The Condition of “East Asia” Discourse. Theory and Practice of De-homogenization

Abstract

Any attempt to establish East Asia's own history and tradition must cope with the heritage of the Western imperial desire for East Asia and its self-reflection. We need to de-construct the narrative of the origin of East Asia and re-construct its new identity. A new discourse of East Asia needs to be located outside the dichotomy of Western empire and Eastern colony, and within a critical analysis of the internal and external competitions in which East Asian countries have engaged in the process of constructing the modern nation-state. – What are the conditions for an appropriate East-Asia discourse? Charting a path toward global co-existence, it should avoid state-centered discourses, and constructions of an exclusive community promoted by the West. A truly universal concept of East-Asian identity must be inclusive, both inside and outside the East-Asian states. The new East Asia should be constituted by nation-states, groups, regions, and individuals that are permeated with its very idea. The identity of East Asia is the process itself in which the whole and the parts incessantly intermingle, change and generate each other: open, dynamic, and contextualized.