Panicked China reins in rioters as anti-Japanese protests spread

[bemildred]

After a week of megaphone diplomacy that stretched ties between China and Japan to breaking point by disputes about history and territory, Beijing has cracked down on anti-Japanese protesters in an apparent attempt to defuse a movement it fears could spiral out of control.

Beijing authorities said any attempt to repeat last weekend's attacks on the Japanese embassy and Japanese-owned property which have brought relations between the two Asian giants to their lowest point since normalisation in 1972, would be "considered illegal behaviour".

A government spokes-man said: "We hope people and young students can trust that the party and the government can properly deal with Sino-Japan relations ... and do not do anything that will affect social stability and hurt the capital's image."

The demonstrations were caused by Japan's authorisation of school textbooks that many Chinese believe gloss over its occupation of the country in the 1930 and 1940s.

Independent UK

[gordianot]

1. A new cultural revolution?

This is an old pattern in modern Chinese history. Boxer rebellion, Cultural Revolution, Democracy movement, etc.. Bush and the Neo-Cons seem determined to create China as the next real Superpower.

One of these days China will lose complete control. I hope we are not in the way. Japan better wise up there is a real Godzilla awakening in Asia and it is China. I suspect bullets and bombs will not stop this monster.

[Zynx]

2. Japan knows whats happening - and they're nervous

Japan really doesn't want to fight a war with the Chinese or the Koreans though - both of those countries still owe Japan "payback" for all the mass rape and medical experiments.

China would gleefully nuke Japan if it could without getting hit by the US in return.

[MeinaShaw]

12. A new cultural revolution. Let's hope not.

This is very scary for many Chinese when they hear about these riots by students. Many remember what it was like. Very horrible time. That is always in the minds of Chinese that it not happen again.

Many will hope the Chinese government will not let it happen again. You may not understand that if you and your family did not have this happen to them.

[gordianot]

20. I have met people who lived through the cultural revolution.

I have also met people who survived the Nazi death camps.

Asia is a scary place in the 21st Century.

[MeinaShaw]

26. Me too

You just met another one.

[gordianot]

30. America is in the early stages of losing its democratic institutions.

Our last bastion, the independent judiciary, is under full assault as the GOP seeks to create a one party system.

Republic's do not have a good history of survival, we are about to find out how well entrenched Democratic ideals will continue in America.

[SoCalDem]

3. Isn't Xenophobia "grand"?

It never ceases to amaze me how , in the 21st Century, people cannot just all DECIDE that ...yes there were bad things that happened generations ago, but NOW we have bigger fish to fry, and there CAN be a coming together with TODAY'S people..

I am not saying that history should be forgotten, but just a modern relfection on it...People did what they did back then because they might not have known better.. WE DO KNOW better now..

If there is a way to apologize and compensate, then just DO it..and get on with today's troubles.. there are enough to worry about without dragging long-dead bad guys into the mix.

[smirkymonkey]

5. I think some of it may be projection of their anger toward their OWN

government onto the Japanese (and some residual anger for past crimes.) China is a tinderbox and people find it easier to project their rage on to another group than go up against their real opprssors.

It happens here all the time - rage and fear over the inequities inherent in our capitalist system and our growing individual powerlessness manifest in hating the "other" - Muslims, Arabs, Gays, etc...

[Geo55]

7. Fry 'em up ! .....here's a "big" one

"but NOW we have bigger fish to fry"

"If the resentment is now back on the streets, it is because China's rise is shifting the geopolitical tectonic plates, offering a direct challenge to Japan's economic dominance of east Asia and to the strategic dominance the US has enjoyed, with its major ally Japan, since 1945. In the East China Sea, China and Japan have been facing each other off over fossil fuel reserves in 14,000 square miles of disputed waters. China has been drilling for gas in an area that Japan claims, and this week Japan announced to Chinese protests that it would license oil and gas drilling in the same waters."


http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0415-28.htm

[DoNotRefill]

24. In 100 years you'd be right...

but now? There are still plenty of people on both sides who were there and remember EXACTLY what happened.

How would people in the US react if US textbooks basically said "The US rightfully interned those damned traitorous Japanese-American people during WWII so that they couldn't betray us again."

[Art_from_Ark]

27. Are the Japanese textbooks actually making claims like that?

I would be very interested in reading the actual Japanese text. But regardless of what it says, the textbook in question is only used in a few isolated , mostly in the island of Shikoku. The real pretexts are something else--

Viz,

Japan's vying for permanent status on the UN Security Council

Japan's controvery with China over gas fields

Japan's support for Taiwan and China's determination to "reclaim" Taiwan (to gain unfettered access to the Pacific Ocean, among other reasons).

The growing gap between rich and poor in supposedly everyone-is-equal 'Communist' China and the Chinese pluticracy's need for diversionary tactics to turn the people's attention away from worsening conditions at home.

[CBGLuthier]

32. They didn't know better??

I guess way back in the dark ages of the thirties and forties no one told the japanese that raping women was a bad thing?

Japan has continued for 60 years to whitewash and downplay their actions of that period. They behaved like barbarians because they were (are) cultural elitists and racists who considered all non-japanese to be inferior.

[Igel]

4. Jingoism is a difficult thing to contain.

China's leadership's playing a dangerous game--use rampant nationalism to accomplish international political purposes. Hitler used it to gain power and keep it; China's using it for blowing off steam and bullying people.

I wonder what would happen if they really dwelt on how China abused China and others? Nah, that'll never happen.

When I see the German grad student in my wife's department, I don't see a Holocaust-perpetrator, even though he thinks Germany's a great country and prefers it to others. It's sad that the government's taught young Chinese to see a Nanjing-rapist in the current batch of Japanese.

[teryang]

6. The government hasn't taught people this

This is the normal perspective of a Chinese or Korean. Although most Americans don't even know what happened a few years ago, Confucians have a very long memory. Family traditions and why and how grandma was forced to read and write Japanese are still with many.

Wishing it away won't happen. On the other hand, exploiting it is dangerous as well.

[wickerwoman]

8. It's pretty heavily indoctrinated into them in school

You should read what some Chinese text books have to say about the occupation. And very few Chinese today are Confucians.

I live in Shanghai and even I knew a week ago that there was going to be a demonstration on Saturday and that it would probably turn ugly. Of course the police knew what was going to happen. What did they do? They warned the Japanese to stay inside and everyone else to stay off the subway between certain hours. They didn't beef up security around the embassy or the protest. It's not that different from the U.S. government telling Muslims (and Sikhs) to stay inside or stop wearing turbans after 9/11 but not dispatching extra police to protect mosques. Rather than take steps to deal with the violence it's easier to tell the targets to maintain a low profile.

This was as close to a government sanctioned protest as you're ever likely to see in China.

[MeinaShaw]

13. If it was government sanctioned, it was a mistake by the government

I can not believe the China government would let anything like this happen. It would be a very big mistake from the government's view if they did. I live in Wuxi and so did not see what happened in Shanghai but I hear it was a pretty big deal. Some friends were down there and did not know about it. They were going to the open air market on Huaihai Lu.

btw, Is China Jim still at the Yellow Submarine Pizza? He used to put on a great pub crawl but it has been a long time since I heard about one in Shanghai.

[wickerwoman]

16. Hi Meina

Wuxi is great! Are you teaching?

I heard that there was going to be a demonstration on Tuesday. It was pretty general knowledge throughout Shanghai. I know that the police issued a general warning to Japanese tourists in Shanghai to stay in their hotels on Saturday so I have to imagine they knew what was going to happen. Many companies scheduled meetings on Saturday morning to try to keep their employees out of it. I also spoke to some friends who went as observers and they said the police didn't do a hell of a lot to discourage the protest getting out of hand. It may not have been organized by the government but they could have done a lot more to stop it if they had really wanted to. But, as other posters have pointed out, Japan-hating is a convenient safety valve and the government thinks that riling up hatred against the Japanese will improve their standing in the emerging Asian economic block.

I agree that there's a lot of potential for it to backfire or get out of control though. I have a friend who was a student at Zhejiang University when the students almost lynched a Japanese exchange student for kicking a football through a dorm window. Scary shit.

[teryang]

18. Are the textbooks wrong? Do they conflict with experience?

Confucianism in modern Asia is a behavior. Most Chinese are Confucian in behavior. It is a cultural pattern that hasn't been erased, not a formal belief system, as it once was.

I guess how their ancestors were killed during an invasion of mainland Asia that lasted 45 years and why Grandma learned Japanese wouldn't be known to them, unless they read it in a textbook.

When celebrating the birthdays of deceased ancestors, are their killers and former masters not remembered?

It doesn't take a whole lot to manipulate this sentiment.

[barb162]

23. are the texts any different than the ones from 5 or 10 years

ago?

[DoNotRefill]

25. Long memory?

I'm sure having Grandma telling you how she was a Japanese "Comfort-woman" at gunpoint when she was young wouldn't inspire a love of the Japanese.

The Japanese DO need to "fess up" and not gloss over what they did when today's crop of Japanese politicians were 20-somethings...it's not ancient history...

[Art_from_Ark]

28. Um, most of today's Japanese politicians were NOT "20-somethings"

during the war, which ended 60 years ago. Koizumi himself was not born until 1942.

[Pallas180]

9. the Japanese tortured Chinese and did medical experiments on them which

far exceeded the torture and cruelty in World War 2 the Germans were committing.

Also they experimented wiht chemical sprays etc on areas of China where to this day nothing grows - called the Dead Land - and people hide in their huts from the disfigurements from these chemicals and experiments...those few that lived .

And lest you think what savages they are - we did not prosecute those Japanese doctors - we brought them to America to continue their experiments, the same we brought Nazis over to be in the OSS/CIA

[JohnLocke]

10. Un-fucking-believable.

China starts "spontaneous" anti-Japanese riots on charges that a textbook didn't cover in "sufficient detail" 60-year-old crimes that Japan had repeatedly apologized for. Meanwhile, China continues to saber-rattle at the Taiwanese, illegally occupy Tibet, and support the Stalinist government of North Korea, and murder/torture/imprison its own political prisoners. Let's also nor forget that while Japan has essentially no offensive military capability against China, China has the largest military in the world.

Unbelievable. I hope Japan gets its permanent Security Council seat (along with Germany, Italy, Spain, Argentine, Brazil, and all of the other nations that have been arbitrarily denied one).

[MeinaShaw]

14. When did Japan apologize? I must have missed that. nt

[JohnLocke]

22. Link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

[dArKeR]

11. They "know" the history of Japan but not the KMT invasion/slaughter of TW?

Chinese riot police stand outside the Japanese embassy as protesters march, waving flags and banners and shouting anti-Japanese slogans in Shanghai yesterday.

[wickerwoman]

17. The KMT were the enemies of the communists.

You might as well blame German communists for what the Nazis did to the Jews. It's totally irrelevant to the issue.

[dArKeR]

21. Not talking about 'blame' talking about facts of history which are

(not) in China's history books. The communists are selecting which history to acknowledge depending on their agenda. Just as the aWol Admin. is doing.

[Art_from_Ark]

29. "Selective history" does seem to be popular these days

I wonder what the old farts in the Forbidden City have to say about the Tienneman Square massacre?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. "Panicked"? That's extremely doubtful.

[psychopomp]

19. another issue is the gas exploration in the e. china sea being done

by both sides. This is an added dispute the foreign ministers of both countries are haggling over at present; additional information in the article at this link:

Japan Today - News - Machimura, Li divided over protests at outset of talks

Sunday, April 17, 2005 at 20:37 JST
BEIJING — Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing were divided over recent anti-Japan protests at the start of their talks Sunday, with Machimura expressing concern and Li blaming Japan for hurting Chinese people's feelings.

The talks in Beijing were taking place as demonstrators accusing Japan of glossing over its wartime past once again staged protests Sunday in several cities, including Shenyang in the northeast and Shenzhen in the south.

"The fact that there has been vandalism, including that against the Japanese Embassy, and violence toward Japanese people for three weeks in a row is a very regrettable situation," reporters present at the start of the meeting heard Machimura tell Li.

"I believe this is a situation that we should be deeply concerned about, and hope that the Chinese government will deal with it in a sincere and swift manner, in accordance with international law," he said."
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=&id=334502

[dArKeR]

31. Protesting man sets himself on fire

A man set himself on fire after hurling a bottle at the Chinese consulate general in the Japanese city of Osaka early yesterday, in the second weekend of violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.

The middle-aged man, who was not immediately identified, was taken to a hospital for treatment, police said.

"He is seriously injured with burns on the upper body but he is not in a life-threatening situation," an Osaka police spokesman said by telephone.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/04/18/2003250930

I though only Muslims were nut wacko terrorists?