02/2015 PANORAMA INSIGHTS INTO ASIAN AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS NATIONALISM IN ASIA AND EUROPE K o n r a d A d e n a u e r S t i f t u n g Panorama: Insights into Asian and European Affairs is a series of occasional papers published by the Konrad- Adenauer-Stiftung’s “Regional Programme Political Dialogue Asia/Singapore”. © 2015 Copyright by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Singapore All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Editor: Dr. Wilhelm Hofmeister Sub-editors: Megha Sarmah, Patrick Rueppel Publisher: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Ltd 34/36 Bukit Pasoh Road Singapore 089848 Registration Number: 201228783N Tel: (65) 6227-2001 Tel: (65) 6227-8343 Email: [email protected] Website: http//:www.kas.de/singapore Manuscript offers, review copies, exchange journals, and requests for subscription are to be sent to the editors. The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Cover photograph by ©iStock.com/Retrovizor Design, Layout and Typeset: Select Books Pte Ltd 65A, Jalan Tenteram #02-06, St Michael’s Industrial Estate Singapore 328958 Website: www.selectbooks.com.sg PANorAmA INsIghts INto AsIAN ANd EuroPEAN AffAIrs Nationalism in Asia and Europe is footnote indicator supposed to be half font size smaller than body font size? Contents PREFACE 7 Rethinking the Nation: Inviting the “Essential Outsider” Back In 9 Claire Sutherland Is there Euro-Nationalism on the Rise? 19 Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski Borders of Normality, Context-Dependency and the Nationalist Populist Parties in Northern Europe 29 Anders Hellström How to Secede in Europe: Nationalism is Not Enough 41 Aleksandar Pavković Nationalism: A Lifebuoy in a Turbulent Ocean? 53 Dileep Padgaonkar Does Nationalism Really Matter to East Asian Regionalism? 59 Jaewoo Choo Paradox of Northeast Asia as a Community of Shared Memories and Histories 73 Jungmin Seo Sino-Japanese Relations: The Long Thaw Ahead 87 Lim Tai Wei The Role of Nationalism in the Vietnamese Revolution and Current Nationalist Issues in Vietnam 109 Pham Hồng Tung Time for Myanmar to Grow Beyond Its Nationalisms 125 Khin Zaw Win Selective Avoidance on Social Media and Citizen Participation: Evidence from Singapore and Hong Kong 137 Marko M. Skoric Nationalism of Chinese Internet Users: Ideology and Socio-demographics 149 Shan Wei Hardcore Subcultures for Law-Abiding Citizens and Online Nationalism: Case Study on the Korean Internet Community ILBE Jeojangso 165 Kyujin Shim Preface Nationalism is a powerful human force that is on the resurgence in Asia and Europe. The effects of globalisation have inflamed nationalistic sentiments in people all over the two continents. Although intense exchanges in business, technology and finance should have resulted in deeper international cooperation and integration and a broad consensus about the necessity of open borders and tolerance with regard to different lifestyles and forms, it has, instead, inflamed nationalistic sentiments, at least in parts of societies in the East and West. Foremost are some of those who feel that they are or will become the “losers” of open borders and increased international competition, and flee to nationalistic sentiments as a measure of defence and protection. Some po- litical movements and even governments, however, also try to mobilise nationalistic sentiments in pursuit of support for their national and/or international agendas. This could be observed, for instance, during recent elections in some European countries and in last year’s elections for the European parliament, when some nationalistic par- ties increased their share of votes and seats in parliaments. Among the most prominent cases are the Front National (FN) in France and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain. In Asia, on the other hand, tensions arising from nationalistic sentiments between China and Japan and between Japan and South Korea are fuelled by simmering territorial disputes and historical issues. Although we expected that new tools of communications and ever-closer exchanges in an age of globalisation would make the world closer, nationalistic sentiments have create tensions and divisions between a common humanity. The social media and the internet, which are the icons for open societies and dialogues across borders, have also been used for expressions of hatred and disrespect against other nations. The reappearance of nationalism in Asia and Europe motivated an international conference about this phenomenon, which the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung organised in partnership with the East Asia Institute (EAI) of the National University of Singapore (NUS) in May 2015. We would like to thank Professor Zheng Yongnian, Director of EAI, and members of his institute for the fruitful collaboration in this project. The papers for this issue of our journal had first been presented during that conference. They offer insights into the evolving nature of nationalism, including its relationship to regional integration efforts and globalisation, as well as its impact on the domestic and foreign policies of countries in Europe and Asia. Preface 7 Dr. Wilhelm Hofmeister Rethinking the Nation: Inviting the “Essential Outsider” Back In Claire Sutherland Images of desperate migrants bobbing on rickety vessels in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas bring the question of nationality and its discontents into sharp relief. The category of migrant is created by the system of nation-state sovereignty that di- vides up the political world, just as ethnic categorization divides states internally into majorities and minorities. Migrants and minorities are thus the “Essential Outsiders” (Reid and Chirot 1997) against which sovereign nation-states define their society and citizenry. This is encapsulated in the concept of nationality, which in its strict sense means membership of a nation, but has become synonymous with citizenship as a le- gal construct. According to this principle, marginality is the status in store for people seeking to improve their lives and livelihoods. In order to overcome this marginal sta- tus, they must achieve the standards of citizenship set by the state (assuming they are admitted to it in the first place). Furthermore, in order fully to “belong” in terms of nationality, properly understood, migrants and minorities at the margins of the state must assimilate the ethnic and cultural characteristics associated with the nation. In some cases, like Myanmar, these standards simply cannot be met because citizenship is closed to Rohingya, and because Myanmar’s national identity – such as it is – is closely associated with the Buddhist, Bamar dominant ethnic group. The humanitarian needs of desperate migrants pose such a conundrum to nation- states because their own sovereignty and national sense of self are also at stake. Australia, for instance, a nation of immigrants if ever there was one, pushes back migrants because they embody the “Essential Outsider” it now defines itself against, in opposition to the “imagined community” (Anderson 1991) with which it identifies. Therefore, any study of contemporary nations and nationalism must take into account the migrants and minorities whose status defines the boundaries of belonging to a na- tion. This article sets out to trace the evolution of the nationalist idea and examine its future potential to include, exclude, legitimate and create a sense of community in myriad ways, with special reference to the Vietnamese case. Rethinking the Nation: Inviting “Essential Outsider” Back In The practice of legitimating the state through the nation only became widespread in nineteenth-century Europe. Even then, countries like France and the United Kingdom aspired to be at once nation-states and imperial powers (Wilder 2005), and the Ottoman 9 and Austro-Hungarian empires continued to control great swathes of European terri- tory until the end of World War I. In January 1918, months before the armistice, then US president Woodrow Wilson’s famous “fourteen points” address to Congress called for countries like Poland, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as the peoples of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires, to be granted independence along “clearly recog- nisable” or “historically established lines of allegiance and nationality” (Wilson 1984 [1918], 537, 538). In effect, Wilson was calling for a post-war settlement constructed around nations, rather than states. This served to entrench the nation as a global or- ganizing principle, but one that remains notoriously difficult to realize in practice. Of course, the ideal of “friendly counsel” that Wilson (1984 [1918], 538) hoped would de- termine borders was soon trampled underfoot by the jackboots of World War II. Today, the concept of the nation is contested in a different way to other political concepts such as liberty, equality and justice. It is indelibly tainted with the legacy of Nazism and the fear of Fascism, thereby forever associating nationalism with its most extreme manifestations. Whereas chauvinism and fascism imbue national difference with notions of superiority and inferiority, patriotism is simply an attempt to “detoxify” nationalism and rescue it from all these