When can Asians celebrate a shared history?
Two key challenges facing Northeast Asia are how to tame the power of nationalism and create shared memories of history, Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin wrote in The Diplomat.
Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), urged action on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Northeast Asians should use the commemoration as an “opportune occasion to reflect on their unfortunate past to learn lessons,” only then can the region become more peaceful and prosperous.
Shin and Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC’s associate director for research, lead the Divided Memories and Reconciliation research project which examines memories of the wartime experience in Northeast Asia and what steps can be taken to reconcile disputes over history.
One of their latest outcomes is the book Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies (April 2015), edited with University of Washington professor Daniel Chirot, that studies how wartime narratives are interpreted, memorialized and used in Europe and Asia.
The full article in The Diplomat can be accessed by clicking here.