Japanese and Korean Popular Culture and Identity Politics in Taiwan

Japanese and Korean popular culture has brought the consumer culture of the two countries to neighboring nations and greatly boosted inbound tourism. Nevertheless, the degree to which popular culture is effective as a soft power strategy remains a point of debate. This chapter empirically explores whether the Japan-mania and the Korean Wave that swept Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s respectively have changed Taiwanese perceptions of Japan and South Korea. Focusing on the media as the dominant representation of culture, I examine Taiwanese media discourses on Japan and South Korea from 1951 to 2015 in order to look at discursive continuities and changes. The findings show that, first, Japan and South Korea have been represented with very different themes. Japan has been portrayed either as the main political adversary or as a frontrunner of modernization. These two narratives are greatly influenced by Taiwan’s domestic politics, which has been polarized by two opposing nationalisms. In contrast, South Korea has been framed as Taiwan’s major economic competitor on the road to modernization. Therefore, media discourses on Japan and South Korea actually reflect Taiwan’s struggle over identity. Second, with the onset of inflows of Japanese and Korean popular culture, extreme discourses in Taiwan regarding the two countries have also increased. In addition to positive portrayals of their popular culture and consumer culture, politically polarized discourses on Japan and discussion of economic competition against South Korea have also become dramatized. This indicates that transnational cultural flows enhance mutual understanding in some ways, but can also spur resistance. The forms of resistance may vary, depending on the local context.