What Would an Asian Pluralism Look Like?

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Scholar Song Nianshen on the continent’s need to move past postcolonial theory. When Beijing played host to the 11th Asian Games in 1990, it was the first time the People’s Republic of China had ever organized a large-scale international sporting event. Song Nianshen, then a high school freshman, recalls taking part in the choreographed opening ceremony — one of hundreds of students assigned to hold up placards representing images related to both the Games and the region. Decades later, after a stint as an editor at the state-owned Global Times newspaper, followed by a doctorate in history from the University of Chicago, Song credits those Games as his first introduction to the concept of “Asia.” Asia — whether as an object of solidarity or contestation — would define Song’s academic career. As a Ph.D. student, he wrote his dissertation on the complex array of territorial disputes between China, Korea, and Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Japan coloni ………………………………