Colonialist Rule, State-Building, and Enduring Antagonism

• In Event: Colonial and Historical Legacies: Implications for Citizenship and Conflict

Abstract

How does colonialism affect long-term public attitudes towards the colonizer? This paper examines how experiences of living under colonialist rule may result in long-term antagonistic attitudes of the affected citizens. We focus on enduring anti-Japanese sentiments among citizens with different forms of prior exposure to Japanese colonialist rule in China in the WWII. We disentangle three different types of citizen exposure to Japanese colonialism: armed resistance to colonialism (engagements between the Japanese Army and the Chinese Communist Party's Army), colonial settlements (interactions between Japanese and Chinese civilians), and wartime atrocities and casualties (acts of violence perpetrated by the Japanese Army against Chinese civilians). Our findings show that exposure to colonial settlements during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the 1930s has the most profound impact on sustained hostilities. To be more specific, individuals from regions with greater exposure to Japanese settlements exhibit increased hostility towards Japan in contemporary issues, exemplified by the Diaoyu Islands dispute in 2012. Additional analysis of the underlying mechanisms show that the perpetuation of such antagonism can be attributed to a combination of historical state-building efforts and intensified contemporary indoctrination. This top-down ruling strategy is a crucial factor in explaining the persistence and intensity of contemporary antagonistic attitudes towards the former colonizer.

Author

• Jing Xu