As Obama prepares to visit Asia, we must all move beyond nationalism, race

DENPASAR, Indonesia — What do some of the initial reactions to the missing Malaysia airliner, a less than diplomatic Chinese send-off to a departing US ambassador, and Russia's justifications for its annexation of the Crimea all have in common?

The answer is a government attitude and actions that are still defined by the dividing politics of race and ethnicity.

Should such narrow nationalism continue, Asia and now Europe are likely to face a future that harkens more back to the wars and divisions of the last century – and to the hit United States television series and Game of Thrones novels of contending kingdoms – than one of extended peace and prosperity. That’s sad for all of us.

One lesson from America’s own struggles with race and racism is that sustained business and economic growth should leverage every individual’s abilities – to succeed and to fail – regardless of background, ethnicity, race or religion. That's clearly a battle still being fought in America, and certainly remains the case in many parts of Asia, given recent headlines.

It's also an interesting question to ponder as the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama, makes a return to Asia at the end of this month.

Let's take each example case-by-case.

Several weeks ago, as investigations into the disappearance of flight MH370 uncovered two passengers traveling on what proved to be stolen Austrian and Italian passports, Malaysia Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi reportedly expressed disbelief that his nation’s immigration officials had allowed two passengers with supposedly “Asian features” to board.

"I am still puzzled how come [immigration officers] cannot think: an Italian and Austrian but with Asian facial features," Hamidi was quoted as saying by Malaysia's national news agency Bernama, as reported by local media.

Perhaps, he felt, passengers with Austrian and Italian passports who did not "look" Austrian or Italian – i.e., were not white – should have attracted much more scrutiny. Malaysia's own race-based system of governance and preferences where its own citizens are treated differently based on ethnicity seemingly carried over to an ability to determine who was a "real" Austrian or Italian.

This was later and further incorrectly clarified as Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman likened the two suspect passengers travelling on fake passports to AC Milan and Italy football (soccer) player Mario Balotelli, whose parents immigrated to Italy from Ghana.

The official was trying to explain that the two men on the flight between Malaysia and China actually did not have an “Asian” appearance. Security footage ultimately showed the two suspect passengers to be Iranian.

A few days earlier, as February came to a close and Gary Locke, the first Chinese-American to serve as the top US envoy to China, stepped down, a major Chinese government news service issued a decidedly derogatory and less than diplomatic editorial.

The opinion piece, “Farewell, Gary Locke,” called the third-generation descendant of Chinese immigrants a “banana”—a term used for Asians who identify with supposedly "Western values" (such as freedom of speech and religion) despite their skin color.

In essence, "yellow on the outside, white on the inside."

"But when a banana sits our for long, its yellow peel will always rot, not only revealing its white core but also turning into the stomach-churning color of black," read the China News Service diatribe apparently modeled after Mao Zedong's 1949 piece, "Farewell, Leighton Stewart," written of the last US Ambassador to the rival Nationalist Chinese government, then in Nanjing.

Putting aside what this latest missive might embarrassingly say about the mainland Chinese writer's attitudes toward people who happen to be white or black, the editorial certainly made clear a view, official or not, that the thoroughly American Locke – who had served as not only the first Chinese-American ambassador to China, but also governor of Washington state and US Secretary of Commerce – had betrayed during his time in post some hidden bond that the far-flung Chinese diaspora and all its descendants should hold to the governing powers of the land of their ancestors, based on the color of one's skin.

Respect for culture and heritage, it seems, was not enough for China's own minders and state-run China News Service.

With such an attitude, however, it is little wonder that large numbers of China's ethnic minority citizens, whether Tibetans, Uigyers or any of its "recognized minorities " may well feel uncomfortable and never fully Chinese if by virtue of their ethnicity they are seen by some Chinese authorities and fellow citizens as targets of suspicion.

The sentiments voiced in the anti-Locke editorial also does little to help the tens of millions of ethnic Chinese across Asia who are proudly citizens of Indonesia, Malaysia or elsewhere.

To the contrary, it may well reinforce suspicions and a lack of trust of ethnic Chinese, amidst China's rise, and sadly brings back memories of riots and pogroms one had hoped ended last century against Chinese, seen by some as "suspect" of allegiance to China and Communist Chinese orthodoxy.

And in Ukraine, as US president Barack Obama and other leaders powerlessly looked on, Russian president Vladimir Putin blatantly violated national sovereignty.

The justification for the annexation of this strategic peninsula? Russia says it was heeding the wishes of and protecting the ethnic Russians who made up much of the Crimea's population. Ethnicity, it seems, trumps the concept of international law and respect for another nation's sovereignty.

A missing plane en route to Beijing, a departing US diplomat, and a Russian land grab and conquest in all but name: such has been the setting for the arrival of spring, at least in the northern hemisphere, in 2014, and the return of US President Barack Obama to Asia.

Springtime once heralded new hope and renewal. Not now.

It remains time for Asia to move beyond a nationalism narrowly defined by race. And that remains a better model for a Burma, Nepal and all other countries still seeking to forge nations and democracies from people of different ethnicities.

The latest race-based sentiments, words and actions by governments or their mouthpieces should be cast aside with winter and seasons past.

Curtis S. Chin, a former US Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC.