• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.59-83
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• 2019

The Chinese Belt Road initiatives in the Southeast Asian countries marked a new chapter in the development of China political influence on this region. This article looks at the initiative from the cultural dimension and aims to place its narrative as the entry point to understand the use of identity politics in Asian countries that target the Chinese diaspora. This topic relates to the primordial sentiments of Southeast Asian nations amid massive Chinese investment in the region. The issue of Chinese investments under the Belt Road Initiative corridor has a relationship with the formation of anti-Chinese discourse and anti-communist in some Southeast Asian countries. We took the cases of Indonesian and Malaysian elections to observe the use of identity politics and anti-Chinese political discourse in Southeast Asia. In both cases, a common issue emerged, that of the strengthening both Islamic and indigenous sensibilities. The establishment of ASEAN during the Cold War may be seen then as an anti-thesis to emerging Chinese power. However, anti-Chinese and anti-communism sentiments were not enough to unite the forces of the nations of Southeast Asia. We have concluded that brotherhood, mutual prosperity, and anti-neo-colonialism are yet to be fostered completely to make a distinct ASEAN identity.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.802-813
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• 2016

This study examined the Japanese and Chinese journalist's views on anti-Korean wave, who are the public and authoritative discourse producers in Japan and China, respectively. In so doing, the study aims to understand the ways in which the phenomena of anti-Korean wave take place and are diffused. According to the findings, anti-Korean wave in north-east Asia is affected by anti-Korea sentiments that have been induced from historical and political relations as well as cultural conflicts. In specific, the anti-Korea sentiments found in both Japan and China are geopolitical particularity and historical relations function to frame their cultural receptions of Korean pop culture. In other words, the phenomena of anti-Korean wave in both countries do not stem directly from local audiences' either discontents or apathy on Korean pop contents. However, while Japanese anti-Korean wave seems to be mere expressions of anti-Korea sentiments, Chinese sentiments of anti-Korean wave are triggered and transferred by, or articulated with their anti-Korea sentiments.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.102-122
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• 2022

From 2018 to 2020, the United States has repeatedly imposed sanctions on the Chinese company Huawei, which has triggered strong nationalist sentiments on the Chinese Internet. This paper is a qualitative content analysis of Zhihu netizens' views on US sanctions against Huawei to explore how anti-Western centrism influences young people's narratives. The results showed that they believe the Huawei matter is a deliberate hegemonic act by the United States because it fears the decline of its own technological status. Moreover, it is direct evidence that the United States is deliberately destroying China's economic development environment to slow down China's rise, as well as a typical manifestation of the injustice of the liberal international order. A further analysis revealed that their narrative logic is obviously influenced by the following aspects: 1) The mentality of national glory derived from comprehensive national strength leads them to believe that U.S. sanctions against Huawei are an obstacle to China's rise. 2) National humiliation leads them to view U.S. sanctions as a constant insult to China. 3) China's superiority created by China's comprehensive national strength and its scientific and technological achievements in recent years has boosted its confidence to challenge the West's absolute progress. This study examines the impact of anti-Western centrism on Chinese nationalist sentiment and offers a bottom-level perspective on the debate over the crisis of the liberal order.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2020

On the World Refugee Day in 2017, Yao Chen, a Chinese actress, philanthropist, and social media influencer, posted messages in her Weibo in support of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Yet, social media users quickly interpreted this supportive message of the refugee program as encouraging people to "accept and receive refugees" (jieshou nanmin) into China. Particularly, the category of Middle Eastern refugees elicited most criticism in China's cyberspace. As the inclusion of refugees is an integral part of immigrant multiculturalism, this article examines the limits of multicultural imagination of refugees―particularly those from the Middle Eastern and North Africa―in contemporary China. I argue that the limits of multicultural imagination in contemporary China is profoundly shaped by an intricate interweaving of domestic policies and global imaginaries toward refugees. By deploying a mixed methodology, such limits are examined from legal-institutional, ideological, and sociocultural perspectives. More specifically, three interrelated aspects will be highlighted in the article: (1) the global circulation of right-wing populism imaginaries, and their entanglements with the anti-Muslim sentiments in contemporary China; (2) the current insufficiency of the legal-institutional framework regarding refugees and asylum-seekers, which needs to be contextualized in China's modern history of dealing with refugee issues; (3) population politics, the rise of Han-centric nationalism, and their constraining impact on the interpretation of historical events related to cultural diversity. In conclusion, this article also offers potential implications for further examining the different yet potentially intersected genealogies of multicultural imaginaries beyond the Middle Eastern and North African refugees in Asia.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.51
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• pp.193-212
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• 2018

This paper attempts to explore how Ang Lee depicts Asian and Western women in his films. We focus on two parts of his consciousness First, Ang Lee does not consider himself a feminist, he understands the world in terms of women who play societal roles. Second, Ang Lee's films reflect his identity in a juxtaposition model, in which he is a member of mainstream American society and also holds an onlooker's viewpoint at the same time. He depicts women, who are often marginalized or considered the minority, and their feminist ideals, as means that break down the authority of the father and the man, the traditional ideology, and the male dominant nationalism. Chinese women in movies divide apart traditional Chinese patriarchal ideology and male-dominated anti-Japanese sentiments. Also, the Western women in his films reveal the non-stereotypical appearance of Western society in the 1970s and 1980s, with daily tension, anxiety, abdominal pain and anger, silence and anxiety about homosexual husbands, and excessive obsession. The director's portrayal of women not only separates the male-centered and Western-centered discourse, but also reveals a self-division of internalized masculine patriarchal Asian thought consciousness.