China, Korea: More nationalist than thou
By Sunny Lee
BEIJING - South Korea's reputation as the world's unparalleled bastion of
nationalism and master of all forms of street protests - ranging from physical
confrontations with riot police to peaceful candlelight vigils - was hurt last
week by a formidable new challenger: Chinese student protesters in the Seoul
leg of the Olympic torch relay.
The violence by the Chinese mob was bad enough that the Seoul government had to
take it up with Beijing officially on a diplomatic level. Meanwhile, for South
Koreans it was their first "up close and personal encounter" with Chinese
nationalism displayed right in the heart of their home turf. They watched it
with mixed, even
complicated, feelings - anger, awe, empathy and fear.
"When I saw two groups of people, one holding Tibetan flags and the other
holding Chinese flags, standing in a confrontation, I felt ironic to see it
happening in my country," blogger Joo Hyun-jong observed. "I was almost in awe
to see so many Chinese people in one place. And I was filled with a strange
feeling of intimidation. It was weird. It seemed that the Olympic Games were
really receiving a lot of attention from Chinese people. But then, looking back
on 20 years ago when my country held the games, I could understand them," added
Joo.
South Korea, which was the host of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul,
experienced a similar upsurge of nationalism in the run-up to its games. The
military regime at that time, fearing domestic protests during the Olympics,
yielded to the public's demand for democratic reforms. China appears to be
skipping this part as there is little demand for democratic reforms from
within.
But, just like South Korea, China is feeding patriotic nationalism to the
public to unite the country in preparation of the biggest international event
the country has held in its history. Just like today's Chinese, South Koreans
at the time also saw that their national pride as dependent on whether they
could successfully pull off an Olympic Games.
There is great similarity between the outbreaks of nationalism in South Korea
and China. Both countries experienced humiliating setbacks at the turn of the
modern era by more powerful nations. The collective psychological scar still
runs deep in their national consciousness. And if triggered, their latent sense
of victimization and inferiority complex erupts like manic waves of wrath.
Kim Weol-hoi, professor of Chinese Studies at Seoul National University, has
observed: "While the communist government is trumpeting nationalism as the
Games approach, the Chinese people themselves are also identifying more with
their government, displaying a tendency of seeking emotional affinity by
resorting to patriotism."
This analysis could also be applied to South Koreans 20 years ago. Like China,
South Korea's hosting of the Olympics was compared to the Nazis' efforts to
promote their regime's legitimacy in the 1936 Berlin Games. In South Korea's
case, it was said to be justification for a regime that had gained power
through a military coup.
But, in terms of intense and unbridled nationalism, Chinese always prefer to
defer the gold medal to South Koreans. "According to my understanding, South
Korean people exhibit the utmost nationalism," a Chinese bloggers notes,
echoing general Chinese perception on the matter. He backs his view by alleging
that there are no foreign cars in Seoul's main streets because South Koreans
are so "patriotic" that they don't buy foreign cars.
Strangely, and amusingly, the "no foreign cars in South Korea" theory is
persistent and pervasive in China as a symbol of South Korea's fervent
patriotism. In fact, this writer was been asked about this many times from
numerous Chinese nationals, including Yang Rui, host of the state CCTV program Dialogue
and a Chinese journalist working for the New York Times.
China's "evidence" of South Koreans being the more nationalistic also includes
the 2002 incident in which 13 South Koreans cut off their little fingers and
attempted to deliver them to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul as a sign of protest
against the former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the
Yasukuni Shrine where some Japanese World War II war criminals have been
enshrined.
Similar incidents were repeated in 2005 against Japan's alleged distortion of
textbooks to whitewash its colonial past. Chinese also remember now many South
Koreans willingly donated their personal gold and other jewelry to the
government to save their bankrupt nation during the 1997 Asian economic crisis.
Chinese often point to these examples with at hint of envy.
But the torch relay incident in Seoul gave South Koreans a chance to witness
Chinese nationalism at close range; and now South Koreans want to defer the
"most nationalist" title to China. "During the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the
nationalism was quite intense in South Korea. But as I look at China now, they
are taking it one step further," Jin Sohl posted on his blog.
"I am afraid of China. I am fearful about their collective expression of power
from online to offline," a blogger Mount Jiri Lover wrote. Another pointed out:
"It is very hard to find a trace of remorse on the Chinese people in the
aftermath of the violent protests displayed by Chinese students in Seoul," and
compared it to the "soul-searching" and national shame South Korea underwent
when its 1,000 militant activists made international headlines when they
confronted the Hong Kong police in an anti-World Trade Organization protests in
2005. The blogger continued, "China is at a stage where it cannot accept
legitimate criticisms because of the overcooked Olympic aspirations."
While South Koreans are empathizing with Chinese for the similar historical
experiences, they also see their differences as well. After all, it's been 20
years since South Korea played host to their Olympics. But when they saw the
Chinese protesters in their capital, they also saw a shadow of themselves that
they'd like to leave behind.
Referring to the Chinese protesters, Jin Joong-kwon of JoongAng University said
in a radio talkshow: "We [Koreans] should ask ourselves whether we also have a
certain blind patriotism and nationalism. If we don't guard ourselves against
it, we may also end up doing similar things. When the international community
looks at the violent Chinese protests, who would say China is a great nation?
The protesters are drawing shame on to their own country. Reflecting on this
incident, I hope we Koreans should also look inside."
Jin added: "China doesn't have to come out on to the international stage that
way."
In China, the word minzu zhuyi, or nationalism, doesn't necessarily
carry all the negative undertones, as it does in some countries. "Nationalism
is something that will disserve China," a 26-year-old information technology
engineer in Beijing retorted to this writer, quickly adding, "South Korea has
developed itself this far because of nationalism. Nationalism helps people to
be united for a common cause. China lacks this."
True, the 1988 Seoul Olympics gave a great national pride to South Koreans and
unified the country. But as South Korea has subsequently evolved into a more
pluralistic society, however, nationalism has also revealed its downside as
well.
In Democracy Report in South Korea, the lead author Moon Jung-in states
that with the increasing nationalism bolstered by the Olympic Games, "a strong
inclination for uniformity" has surfaced, while "minorities [in South Korea]
since have not received a fair and equal treatment". According to Moon, the
minorities include such groups as foreign nationals living in South Korea. As
South Koreans have come together under the umbrella of shared identify and
national pride, they have also come to marginalize those who they perceive as
not part of "us".
"Yes, but nationalism is what brings your country together. It helps people to
uphold a shared identity. You need it. If you lack it, then your country may
get split and cannot move forward," the Chinese engineer said.
South Korea also differs from China in that there were a considerable number of
people in the country who didn't support the idea of holding the Olympics. One
of the key reasons for this was a self-perceived inadequacy. Hong Soon-ho of
Ewha Womans University pointed out in a paper, titled "Seoul Olympics and
International Politics" that one opposition was the doubt on whether the people
of South Korea were mature enough to hold such an international event.
They feared that the Olympic Games might actually turn out to be the worst
possible public relations fiasco in which Seoul would invite the whole world to
see its sorry state. These people argued that South Korea needed more time for
its people to experience democracy and cultivate good citizenship before
holding such an international event successfully. One of the advocates of this
view was Nam Duck-woo, then the prime minister of the country.
Finally, according to South Korea's Automobile Importers and Distributors
Association, the total number of newly imported car registration in April
increased 48% from last year. The Honda brand of Japan, South Korea's
historical nemesis, was tops and accounted for one in every five imported cars
sold last month in South Korea.
So, is South Koreans' patriotism running out of gas?
Sunny Lee is a writer who has lived in China for six years. A native of
Seoul, Lee is a graduate of Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies
University. He can be reached at boston.sunny@gmail.com.
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