Nationalism

Wreathes, Smoke, and National Interest: April 15 and Commemoration in Asia

By | April 21, 2017

East Asia’s cemeteries are a reminder that while leaders and rhetoric may change, the structure of the region remains the same. The borders set in 1953 have not moved. But is there something in the air? Steven Denney cogitates on the contingency of Korean War memory and what it may mean in the present.

South Korea’s Identity Gap: Diverging Views on North Korea

By and | January 23, 2017

How close do South Korean youth feel to North Korea vis-a-vis their older compatriots? What do they think about the reunification of a nation long divided? Reviewing the latest survey data and fresh evidence from qualitative interviews, Phillip Lee and Steven Denney confirm what many have long suspected: a growing identity gap.

A Roundtable Review of Carter Eckert’s Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea: The Roots of Militarism, 1866-1945

By | December 16, 2016

Sino-NK presents a roundtable review of Carter Eckert’s splendid new book on the Manchurian roots of Korean militarism, offering readers a companion to the main review by Prof. Clark Sorenson.

South Korean Identity: The Return of Ethnic Exclusivism?

By | October 28, 2016

It is both necessary and interesting to take regular snapshots of identity. South Korea just did so. The “Korean identity survey” was conducted for the third time in 2015, and the results have now been published. Steven Denney parses the data.

In the Cradle of Exile: The National Origins of Communist China and Korea

By | August 09, 2016

In this featured piece on “exilic nationalism,” Benjamin Eckton argues that national and revolutionary origins of the North Korean and Chinese state are found in the rough terrain of the Jinggang Mountains and the hills of Manchuria, where Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung would develop and nurture their ideas of revolution and national liberation.