Asian Threat Construction in Video Games: How The East Is Portrayed as Evil Imperialists in Homefront

There's been a lot of negative rhetoric in the news lately about Asian countries, such as China and North Korea. North Korea had been labeled a rogue state by the United States for a long time, and China last year had been accused of currency manipulation by the United States Congress. President Obama cited Asian countries as direct competitors in his 'war for the future' in his State of the Union address. So, it's easy to how Asian countries are being portrayed as threatening with all the loaded rhetoric.

It's interesting to see that this kind of attitude is being adopted in video games today. One particularly interesting example of this Asian fear mongering mentality is in the game Homefront.

It's a game that follows in the same vein as another alarmist piece, Red Dawn. Except, instead of Soviets invading America, it's Koreans. It's being developed by Kaos Studios and published by THQ. And it looks to be released around March of this year. In the game, the player takes on the role of an American who enters guerilla warfare against an occupying Korean army. The backstory leading up to this Korean invasion is the best part though. It's almost as ridiculous as a College Parliamentary Debate round, where everyone's arguments claim impacts to Nuclear war and extinction. The backstory goes a little something like this: there's an energy crisis in the year 2027, a giant flu epidemic that wipes out a good chunk of the U.S. population, and a unified Korea that annexes Japan and much of South East Asia.

The premise is pretty lol. For one thing, the likelihood of a unified Korea with imperialist ambitions under the North Korean leadership of Kim Jong Il's son is miniscule at best. While there have been steps taken by both countries to reunify, the outlook of it occurring like Homefront's backstory is a gigantic stretch. For one thing, the South Korean president said he would entertain reunification only if it was through a democratic process. Secondly, North Korea is severely lacking in an economic infrastructure due to global sanctions. For example, South Korea had to send them food aid due to flooding. So, South Korea is actually hesitant to reunite with North Korea because it lacks economic stability. And if the energy crisis occurs (yay peak oil theory!) like in the video, North Korea would be far worse off than the United States, which at least has some semblance of alternative energy and energy reserves. If there would be a unified Korea, it would most likely happen after the collapse of the Kim Jong Il's regime with a democratic South Korea taking over.

And the shellings last November in the South Korea island of Yeonpyeong didn't help Homefront's cause. And that's just the most recent setback for reunification, tensions have been high last year since a South Korean ship was sunk by North Korea. The South Korean president has taken a hardline stance because of this. This means reunification by the year 2013 isn't going to happen.

But more importantly, the international community just wouldn't stand for any of this. China is allies with both North Korea and the United States. And they are much stronger politically, economically, and militarily than North Korea. I just don't see them backing North Korea annexing most of South East Asia including Japan. They would intervene well before any of that would happen. China is the number one investor of the United States. Furthermore, Russia is another big country there. And I doubt that they would allow North Korea to attack Japan or the United States. Japan is also backed by the United States. The U.S. military wouldn't simply leave Japan like in the video. It's a key staging area for all of it's Pacific operations. And Japan itself isn't defenseless either. They have the Japanese Defense Force, which is pretty much a military in all but name.

The simple truth is that the global community is too interconnected now in terms of economy and global trade to allow any type of imperialist or aggressive action by developing countries like North Korea.

So Homefront's story is that of pure fiction. But it's interesting to see the mentality behind it. Before we were scared of communists. Now it's Asians.