The international relations of East Asia since World War II are best understood as: the triumph of Asian nationalism. (Nationalism interpretation)
Not many people in the West correctly understand why Bruce Lee, the famous Hong Kong action star, gained such popularity in East Asia in the early 1970s. The Vietnam War had been a quagmire for more than ten years, the old system of American reign over Asia had begun to collapse, and the long-believed myth that the white race was superior to the yellow race was about to come to an end at last.
Bruce Lee definitely grasped the mood of the times in Asia. Asian people saw, in Bruce Lee’s films, an Asian overpowering white domination. On the other hand, Western people, to my surprise, even many of the Westernized Japanese, tended to regard his movies simply as good defeating bad. They did not understand that his popularity in Asia originated in the Asian desire to be free from Western rules or, to a certain degree, from westernized Japan’s domination.
In the first three films of Bruce Lee, white fighters and Japanese fighters are the villains, and Bruce Lee, representing the suppressed Asian people, beats them all. According to the Asahi-Shinbun, a leading Japanese newspaper, his first martial arts film, “The Big Boss,” earned box-office profits of 3.20 million Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong. His second work, “Fists of Fury,” in which Bruce Lee completely defeated Japanese Karate fighters, earned HK$4.43 million, and the box-office returns for his third work, “Return of the Dragon,” in which Bruce Lee beats white fighters, reached HK$5.31 million.
In Hong Kong, December 25, the day when Japan occupied Hong Kong in 1941, is called Black Christmas. As seen in Bruce Lee’s films, in order to understand East Asian history, including the Korean War and the Vietnam War, it is necessary to comprehend Asian feelings against the West and “westernized” Japan, which colonized much of East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. The “failure” of the United States, especially in the Vietnam War, partially derives from this lack of understanding of Asian values.
The Western interpretation of the Cold War order cannot alone explain all Asian struggles after World War II. These were struggles against Western imperialism, struggles to regain an Asian national identity, and struggles to free Asian peoples who had been suppressed under Western dominance and Japanese occupation since long before World War II. Such Asian struggles became particularly prominent immediately after the war.