China’s increasing assertiveness and Japan’s sense of insecurity would further spur nationalism in Northeast Asia, hampering the region from achieving huge potential gains from mutual cooperation, a renowned foreign policy analyst said.

In a recent interview with The Korea Herald, Nayan Chanda, the director of Publications of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, called for countries to craft effective policies of information and education to ease antagonism.

“In addition to tasks of achieving equitable and sustainable economic growth, a major challenge for the region is to contain nationalism from becoming virulent,” he said on the sidelines of the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity last month.

With the revolution in communication technology, especially with the Internet, “nationalist outpourings” on territorial and social issues have a strong influence over governments, the veteran journalist noted.

“The governments’ information policy needs to be designed to educate public opinion, not to exacerbate it and push for aggressive action,” he said.

The process of new Chinese President Xi Jinping seeking to strengthen the legitimacy for his leadership could fuel a nationalist sentiment in the country where people’s pride has been buoyed by the country’s growing economic and military clout, Chanda said.

“He (Xi) can assert China’s right. That’s something the Chinese population would like to see. And by asserting to the U.S. China’s rights, Xi Jinping is also looking to get public approval for his leadership,” he said.

As for Japan’s rightward political shift, Chanda said there was a “strong undercurrent of insecurity” in the country, calling the shift an apparent reaction to the perceived sense of its decline.

“The population is becoming older, and young population is shrinking very fast and so… economically shrinking. And on the other hand, you have China rising. China’s military is becoming very strong. China’s challenging Japan more,” he said.

“In the face of the economic decline, military inferiority and insecurity make the Japanese more concerned that unless they resist this trend, they’ll become irrelevant.” 

As for North Korea, he said it would not give up nuclear weapons unless its “paranoia” about security dissipates.

Chanda also pointed out that in the triangular relationship among South Korea, China and North Korea, the weakest party was Pyongyang considering that the impoverished state had no other cards to play than its nuclear arms.

“You do not expect a small, poor country to spend a huge amount of resources developing nuclear weapons only to bargain your way. It doesn’t make sense. They are truly paranoid,” he said.

“They believe that their country will be overturned tomorrow by South Koreans and the Americans if they didn’t have the nuclear weapons. And that paranoia is not going to go away.”

As Seoul and Beijing seek to deepen their political and economic relationships, Pyongyang might not be able to continue its expectation that China would always stand by its side.

But China faces a dilemma over its wayward ally Pyongyang ― how to encourage an economic reform while still maintaining a socialist regime aligned with Chinese national interests, he said.

“Chinese ideological support for the North is very important. Because if the North gives up socialism and unifies with the South under the ideals of a free market economy, that will create a totally new situation for the Chinese border,” he said.

“The question is, how do you promote a free market reform in the North? I’m sure (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un will soon visit China, and they will say, why don’t you reform your economy? You will become stronger, remain socialist but be better off.”

Amid deepening economic interdependence in a globalized era, China might no longer view the triangular relationship among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan with a rigid zero-sum mentality, he said.

“Countries are dependent on each other. So the question is, are the U.S.-Japan-Korea relations harmful to China? … Positive or neutral? I would say positive,” he said.

“If not, South Korea would not be in alliance with the U.S. The South will attempt to develop its own nuclear weapon. That’s something the Chinese don’t want. China doesn’t want both North and South Koreas to have nuclear weapons.”

As to the growing talk over the relative decline of U.S. power in the region, partly caused by its economic challenges, Chanda said the U.S. would keep inventing low-cost ways to project its power in the region.

“The U.S. is developing drones launched from carriers, which are very low-cost because they do not require any pilot. So the kind of technology the U.S. is developing, it’s part of (power) projection for long-distance, with much less cost.

“It’s going to be less and less boots on the ground, then more global hawks, surveillance, and more drone flights.”

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)

Nayan Chanda

•Nayan Chanda has served as director of Publications of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and editor of YaleGlobal Online since 2001.

•Previously he worked for the Hong Kong-based magazine Far Eastern Economic Review as a reporter, diplomatic correspondent and editor for nearly 30 years.

•He is the author of “Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors Shaped Globalization (2007)” and “Brother Enemy: The War After the War (1986).”