Haters Gonna Hate: Nationalism on Demand in China and Japan

Under Xi Jinping, history in China is a moving feast. This year, China’s Ministry of Education increased the length of the Second World War by six years, to ‘place a greater emphasis on China’s ‘red revolution.’ And from September, China's rolling out new school textbooks which claim disputed islands in the East China Sea as their own. To drill down into bitter history between the two countries, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Richard MacGregor, who is releasing a new book called Asia's Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century and a scholar of Chinese nationalism, the University of Melbourne’s Sow-Keat Tok. In this episode, we unpick the toxic relations between China and Japan, and ask what role the United States has played in fueling tensions. Could the world’s three largest economies be sleepwalking towards war in the East China Sea?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.