ABSTRACT
The conclusion summarises the volume’s main findings and reflects on their implications. First of all, the relational understanding of the concept of “weakness” put forth in the volume makes it possible to flexibly chart the changing status of “weak” groups and interests. Through the ascription of “weakness” and the protective measures following from it, a certain group may gain resources and become stronger, but other interests may have never been “weak” in the first place, at least not comparatively. The volume’s historical approach highlights the fact that East Asian actors have made use of globalised concepts and practices to frame certain groups and interests as “weak” in order to mobilise for their protection and establish protective institutions. To make such concepts and practices understandable to a domestic audience, they have often been appropriated by linking them to local cultural traditions. Such processes of framing, mobilisation and institutionalisation, however, do not necessarily lead to the effective protection of “weak” groups and interests. The outcomes are often ambiguous, with some groups being further marginalised through, and thus trying to resist, the ascription of “weakness”. These ambiguities highlight the reality that calls to “protect the weak” often serve aims unconnected to the groups or interests in question, such as gaining political legitimacy. More generally, the volume’s empirical findings suggest that the prevalence of calls to “protect the weak” in East Asia constitutes evidence of “entangled modernities”. At the same time, it is through processes of appropriation that East Asian actors seek to construct alternative views of modernity, which sometimes reify the dichotomy of “East” versus “West”. This marks a trend towards re-territorialisation, new entrenchments and essentialist self-assurances which we label reflexive essentialism.
