Demonization of East Asian nations has a long history within the United States extending from Chinese Exclusion in the 1880s and Japanese Exclusion in the early 20th century, to the present blame of China for the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of World War II, the American government changed from viewing Japan as a threat to an infantilized nation. In the era of the Cold War, and with the fear of Communism rising by the day, suspicion towards the Japanese was transferred to China, displaying the ease that the United States had with classifying Asian nations together and demonizing them based on perceptions of the time.
While this post does not look at the encompassing representations of all Asian nations or people, it does offer an understanding of the ways that representations were fluid between different Asian nations. While Japan was demonized during World War II, its classification as an “other” allowed such a demonization to occur, and also allowed it to be transferred to China during the Cold War. As historian John Dower covers, the racial hatred between the United States and Japan fueled a "War without Mercy," subsequently the title of his well-known work (Dower ix and 9). With a deep-seeded foundation in the early 20th century Japanese exclusion movement, racial hatred against the Japanese persisted throughout World War II, leading to innumerable horrors, including the passage of Executive Order 9066, the fire-bombings of Tokyo, and the cataclysmic use of two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Seto 62).
"Japanese Americans' World War II experience was very different from that of the Chinese. Japan had become the land of the enemy—the enemy who had struck without warning, the enemy whose well-planned military audacity seemed to be the fulfillment of a long racial nightmare—the Yellow Peril." - Roger Daniels, Asian America, page 199
During World War II, Chinese representation in the United States, as well as U.S.-Chinese relations, were much different than those of the Japanese. After the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the United States created an alliance with China and the relationship helped Chinese representation within American society (Daniels 188). Although allies, the United States still viewed China as an inferior nation. While improving relations with China, and improving representations of Chinese Americans and immigrants in the U.S., American perceptions of China still adopted a paternalistic nature. As Brandon Seto explains, while the U.S. viewed China as an ally, the American military believed they would be saving the Chinese from Japan; furthermore, their alliance served as a way for the U.S. to "maintain influence and a degree of control" in China, establishing a strong foothold in Asia (Seto 63). While the alliance was driven by both the need to fight against the Japanese and as a paternal foothold in China, it did improve certain aspects of Chinese representation in the U.S. during the war.
On top of this, other measures were taken to better the relationship with China and the U.S., even with the long history of anti-Chinese sentiments in the United States. As Lon Kurashige explains, "the war transformed the exclusion debate by creating the conditions for Congress to repeal restrictions against Filipinos, Indians, and Chinese" (Kurashige 171). Thus, while the Second World War was ongoing, Japanese Americans faced mass incarceration and suspicion, and the U.S. classified the entirety of Japan, including its people, as an enemy (Seto 61-62). On the other hand, Chinese Americans and immigrants, as well as other Asian immigrants, gained repeals to restrictions that had not been available in the past. Such relations would not remain stagnant, however, and would change after the end of World War II.
“American perceptions of the Chinese and Japanese can change between perilous threat and paternalistic ward in relation to U.S. perspectives, beliefs, and current interests...” - Brandon Seto, "Paternalism and Peril", 57
After the end of World War II, the United States government saw opportunity within occupied Japan and considered the American presence in Japan as a parental-like figure for the defeated nation (Klein 10-11). However, the American people did not immediately adopt this new view. After years of racially charged propaganda and hatred against the Japanese enemy, it would take time for the American people to change their views of the nation. As Naoko Shibusawa explains, “the shift in American perceptions of Japan, especially in cultural outlets such as periodicals, films, and newspapers, occurred unevenly, moving irregularly and fitfully toward a greater acceptance of the Japanese as friendly allies” (Shibusawa 10). Nonetheless, the American people would eventually accept new views of Japan. This included the acceptance of a relationship of "adult over child" in relation to Japan, even though this was demeaning to the newly occupied nation (Shibusawa 4). The onset of the Cold War in the latter half of the 1940s bolstered views of Japan as an ally in the Pacific, a nation that could assist the United States in the fight against Communism.
The paternal shift from China prior to World War II to Japan in post-war years demonstrates the beginning of shifting tides between American relations with the two nations. The occupation forces in the U.S. demonstrated their views of Japan as a child-like ward they believed in need of education and discipline (Seto 66-68). This reflected the feelings held towards China during World War II. While this appears to be less harmful than the overt racial hatred that had been present prior to and during World War II, it was disrespectful and condescending to the Japanese people, as it had been to the Chinese as well. Such sentiments towards both China and Japan held the U.S. in a superior light to their Asian allies, when an alliance should have built an equal partnership between the participating nations.
"Although many Chinese Americans suffered from the growing unpopularity of what almost all Americans simply called "Red China," Japanese Americans basked in the growing warmth of American postwar relationships with Japan." - Daniels, Asian America, page 283
Additional shifts in perception occurred in the years after World War II, impacted by the emergence of the Cold War. With the fall of China to Communism in October of 1949, a new fear of Asian dominance in the United States, or a Yellow Peril, emerged (Seto 70). The rising fear of Communism permeated the United States throughout the course of the Cold War, leading to near hysteria in the earlier years of the conflict. Such sentiments led to suspicion and disdain directed towards China after its communist revolution. With the Korean War raising fears of communist expansion in Asia in the early 1950s, the United States continued to hold anti-Chinese sentiments. Similar "language and depictions used to describe the Japanese during World War II resurfaced" in relation to Chinese representation at this time (Seto 71). While there were several differences between the outcome of anti-Asian racism for China as compared to Japan, including a lack of mass incarceration and nuclear retaliation, the shift in perceptions offers how East Asian nations were demonized interchangeably by the United States.
Although World War II and the Cold War saw different outcomes for Japan and China respectively, both nations experienced shifts in relations with the United States. The transfer of the United States' paternalistic views from China to post-World War II Japan demonstrates the superiority complex leaders in the U.S., as well as a majority of the American people, had towards Asian nations. Although allied with China in World War II, the U.S. aimed to maintain some control in the relationship, and this transferred to Japan throughout the Cold War era. The demonization of communist China reflected much of the representations of Japan during World War II. Although relations between the United States and China would eventually improve, much like relations with Japan, the foundation of American superiority and distrust for East Asian nations remained prevalent. Demonization of East Asian nations continues to maintain a foothold in American society, which can be seen in recent years with the rise of anti-Asian racism in the United States and the blame of China for the COVID-19 pandemic.
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