Entente hostile: China, Japan and Korea

The mutual animosity of the Far East Asian nations can strike some as baffling, given their shared history and cultures, though anyone who grew up in a large family will know what it’s like to fight for individual space. With China’s rise, some form of understanding or defence alliance between Japan and South Korea seems in the interests of both nations, given Xi Jinping’s aggressive expansionism in the South China Sea and clear intent to exchange infrastructure for diplomatic support through his signature Belt and Road policy. Similarly, the political and cultural gap between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China is perhaps larger than ever, while Hong Kong seems to be slipping steadily towards ungovernability.

But why? There has been no great economic strife in any nation or territory since 1998, yet their mutual distastes have only grown ever more pronounced. What then are the roots and tendrils of these blood feuds? In search of answers, or at least satisfying narratives, Michael Booth has conducted a journey through Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, to better understand the contexts and trajectories of their mutual relationships.

Booth visits numerous cities in each country and explores the impact each has had upon the other. (Chinese bureaucrats monitoring how businesses refer to Taiwan and Hong Kong will be pleased to note that he includes both under the ‘People’s Republic of China’.) He begins with Japan, working his way through cities like Yokohama, Kyoto, and Hiroshima; then on to Korea, through Busan, Seoul (over seven chapters) and the DMZ; and finally China, through Harbin (once the capital of Japanese Manchuria), Nanjing (whose wartime mass slaughter is even now scarcely comprehensible), and Shanghai, before visiting Hong Kong and Taiwan.