Tag: Nationalism

  • What kind of 'hawk' is Japan's Shinzo Abe? Probably not the kind you think

    Shinzo Abe became prime minister of Japan in December, more than six years after he first took the job, succeeding long-serving Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2006. In the U.S. press especially, Abe is often termed a “nationalist” or “hawk” for supporting expanded military activities and a potential revision of the Japanese constitution. Crystal…

  • Han supremacism online and nationalisms

    In The China Quarterly, James Leibold offers an article on a provocative topic: a community of Chinese who write online in support of Han ethnic pride or in disgust in perceived slights to the majority ethnicity in China’s codified ethnicity system. He argues that some angry people are claiming the mantle of the Han ethnonym…

  • When the U.S. Wants to Criticize 'Chinese Art'

    In The New Republic, Jed Perl exercises no economy of words in lambasting art from China and its growing global following. Based on a reading of “Chinese art” that does not apparently leave the island of Manhattan, Perl makes several questionable statements, often abetted by lack of knowledge, and Alan Baumler at Frog in a…

  • Demonstrations in Tokyo During Hu Visit: Could Be Worse

    From Reuters: But even as Hu spoke, about 200 protesters waved signs outside the university gate saying “Free Tibet” and “No Pandas, No Poison Dumplings,” the latter referring to Hu’s offer to lend two pandas to a Tokyo zoo and a row over Chinese-made dumplings laced with pesticide that made several Japanese people ill. When…

  • How to 'Pressure' 'the Chinese' on Human Rights

    At Foreign Policy, former Amnesty International Executive Director William F. Schultz considers how to “pressure Beijing.” Aside from taking a little too literally Chinese government statements about “the Chinese” and their supposed hurt feelings, Schultz, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (disclosure: my former employer), makes an interesting suggestion:…