1 East Asian music studies in the global North does not state its global North epistemic location.
An example of such a discussion would be one on stereotypes circulating in the global North—which is an important discussion; my point is that this discussion has a location.
Also, there are certain global North habits of counterhegemony, e.g. avoiding oppression narratives. This is a matter of global North epistemic fashion that insists that heroic narratives give back agency to the oppressed; I would ask whether that is really the crux of the matter, as opposed to e.g. actually lobbying the Chinese government to stop human rights abuses? One can equally say that heroic narratives are disguising the real life issues at stake.
Another global North habit recently learnt from Kuan Hsing Chen is to regard attempts to decenter the West as itself being caught in the colonial loop. This argument works in some instances, especially in the epistemic realm where Asian references can be used instead. It does not however apply to historical, material, and cultural contexts of Western colonization. Decolonized countries can still view colonization as "60% good" (Singapore), and mentalities still need to be decolonized.
2 A focus on broad conceptual issues sometimes leads to over-generalization and lack of awareness of the limits of one's assertions.
An avowedly theoretical bent disengaged from case studies can lead to universalist methodological claims. See point 1.
3 Many East Asian, particularly Chinese, academics in East Asia itself do not have privilege to the extent construed.
Economic privilege does not apply to the vast majority of Chinese faculty who are poorly paid, and epistemic privilege does not apply if a conference is in a European language most of them do not understand and thus cannot participate in (not to mention that 45% of academic journals use English, while 7% use Chinese). There is also no cultural privilege; remember Asian hate in global North societies in general during COVID-19 ("Anti-Asian Hate And Fear Remain High In New York City").
A wide range of global North scholars refuse to see the common colonial context behind oppression of diasporic Asians and diasporic blacks. No one is claiming equivalency, but Chinese coolies as historical figures, who were designed by the British empire to replace enslaved Africans in the workforce, do not have privilege. No I am not claiming to have the same positionality as a Chinese coolie, although my grandfather could have been one. I am saying that Chinese coolies existed as a historical fact.
Chinese privilege does apply if e.g. one is in the ethnic majority (i.e. in specifically China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore), or in the upper class of fuerdai. Neither applies to Chinese diasporic intellectuals in the global North. It may be possible that some East Asian academics in the global North find their work is less impeded than those of other diasporic BIPOC or Indigenous colleagues because of uneven racism, but equally, uneven anti-racism means that East Asian issues are often ignored.
4 Question the exclusively Machiavellian view of China.
There is a strong tendency to receive all of Chinese history through the lens of post-2008 when the Chinese state began to be seen and to see itself as a global hegemon, using ethnonationalism at home as support for the state's global ambitions. But to apply this frame to all of China's past, viewing it as hegemonic and ethnonationalist throughout history is ahistorical and presentist. China was not hegemonic in 1937-45, and nationalism then was anticolonial and meant to counter Japanese imperialism. There are different contexts of nationalism: fascist nationalism on the rise in the global North, ethnonationalism in China, civic nationalism of 56 ethnicities in China, historical anticolonial nationalism, and the mistranslation of both ethnicity and nationalism to minzu, such that "nationalism" is used when sometimes what is meant is ethnic identity.
Franz Fanon distinguished between "national consciousness" of the masses, versus an exploitative "nationalism" of the local minority ruling elite, fanning nationalist passions to justify their rule, thereby extending colonial relationality in a way that is not responsive to the postcolonial nation state (even though cultural colonialism persists). The problem with the entire nation framework is that the modern, developmentalist nation state is a colonial legacy, in which minority national ruling elites often broker a continuation of asymmetrical global economic relations that originated under colonialism. Yet the nation as a framework is needed for historical contextualization because the colonized state could not have been captured except as a nation state, and because the occlusion of anticolonial nationalism results in the erasure of historical anticolonial resistance.
Fanon's "national consciousness," while predicated on the form of the nation that was necessary for decolonization, is intended by Fanon to encompass an international anticolonial dimension of solidarity. Indeed, there were forms of Chinese anticolonial internationalism that were parallel to black internationalism. Some feel that Chinese anticolonial nationalism may be appropriated by the contemporary Chinese state, focusing on e.g. resistance against Japanese attacks on China in the Second Sino Japanese war, in order to fan nationalism as a means of justifying continued party rule. However, must the study of Chinese historical figures of anticolonial nationalism fleeing from war, for example, necessarily be bracketed within a recognition of contemporary nationalism that is fanned by the Communist Party? Where does our responsibility lie, with the objective study of history, or focusing selectively only on certain aspects of history that allow contemporary academics to position themselves against the contemporary Chinese state? Is it ok to conflate historical figures with historical narratives originating from the contemporary Chinese state?
5 Question the fallacy that non-hybridity equals nationalist.
It's very easy to do grandstanding on nationalism by emphasizing hybridity and circulation, thereby laying one's claim to counterhegemony, effectively branding queers, human rights lawyers, village musicians, Chinese pianists, and Chinese historical figures under Japanese attack from 1937-45 as problematically nationalist by default--for some people, anything other than hybridity and circulation is by definition nationalist. But just because something is not anti-nationalist doesn't make it nationalist. Human rights lawyers in China may not be engaged in the critique of nationalism because they are being jailed; that doesn't make them nationalist. Queer communities in China are busy hiding from surveillance; they have other things to worry about than opposing state nationalism. Treating minority communities as fodder for anti-nationalism is methodologically dubious and teleological (raising anti-nationalism above pressing issues on the ground). What we need to do is to assess contexts of nationalism, and make the appropriate critique.
6 There is lack of comprehensive knowledge about research and teaching inside East Asia.
One of the aims should be to enable scholars based in East Asia to develop counterhegemonic frameworks responsive to their epistemic contexts, and this requires comprehensive knowledge of research published in East Asian languages.
References
Lazarus, Neil. “Disavowing Decolonization: Fanon, Nationalism, and the Problematic of Representation in Current Theories of Colonial Discourse.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 24, no. 4, 1993, pp. 69–98.
Sajed, Alina, & Seidel, Timothy. (2019). Introduction: Escaping the Nation? National Consciousness and the Horizons of Decolonization. Interventions, 21(5), 583–591.
