Your essay gave me a great deal to think about, particularly when considered alongside Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire. The Mukden Incident was staged by officers within the Kwantung Army, who then presented Tokyo with a fait accompli. Young argues that the resulting expansion was accepted and sold to the public not merely through top-down propaganda, but through newspapers, academics, women’s groups, youth organizations, and other institutions that helped mobilize enthusiasm for empire.
That suggests a more precise causal sequence than simply “a theory justified a war”:
A military faction manufactures a pretext → a preexisting ideological framework, exemplified by Shina-ron, makes it readily intelligible and acceptable → a decentralized network of institutions turns it into mass consent.
The vocabulary itself did real work in that final step: “punish” (膺懲) rather than “wage war,” and “incident” rather than “invasion.” If that language eventually permeated society, it did not get there by itself. Officials gave it authority, academics gave it legitimacy, newspapers repeated it, and civic organizations carried it into ordinary life.
We see the same mechanism in labels such as “American imperialists” and “Red Chinese.” Neither merely identifies the actor; each arrives carrying an interpretation and a verdict. More importantly, that verdict does not remain confined to a government, political system, or particular policy—it is passed on to an entire people. A government’s actions become the supposed character of everyone it governs.
People need not have studied the ideology behind the phrase. Repetition of the language teaches them the framework and tells them whom to condemn.
What makes Shina difficult to place entirely in the past is that the word never disappeared. Ishihara Shintarō, a four-term governor of Tokyo and later a national party leader, publicly defended its use decades after it had been removed from official language.
Does that continuity suggest that the worldview embodied in Shina-ron was never truly retired in 1946, but merely pushed out of official language while remaining politically available? And was the word itself helping preserve that worldview—or merely revealing a belief that had survived beneath it?
Shina theory is perhaps an ‘effective’ narrative when framing China and the Chinese as the adversary , using notions like the concept of "China proper" and the rupture of Chinese culture.
Through this narrative, it constructs an inherent opposition between the Han majority and ethnic minorities, and depicts the Chinese themselves as culturally or even racially inferior.
Viewed this way, the contemporary representations of “bad China” sometimes reproduce older motifs.
I think “constructs” is the key word. It also brings to mind Benedict Anderson’s concept of the nation as an “imagined community”: the same media and institutions that help strangers imagine themselves as one people can teach them to imagine another people as a single hostile type. Through repetition, rhetoric turns criticism of a government into a stereotype of everyone it governs, and each new event becomes further “proof.”
Very interesting. It puts a perspective on the use of the word by the Hong Kong protesters. It was really childish, more the behavior of rebellious teenagers rather than responsible politicians.
There is no doubt that 支那 was adopted in pre-war Japan to dethrone China from its status as the “Central Country” and suggest that the mantle had shifted to Japan. The background to this, of course, was Japan’s success in adapting to, and standing up to the Western powers and Western imperialism, and China’s failure to get its act together. This led to a fundamental Japanese review of China’s status, leading to immense arrogance on the Japanese side. I do think that you need to take a wider view of the situation, because there were a lot of currents here. Your broad intellectual analysis needs to take into account domestic trends in Japan, including different factions within Japan and the Japanese army. Quoting newspaper headlines is calculated to shock, but more than just an intellectual history is needed. I was quite shocked to hear of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong adoption of “Shina”. Branding their protest against CCP control in these terms will not endear them to Mainland China. If and when China takes control, their cause will be utterly discredited by the adoption of such a provocative, historically repulsive term.
which sounds neutral in English, but uses 光復, the verb used for defeat and eviction of Japan in 1945, in effect calling today’s PRC the new Japanese Empire.
The 1949 “Liberation” was 解放, while the translation of Liberty would be 自由.
Yes, that is better. I was and am strongly supportive of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. I lived there as a child, but the 支那 use by these 2 people was very counterproductive. Jing Yu’s column makes that quite clear.
Your analysis leads to some important questions for China-Japan relations. Is the recent negative trend partially due to a return of Japanese nationalism as a reaction to postwar pacifism? Is it related to the exhaustion of the Japanese left which was pro-Asia and anti-US imperialism? Did China's lack of response to the Hatoyama government's overtures of friendship reflect a lost opportunity? Did rising 20th century Chinese nationalism play a role in this outcome?
There have always been talks of a trilateral FTA between China, Japan, and Korea. The Hatoyama administration was a real window of opportunity, but it collapsed far too quickly.
Richard McGregor in Asia's Reckoning gives an account of what went wrong. He blames a combination of Japanese bureaucratic opposition to a tilt toward China, a harsh US response, Hatoyama's own bungling, and China's unwillingness to treat Japan as an equal. China's strength had led to a muscular diplomacy that Japan interpreted as bullying.
Your essay gave me a great deal to think about, particularly when considered alongside Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire. The Mukden Incident was staged by officers within the Kwantung Army, who then presented Tokyo with a fait accompli. Young argues that the resulting expansion was accepted and sold to the public not merely through top-down propaganda, but through newspapers, academics, women’s groups, youth organizations, and other institutions that helped mobilize enthusiasm for empire.
That suggests a more precise causal sequence than simply “a theory justified a war”:
A military faction manufactures a pretext → a preexisting ideological framework, exemplified by Shina-ron, makes it readily intelligible and acceptable → a decentralized network of institutions turns it into mass consent.
The vocabulary itself did real work in that final step: “punish” (膺懲) rather than “wage war,” and “incident” rather than “invasion.” If that language eventually permeated society, it did not get there by itself. Officials gave it authority, academics gave it legitimacy, newspapers repeated it, and civic organizations carried it into ordinary life.
We see the same mechanism in labels such as “American imperialists” and “Red Chinese.” Neither merely identifies the actor; each arrives carrying an interpretation and a verdict. More importantly, that verdict does not remain confined to a government, political system, or particular policy—it is passed on to an entire people. A government’s actions become the supposed character of everyone it governs.
People need not have studied the ideology behind the phrase. Repetition of the language teaches them the framework and tells them whom to condemn.
What makes Shina difficult to place entirely in the past is that the word never disappeared. Ishihara Shintarō, a four-term governor of Tokyo and later a national party leader, publicly defended its use decades after it had been removed from official language.
Does that continuity suggest that the worldview embodied in Shina-ron was never truly retired in 1946, but merely pushed out of official language while remaining politically available? And was the word itself helping preserve that worldview—or merely revealing a belief that had survived beneath it?
Shina theory is perhaps an ‘effective’ narrative when framing China and the Chinese as the adversary , using notions like the concept of "China proper" and the rupture of Chinese culture.
Through this narrative, it constructs an inherent opposition between the Han majority and ethnic minorities, and depicts the Chinese themselves as culturally or even racially inferior.
Viewed this way, the contemporary representations of “bad China” sometimes reproduce older motifs.
I think “constructs” is the key word. It also brings to mind Benedict Anderson’s concept of the nation as an “imagined community”: the same media and institutions that help strangers imagine themselves as one people can teach them to imagine another people as a single hostile type. Through repetition, rhetoric turns criticism of a government into a stereotype of everyone it governs, and each new event becomes further “proof.”
Very interesting. It puts a perspective on the use of the word by the Hong Kong protesters. It was really childish, more the behavior of rebellious teenagers rather than responsible politicians.
There is no doubt that 支那 was adopted in pre-war Japan to dethrone China from its status as the “Central Country” and suggest that the mantle had shifted to Japan. The background to this, of course, was Japan’s success in adapting to, and standing up to the Western powers and Western imperialism, and China’s failure to get its act together. This led to a fundamental Japanese review of China’s status, leading to immense arrogance on the Japanese side. I do think that you need to take a wider view of the situation, because there were a lot of currents here. Your broad intellectual analysis needs to take into account domestic trends in Japan, including different factions within Japan and the Japanese army. Quoting newspaper headlines is calculated to shock, but more than just an intellectual history is needed. I was quite shocked to hear of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong adoption of “Shina”. Branding their protest against CCP control in these terms will not endear them to Mainland China. If and when China takes control, their cause will be utterly discredited by the adoption of such a provocative, historically repulsive term.
The asian version of "putler"
I would not call the Hong Kong protesters an Asian version of Putler. It would apply more to Xi, but he is in a category of his own.
I meant that the word "shina" is the asian version of the word "putler", in that it's a valid concern voiced childishly.
That 2016 incident was two people. However more mainstream among the HK movement was the slogan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberate_Hong_Kong,_revolution_of_our_times
which sounds neutral in English, but uses 光復, the verb used for defeat and eviction of Japan in 1945, in effect calling today’s PRC the new Japanese Empire.
The 1949 “Liberation” was 解放, while the translation of Liberty would be 自由.
Yes, that is better. I was and am strongly supportive of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. I lived there as a child, but the 支那 use by these 2 people was very counterproductive. Jing Yu’s column makes that quite clear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shina_(word)#In_Hong_Kong
Your analysis leads to some important questions for China-Japan relations. Is the recent negative trend partially due to a return of Japanese nationalism as a reaction to postwar pacifism? Is it related to the exhaustion of the Japanese left which was pro-Asia and anti-US imperialism? Did China's lack of response to the Hatoyama government's overtures of friendship reflect a lost opportunity? Did rising 20th century Chinese nationalism play a role in this outcome?
There have always been talks of a trilateral FTA between China, Japan, and Korea. The Hatoyama administration was a real window of opportunity, but it collapsed far too quickly.
Richard McGregor in Asia's Reckoning gives an account of what went wrong. He blames a combination of Japanese bureaucratic opposition to a tilt toward China, a harsh US response, Hatoyama's own bungling, and China's unwillingness to treat Japan as an equal. China's strength had led to a muscular diplomacy that Japan interpreted as bullying.
This is an excellent review explaining so much of what is omitted from Western descriptions of Asia. Thanks much.