The new “Great Game”? Decolonizing wargames in the era of China’s rise

ABSTRACTThe “new” Great Game suggests that, like the imperial competition of the past, we are witnessing a trans-imperial moment whereby Japan and China are vying for hegemony in East Asia. This is a new moment because East Asia, unlike Europe, has never had two co-existing superpowers. The prospect of a new imperial competition is complicated by the still-present American military power and the non-statist arena, especially in popular culture, where the imperial games are played out. Using two popular anti-Japan videogames, Glorious Mission Online (2013) and The Invisible Guardian (2019) as case studies, I argue these games are symptomatic of the relations between warfare and game in general. I then outline the trend in game development that subverts conventional wargames. Finally, I speculate on alternative game design over the disputed territories in the Southern China Sea that prioritizes ecology over human conflict and development.KEYWORDS: Wargamesanti-Japandecolonizationgame designChina’s rise Notes1 The distinction between real and virtual warfare is beginning to breakdown. As US General Martin Demsey discussed with our students in the Games and Culture class at Duke University some years ago, drone pilots also suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after their missions not unlike soldiers fighting in the battlefields.2 For a critique of the Second Amendment that justifies gun ownership in the US and its historical efforts to disenfranchise African Americans see Carol Anderson, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.3 As Darren Byler has argued, the Chinese state has appropriated the American term, War on Terror, to implement surveillance technologies and “re-education” camps to Sinicize Uyghur Muslim communities in Xinjiang (Citation2022).Additional informationNotes on contributorsLeo T. S. ChingLeo T. S. Ching teaches Japanese and East Asian Cultural Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Anti-Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia (Duke University Press, 2019).