Boycotting Japan: Explaining Divergence in Chinese and South Korean Economic Backlash
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797019886725 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles |
Boycotting Japan:
Explaining Divergence
in Chinese and South
Korean Economic
Backlash
Kristin Vekasi1
Jiwon Nam2
Abstract
Japan has a ‘cold politics, hot economics’ relationship with both China and South
Korea where political relations are tense and business overall flourishes. Despite
the similarities, the political mobilisation of consumers in response to Japanese
business interests diverge: event, trade and tourism data show that South
Koreans are less likely to link economic interests with their political grievances
with Japan compared to their Chinese counterparts even though the sources of
the tensions are largely parallel. The divergence arises from different ways eco-
nomic globalisation has shaped national identity. In China, economic globalisation
has strengthened a nativist identity with strong anti-foreign components. Korean
national identity has been formed by economic integration and interdependence.
While strong national identity and anti-foreign elements exist, they are delinked
from economic interests. Survey and event data from South Korea and China
show that the variation in consumer politics is driven by attitudinal differences in
the population that is strongly anti-Japanese. Social media data shows how citi-
zens link or delink politics and business to mobilise for collective action and pro-
vide qualitative evidence that how identities interact with globalisation explain
country-level variation.
Keywords
Japan–China relations, Japan–South Korea relations, boycotts, nationalism,
globalisation, commercial liberalism
1 Department of Political Science and School of Policy and International Affairs, University of Maine,
Orono, ME, USA.
2 School of Policy and International Affairs, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA.
Corresponding author:
Kristin Vekasi, Department of Political Science and School of Policy and International Affairs,
University of Maine, 5754 North Stevens Hall, Orono, ME, USA.
E-mail: kristin.vekasi@maine.edu
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
6(3) 299–326, 2019
The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/2347797019886725
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Research Article
300 Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 6(3)
Introduction
The intersection, or lack thereof, of diplomacy, public opinion and economic
exchange is an oft-noted phenomenon in Northeast Asia, particularly between
Japan and its formerly colonised neighbours. While economics are increasingly
integrated, buttressed by trade, complex and enduring regional supply chains, and
multilateral organisations that promote economic interests, the same cannot be said
of political relations or public opinion. The China–Japan and Korea–Japan
relationships share what is called a ‘cold politics, hot economics’ characterisation:
despite deepening economic ties, high-level political relations are strained and
public opinion is mutually hostile. Despite similarities in the dyads, responses from
ordinary Koreans and Chinese to Japanese businesses in their countries differ.
After political incidents about territorial disputes or unresolved memories of war
and atrocity, the political mobilisation of consumers in response to Japanese
business interests diverge. In China, incidents are marked by protests, boycotts of
Japanese products and calls to shun doing business with Japanese. In South Korea,
by contrast, boycotts are rare, protests are more constrained to political rather than
economic targets, and companies are rarely called to account for the actions of their
home country. While both countries maintain broad economic engagement despite
political frictions, the interaction between the two differs in important ways.
Figure 1 shows the number of times Chinese or Koreans have threatened or
used forms of economic coercion against Japan, including boycotts, embargos,
sanctions, property damage or official rejection of economic cooperation along
with annual trade from 1990 to 2016. While instances of economic backlash and
trade increase for both countries, backlashes are much more prevalent in the
Chinese case. Indeed, the correlation between trade and events are five times in
China what they are in Korea.1 What explains these differences in collective
action under cold politics, hot economics?
Figure 1. Economic Backlash Events in China and South Korea and Annual Trade Amounts
Source: Instances of economic backlash data compiled from GDELT Project by authors. Each count
represents a unique instance of boycotts, threats, etc. Trade data compiled from the
Japanese Ministry of Finance.
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