Colonial Transnationalism between Korea and China in the 1930s

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

This panel examines a range of colonial transnationalism, such as economic, political, and cultural, between Korea and China in the 1930s. During this period, Korean political discourses about China bifurcated between enthusiasm for Chinese revolutions—nationalist or communist—and skepticism about Korean sacrifice for the liberation of China. In China, transnationalism in anarchism, communism, and modern salvific thoughts both fed and resisted the hegemony of nationalism. Furthermore, the Japanese empire’s unofficial “Discord-Provoking Policy” intervened Sino-Korean interaction, causing conflicts between Chinese and Koreans and exacerbating ethnonationalism in both countries. Based on this sociopolitical context, the panel sheds light on contrary forms of transnationalism—capitalist and Marxist—and the intersection of colonialism, transnationalism, and nationalism in the Sino-Korean relations.

Yi investigates previously unstudied backgrounds of the 1931 Wanbaoshan Incident that caused the death of nearly two hundred Chinese in Korea. Whereas previous studies stress the Japanese imperialist scheme, Yi highlights ethnonationalist antipathy of Koreans against transnational capitalism of overseas Chinese as a decisive factor that caused the incident. Tikhonov’s paper shows how a Shanghai-based Korean journalist reported on suffered Chinese under empires to imbue Koreans with nationalism, a discursive practice that reveals a transnational basis of Korean nationalism. Finally, Han’s paper examines political and literary texts by two Korean Marxists who were key cadres of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s. Her analysis uncovers how those diasporic Marxists strategically foregrounded or effaced their national identities to foster communist transnationalism.

Area of Study

• Northeast Asia

Session Organizer

• Inhye Han, Ewha Womans University

Chair

• Toyomi Asano, Waseda University

Individual Presentations

• Transnational Chinese Capital in 1930s Korea and the Wanbaoshan Incident - Junghee Yi, Incheon National University

• Sin Ŏnjun and Transnational Basis of Korean Nationalism - Vladimir Tikhonov, University of Oslo

• Marxist Transnationalism of the Chinese Communist Party’s Korean Cadres - Inhye Han, Ewha Womans University

Discussant

• Toyomi Asano, Waseda University