/700- million- japanese- soldiers- died- in- china- in - 2012. The site is no longer available, but an archived view of the article can still be seen on the site’s former Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hotpotdaily /posts/414540271964283.
2. For a discussion on anti- Japanism in postwar Korea, see Cheong (1991).
3. On January 15, 1974, as Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei landed on the last stop of his five- nation, eleven- day “goodwill” visit to Southeast Asia, anti- Japan riots broke out in Jakarta, the sprawling capital of Indonesia. The violence started with the burning of every Japanese automobile within reach of the approximately 100,000 roaming people and quickly mushroomed into sacking and setting fires to stores and businesses that sold Japanese products, especially those owned by overseas Chinese. At the Astra Toyota agency, the entire stock of new cars went up in flames, their fuel tanks exploding with an occasional thud. At the Pasar Senen shopping center, thousands of rioters looted the Chinese- owned stores and stalls and started fires, where seven of the ten known victims of the two- day riots were killed. The Presidential Hotel, operated by Japan Airlines, became the target of the rioters as security forces hurled back wave after wave of rioters with clearly shaken Japanese guests watching fretfully from their windows. The protests and riots were so violent and widespread, Tanaka would be a virtual prisoner in the Dutch- colonial guesthouse within the presidential compound, guarded by hundreds of commando troops and armored vehicles. As with most postwar postcolonial anti- Japanism in Asia, the protests and the ensuing violence are less about Japan than symptoms of contradictions within the Indonesian society. Among the feelings anti- Japanism detonated was outrage over the corruption of government officials and the ostentatious lifestyle of the rich generals. The students resented the special privileges held by the ethnic Chinese residents; they were also angry that the nation’s newfound wealth from oil had not bettered the lives of the Indonesian masses. In short, Tanaka’s visit enabled the surfacing onto the symbolic realm the repressed desire and anger of the Indonesian people under continued political authoritarianism and economic disenfranchisement.
4. Dower (2000); Bix (2001).
5. It is important to note here that these “stereotypes” of the Japanese should not be apprehended as simply “negative” or “reductive.” These images ultimately create social realities. See Chow (2002), especially chapter 2.
one. When Bruce Lee Meets Gojira
1. Throughout the manuscript, I use “Gojira” to refer to the Japanese version of the monster and films and “Godzilla” to refer to its Americanized counterpart. The differentiation is crucial, I argue later on, not only for production purposes, but for politics and the power differential as well.
2. In May 2014, a new Godzilla film directed by Gareth Edwards screened in theaters around the world. While paying homage to the original Gojira film and with a visual reference to the Fukushima disaster, the film anthropomorphizes Gojira as a hero fighting off the Mass Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms in order to save the human race. Whereas the original Gojira was a warning tale about the nuclear destruction made by humans (or, more specifically, Americans), the newest story absolves humankind of any responsibilities for its destruction of the environment by having Godzilla “balance” nature against the other nuclear- infested monsters.
In the succinct words of Professor Serizawa, “Let them fight.”
3. My usage of the “postwar Cold War system” requires explanation. It is commonly assumed that “postwar” and “Cold War” share the same time frame: hence, their articulation is redundant and one should use them interchangeably. What gets elided, however, is the “transition” from the ruins of immediate postwar Japan, where political possibilities were denied, if not repressed, with the intensification of the Cold War. In Democracy and Nationalism, a comprehensive study of postwar Japanese nationalism and the public sphere, Oguma Eiji (2004) argues that there is not one but two “postwars” in Japanese discourse. The shift from the first to the second postwar, demarcated by the year 1955, witnessed profound changes in discourses about nationalism among the intellectuals. There is the shift from a “developing” to “developed” country, from “Asian” to “Euro- American.” There is also the shift from immediate economic deprivation and social disorder to economic recovery, with an emerging consumer society and its affiliated social order and political conservatism. My usage of the “postwar Cold War system” marks and remarks on the transition that bridges the residual elements of Japanese empire with the emergent new nation that vowed to remain pacifist and tied to U.S. hegemony for its economic development. 144 Notes to Introduction
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