I have a dear friend in Beijing who is a teacher at one of the universities. She is a kind and gentle soul. She sent me some photos from the march. The scenes in the photos she sent were by contrast pretty calm and low key. I asked her what she thought of all this, and she approved of the marches. She wrote how the students gathered and marched right through Beijing – “can you imagine that?” I think the idea that people were expressing themselves politically in whatever fashion was exciting for her, and she also expressed genuine concern for Japan becoming a military power again. Her parents had lost relatives to the Japanese during the war. I think those stories are still very present in certain parts of China (she is from the north).

So I asked her yesterday (I think) if there were any marches going on. I found her reply very poignant. She told me the marches were over, that the students had used the weekend to express their anger and that was that. She said they are all thinking that it’s really no use. “There is a chinese saying,” she wrote: ‘That is the business of the people who are eating meat and it is none of our business” (Rou shi zhe mou zhi).” She went on to say that Chinese people have never had any real say in anything political, even if it involves saving the country. She still worries about Japanese power, because she feels that Japan has not come to terms with its own history.

April 13, 2005 @ 9:39 pm | Comment

Hear!Hear!Lisa,even some of the most violent and negative protests can still produce some positive things.

Mark

April 13, 2005 @ 10:41 pm | Comment

Things are never black and white. Let’s all hope some good comes out of this past week’s events. Thanks for the great comment, Lisa.

April 13, 2005 @ 10:43 pm | Comment

My pleasure. I should add that calling her a teacher kind of underplays her achievements. She is at this point more of a dean and a true scholar, with several published books to her credit.

Well, once again, take care, Richard. And JR, if you’re out there, a recluse spider bite?! Yikes!

April 14, 2005 @ 12:20 am | Comment

What about the “50-60 000 strong riot on Sunday in a village in southeastern China, overturning police cars and driving away officers who had tried to stop elderly villagers from protesting against pollution from nearby factories?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/international/asia/14riot.html

April 14, 2005 @ 5:16 am | Comment

Keir: Simple one. When the story dosn’t quite fit in someone’s agenda of painting a ‘peacefully rising’ China, it doesn’t even exist.

April 14, 2005 @ 5:42 am | Comment

The rural riot was the real deal, not a staged demonstration. There are a lot of domestic issues, such as pollution from factories that are owned by Party officials, that the government would prefer people not to think about. Hence the diversions provided by the Taiwan anti-secession bill and the anti-Japanese protests. It will be interesting to see how the government manages the domestic issues that are bubbling, and occasionally boiling over.

April 14, 2005 @ 5:48 am | Comment

Richard and the rest:

How would you fell if the Japanese is going to publish a history textbook which says that the bombing of Pearl Habour is out of self-defence? Or the USA has stopped Japan from “liberating” fellow Asians in South east Asia which forced Tojo to go to war with the US? How will you feel? How will US WWII veterans feel? Unless you put yourself in somebody else’s shoes, you would not understand the anger when they beautify and glorify their war atrocities.

Let me ask you, why did the US ask China to tone down the protests but never once did Washington tell Tokyo to face up to history and apologise? Because Washington is embarking on a containment policy on China. A hostile Japan will be the best bulwark against the rising influence of China. As the US remains blind to Japan’s distorting of history, i believe it would be a very sad day for thousands of Allied soldiers, survivng or fallen, because in Tokyo’s historical perspective, they were the ones who had stopped Imperial Japan’s “liberating Great East Asia War” sixty years ago, the Japs saw them as criminals, not heroes.

April 14, 2005 @ 8:20 am | Comment

Richard:

And regarding your comparison between the CCP and Japan’s revisionism in history, i think its a fatuous comparison. While the CCP did commit unpardonable crimes, its of a different nature altogether. Now its not the CCP, BUT THE CHINESE NATION is demanding justice for Tokyo’s blatant lies abt history. Even the CCP would have not been able to suppress it when it comes to nationalism.

Are you trying to tell us that former comfort women had no right to rant at Tokyo for its lies when their CCP govt is a murderous regime? What are you really talking about? So living under communism would mean that you cannot have justice or dignity? What kind of perverse argument is that? Its the Chinese people who wants justice, the Chinese folks are not the Siamese twin of the CCP regime. So i assume that a comfort women should not cry foul because her communist government is a greater evil than Japan? Until you answered all these questions, you gave the people impression that we cannot find a trace of humanism in your thoughts.

April 14, 2005 @ 8:29 am | Comment

SP, you are totally putting words in my mouth. When did I say people living under communism should bear not have justice or dignity?

You may see this as a spontaneous national uprising. A more objective perspective indicates the recent protests were to a large extent engineered by the goivernment, which provided transportation, protection and objects to throw, all at a time when it badly needed to divert attention from growing catastrophes in the countryside.

I’m not going to repeat yet again how awful the Japanese of WWII were. We all know. We all know they should apologize. That isn’t the question. The important thing is perspective. Lots of terrible things have happened. To what extent do you allow the ghosts of 60 years ago to dominate your behavior today? It’s good to remember and to demand justice. But don’t you get it? Your anger is being used to manipulate you. Period.

April 14, 2005 @ 8:58 am | Comment

As to hoiw US veterans would feel if the Japanese revised the history of Pearl Harbor, here is your answer. They would be furious as hell. They’d demand a dimplomatic response. They may even suggest a boycott of Japanese goods. But I can promise you, precious few (if any) would throw bricks through the windows of Japanese restaurants or set Toyotas on fire.

April 14, 2005 @ 9:01 am | Comment

Here’s what the Germans and the Koreans have been saying to Japan.

In a joint news conference with Roh on Wednesday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder advised Japan to reflect on its past …

http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20050414/610000000020050414210958E7.html

Mark

April 14, 2005 @ 9:21 am | Comment

Mark,

Thank you for the wonderful link, all the people need to go there and read, especially those that think they can interpret facts and change history and those that think Japan can do no wrong in here.

April 14, 2005 @ 9:42 am | Comment

Who on earth ever said Japan could do no wrong?? Quote/link, please.

April 14, 2005 @ 9:49 am | Comment

The attitude of a lot of posters here taking Japan side without knowing all the known facts that’s why I am posting more facts (on Japan’s whitewashing history) in a thread below.

April 14, 2005 @ 9:57 am | Comment

Japan’s whitewashing history is a matter of fact. Of course, they’re not the only whitewashers, as you well know…. Perspective.

April 14, 2005 @ 9:58 am | Comment

Pretty soon those that say Iris Chang’s the rape of Nanjing is full of mistakes can argue Japan actually didn’t invade China at all in WW2.

April 14, 2005 @ 9:59 am | Comment

i find it beautiful.

April 14, 2005 @ 2:24 pm | Comment

Check out this AP story, and don’t be put off by the title, which would appear to minimize the textbook issue – the article explains why there is so much concern and anger, even though the offensive textbooks are not widely used. And there are many quotes from Japanese educators, etc., who are also extremely concerned by the trend these textbooks represents – a nice and valuable change from the whole “China versus Japan” paradigm we’ve been seeing…

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050414/ap_on_re_as/japan_tempest_in_a_text

April 14, 2005 @ 4:44 pm | Comment

Lisa,

“Well, once again, take care, Richard. And JR, if you’re out there, a recluse spider bite?! Yikes!”

Yes, I didn’t know much about brown recluse, I thought spiders were some cute good insects but let me tell you, later on there was a big hole on my knee, you could see the flesh and bone. Blood was gushing out like a fountain when I tried to stand up… I almost lost my leg because of gangrene(?) on the third day…

There are some photos of recluse bite. (maybe graphic)
http://www.rochedalss.eq.edu.au/reclusebiteleg.htm

April 14, 2005 @ 7:36 pm | Comment

JR,

Eyewww! Of course I went and looked. I’ve heard about the damage these spiders can do – one woman lost all of her limbs from a bite. Glad to hear you took care of it in time.

April 14, 2005 @ 10:22 pm | Comment

I am not of the opinion that Japan can do no wrong. However, when it comes to this textbook dispute and the oil drilling fiasco, I am all opposed to the pot who would call the kettle black.

My nomination for the most hypocritical quotation of the decade:

“Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for past history and wins over the trust of the people in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibility in the international community.”

If Wen truely believed his words, China would give up its seat on the Security Council, shut up, and focus all of its energy to mending its internal problems (not including Taiwan) first.

April 14, 2005 @ 11:19 pm | Comment

I think the overwhelming Chinese attitude is: If Chinese people (CCP) bully Chinese people and whitewashes it in their history, it’s OK. But if Japanese people tries to do the same, it’s not. It’s a nationalism thing.

Of course, there are probably lots of Chinese people who don’t even know the extent of the CCP’s lies to its own people.

April 15, 2005 @ 2:07 am | Comment

Sweet Mary and Joseph, JR, that is nasty. Hope ur ok. How big are those things?

And sp, the “how would you feel if…” argument has been retread about 50,000 times on Richard’s site and any other thread on the issue. For most of these thought experiments the answer is “yes, group A would be upset at group B”.

And there is, by the way, an argument out there that the Japanese attacked the US out of self defense. Sanctions on Japan were considered by the Allies to guarantee war with Japan, an island with few raw resources. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, Stimson recommended sanctions but Hoover said it would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

An article I just found that mentions those sanctions, and basically blasts the Japanese government for alot of its behavior, is over at Japan Times. The author, Gregory Clark, is a retired Australian diplomat and works at an int’l university in Japan.

Now let’s take a moment to think about that: a newspaper in Japan prints an article by a foreigner that heavily criticizes the Japanese government. When’s the last time Xinhua published an article by a foreigner talking about how Mao was a butcher? In Japan, people can at least get access to arguments and information that challenge what the government says. In China they can’t – and that’s why the CCPs’ lies are more harmful to the Chinese “nation” than Japans’.

One other thing about the Japan Times article, he says:

Even allowing for the emotionalism and ad hoc manner in which Japan conducts much of its diplomacy, it is hard to believe that Tokyo wants deliberately to antagonize its neighbors. Some other factor must be involved, and I suggest that deep down it goes back to Japan’s largely unstated view of itself as a victim of obstinacy and insensitivity from others.

The victim of the obstinacy and insensitivity of others… can you think of another nation that feels the same way? Ah, the irony.

April 15, 2005 @ 6:26 am | Comment

Ah! It’s working!

(See my earlier comment, upthread.)

April 15, 2005 @ 10:11 am | Comment

Good NYT article about CHinese government’s scripting of the protests and also of the considerable risks of this policy for the gov – many officials are very nervous about this getting out of hand and forming the basis for a political grassroots movement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/international/asia/15china.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th

April 15, 2005 @ 12:40 pm | Comment

I’m definitely not one who believes that Japan can do no wrong, but let’s face it, if the Chinese are going to rant and rave about Japans history books, they had better improve their record on history keeping first.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2005/04/15/2003250536

http://thehorsesmouth.blog-city.com/read/1203367.htm

April 16, 2005 @ 12:01 am | Comment

Richard:
I found that a lot of comments are just funny.
“because Chinese government are whitewashing, the protests against the whitewashing in Japan are not justified” ???
“Any protest is just a plot as long as the government allowed it.” ???

By the way, the government has wiped out almost all information about the protests from almost all important chinese media for several days. The police stated that protest today would be illegal. Still there is a protest at Shanghai today. The truth is that the government is afraid of protest.

April 16, 2005 @ 12:35 am | Comment

Yes, several thousand at the moment are protesting. Some are throwing bottles and tomatoes at the Japanese Consulate………

Sounds like a wonderful way to diffuse tensions. Funny how the police have not stepped in yet to quell this illegal protest….

I suppose they will get to it sooner or later.

April 16, 2005 @ 12:42 am | Comment

Again
“A criminal is a criminal, he has no right to protect himself from a crime just because he himself is a criminal”

April 16, 2005 @ 12:43 am | Comment

To Thomas
What you may not know:
Today police has sucessfully quelled one in Beijing.

April 16, 2005 @ 12:49 am | Comment

Thomas, Dave, Richard:

The CCP regime is a indeed a oppressive political institution which i fully agree. I realise that all of you have cried foul with China’s numerous human rights violation which is understandable. However, it is ironic this time round that you all want the CCP regime to take out all its repressive tools to suppress the protesters. It funny how rights champions like you all wanted tanks to roll out against these anti-Jap protecters like in the Tiananmen days.

The truth is Communist China realises that the boiling anger is not beneficial to the regime at all. They tried to block out news in the CCTV. However, they are walking on tight rope. The communist leaders realised they cannot totally destroyed Sino-Japanese relations. At the same time, there was widespread public anger which rode on intense nationalism. They can use repression on the protesters, but nationalist anger would be diverted against them which would be political suicide. They are in a political fix with little options.

April 16, 2005 @ 1:27 am | Comment

Went to my school today at the Sino-Japanese emnity Centre across from the Japanese Ambassador’s Residence; chock-a-block with soldiers,police, fire engines etc. But sans any protestors…. it’s still 16.00 so there’s a lot of time between now and the foreign minister’s arrival.

April 16, 2005 @ 2:27 am | Comment

I would say to you “sp” that most human rights advocates might encourage or at least notice without criticism PEACEFUL protests in China against Japan on human rights issues and elsewhere and human rights matters, but we do not support riots, not gangbanging rock and bottle throwing crowds of people intent on damaging property and/or injuring people. That is unfortunately for thugs and government goons.

One thing I suppose that many if not most human rights advocates frown on is government organized, encouraged and supported protests as they are invariably political and use people to do things the government can’t or should not do like going out and beating up people for the government, which it cannot do or to torch buildings and cause trouble that government wants to take advantage of.

It is my firm belief that the CCP/government stimulated and helped these anti-Japanese protests (see my comments elsewhere on this blog), so it is with ironic interest I view your belief that the Party/gov is frightened of these protests. It suggests to me they are as cynical as George Bush and his gang of cutthroats in using and abusing the general public in the name of their power.

April 16, 2005 @ 2:44 am | Comment

Aren’t we making too big a deal out of these protests? From what I can read out of various news reports, a few windows were broken at some Japanese style restaurants and grocery stores. The Japanese residence got egged and stoned by some hotheads. As far as I could tell, nobody has been killed or injured. Nobody has been lynched. No building has been set on fire. Coming from the city of Montreal, I’ve seen hockey riots that made the anti Japanese protests look like a joke. I’ve seen protests by government unions in Ontario erupt into violent street battles that have been far worse.

April 16, 2005 @ 5:42 am | Comment

No comparison with the Richard riots in the late 50s, eh wkl?

April 16, 2005 @ 6:06 am | Comment

Lisa,

Sorry to make you look. 🙂

Dave,

In the beginning, it looks like a tiny mosquitoes bite. But it was not itchy but the dot became hard and painful. I put some Mopiko on it, and the area extended to a size of a saucer. It became blue and black later on. My whole leg became red and swollen and I started having fever on the second and third day. My neighbor I was visiting happened to be a nurse, she told me to see the doctor immediately or my leg would have to be cut off. It only took 3 days for all these to develop… I took some anti biotics from the doctor. most of the flesh on my knee was gone and went to a surgent afterwards who operated on my knee without any anesthesia. The pain was excruciating…but did heal very slowly eventually.

April 16, 2005 @ 7:39 am | Comment

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/World/GD16Wd01.html

How about shooting flaming arrows?

April 16, 2005 @ 7:46 am | Comment

JR
Where were you when you got bitten? What does that spider look like?

I have been bitten several times in China by a small quick moving spider that moves sort of like a crab. The bite last about 3 weeks with a great itch, hardness at the site of the bite. But that is all that happened.

April 16, 2005 @ 10:52 am | Comment

Pete, I think JR got bitten=in the US, in the Northeast. I don’t know if the brown recluse can be found in China or not.

All I gotta say is “EYEEWWW!!!”

Another article in the UK Guardian today by Isabel Hilton, comparing these protests to 1919 and their potential to get out of hand. I think the government encouraged these protests for a while but as JR said, there is a lot of fear about the protests getting out of hand. I look at it this way – if people see that they can get out on the streets en masse on ONE issue, they will be encouraged to try it again on another. Apparently that village in Zhejiang where they had the riots about the polluting factory has become a tourist attraction – many Chinese have now heard about the protests, the townspeople are still in control of the town, there are burnt out police cars in the streets, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1460366,00.html#article_continue

April 16, 2005 @ 12:53 pm | Comment

I’m with the small minority of posters on the anti-japanese protest issue, all I can say is so what? People have been blaming the government and calling the demonstrations riots because they egged an embassy and smashed some windows. There really is no such thing as a spontaneous protests as all require organization and political activeness. Even the vaunted tiananmen protests were the manifestation of a political struggle between varying cliques of the communist party and that they were not dispersed until June 4 was not because they were spontaneous or free, but because certain party elements felt it served their purpose by keeping them there. Another comparison can be made to the recent demonstrations in Taiwan directed at the anti-seccessionist legislation. The arguement could justifiably be made that it was a DPP orchestrated political movement to energize their voter base, and present a (green) front for easy international recognition and sympathy. Public funds were used to promote the demonstration and the President of the RoC and numerous DPP politicians took part. Is this a spontaneous mass movement? Yes and No, do the so-called democratists decry this as government manipulation despite the presence and support of politicians, amusingly not. Yet this double standard applies to the mainland calling this past week of protests government orchestrated when news of it actually spread by word of mouth, emails, sms, and other private mediums and not by official party organs. As noted, the communist party isn’t called the communist party for nothing and it is within their ability to mobilize massive demonstrations should they so wish. Anti-japanese sentiment is real as others have mentioned, but is the government responsible for these demonstrations? They didn’t organize them and wasn’t responsible for mobilization, the most can be said is tacit acknowledgement yet even then you have the party press orchestrating a media blackout over them. They provided bussing afterwards so the protestors could leave. Is this tacit support or is it a good tool to rapidly disperse agitated protestors that could turn violent? Some people have speculated that these demonstrations were allowed to take place to act as a release valve for political agitation that isn’t normally allowed. Well guess what, people protest despite the bans on them and there are reportledy thousands of protests every annualing involving a total of several million people.

Frankly, I’m with wkl in that much ado has been made about nothing. Protests are not uncommon in China and they occur with regular frequency. That these protests were not pre-empted isn’t as much a sign of government organization or support as it is a recognition that it is not a threat to the magic S word, stability. Why confront agitated people when you don’t need to. I would postulate the real reason that the protests have so much attention in the western press, is not because of any significant political connotations on part of the Communist party, but rather because it involved Japan and is technically speaking, an international affair. It gives them the opportunity to opine and trot out the standard China paradigms so the intellectual bourgeois masses can congratulate themselves slate their petty neophyte thirsts. Theres a good reason I don’t read the NYT’s and its not because I’m some demented conservative who feels the world is out to get him. It’s because quite frankly the quality and depth of journalism is crap.

/rant

April 16, 2005 @ 7:25 pm | Comment

Lisa:
I googled that spider. It appears to be made in the USA only. Thanks for the info.

Jing:
Your self-described rant is interesting. But bringing in Taiwan rally/protest for comparison isn’t valid . If, as I believe, the mainland government is behind the protest why doesn’t it openly say so? If it did you might squeeze some relevance out of a comparison with the big Taiwan rally/protest.

Your effort to distance the government from the CCP is a futile attempt to give the government some cover and legitimate status. When all the power players in the government are vitually the same as the CCP hierarchy, the distinction you try to slide by in your comments is meritless and meaningless. That points out one of the big problems for the government is the lack of perception that the government has any self-created legitamacy. Probably the biggest problem for the Chinese government is it is the creation of a one party system, whose claim to legitimacy has always been questioned because it took control out of the barrels of guns and there has been no universal suffage in New China and no independent parties have been allowed to speak and organize peaceful opposition.

April 16, 2005 @ 8:29 pm | Comment

I reread my comment again Pete, and I still can’t make out where I attempted to distance the communist party from the government. In fact, from my reading, I noticed that I use the terms Communist Party and government interchangeably.

My comparison with the Taiwan protests I feel is perfectly valid. You may want to reread what I wrote. My complaint, is the insinuations that the demonstrations were somehow illegitimate or less because of possible government support are rather absurd. “Hollow leftist empiricism” as noted on ESNW’s blog.

April 17, 2005 @ 12:01 am | Comment

p.s. Richard can you please fix the text formatting problem in the comment boxes when you get back. There is an annoying bug that when a long html link is posted, the margins of the comment box gets pushed way out to the right. Since you can’t resize the comment box feature, you have to scroll left and right after each line. This is needless to say a chore.

April 17, 2005 @ 12:03 am | Comment

“It is my firm belief that the CCP/government stimulated and helped these anti-Japanese protests”

i agree with you, pete.

the shanghai municipal government appeared on tv asking people not to attend the protests on the weekend, and i even received several similar mobile short messages from the government, saying that unapproved protests are illegal.

by doing so, the government made the whole shanghai aware that a protest approached and in fact encouraged people to attend.

thanks for your “firm belief”, fantastic theory indeed.

where do you live, pete?

April 17, 2005 @ 12:46 am | Comment

“Good NYT article about CHinese government’s scripting of the protests and also of the considerable risks of this policy for the gov – many officials are very nervous about this getting out of hand and forming the basis for a political grassroots movement.”

another funny theory.

what “political grassroots movement”?

students and shanghainese have no interest in politics. the government don’t want the protest become a violent one, therefore it try to shrink the scale of the protest. that’s all.

i see those western journalist’s “people-against-communist-tyranny” mentality is as stubborn as those red guards’ “people-against-capitalist-exploitation”.

it’s really funny to see people use a pre-set model to intrepret everything happen in china, especially this model is fastly out of date

April 17, 2005 @ 12:58 am | Comment

Pete,

Lisa is right, I got bitten in the US last year. I don’t think there is brown recluse in China. The site I linked above has pix of that spider, it is kind of hard to distinguish it from other spiders (mid size, brown and long legs). Now I just kill any spiders I see in the house, they are evil.

April 17, 2005 @ 1:02 am | Comment

“I think the overwhelming Chinese attitude is: If Chinese people (CCP) bully Chinese people and whitewashes it in their history, it’s OK. But if Japanese people tries to do the same, it’s not. It’s a nationalism thing.”

who says “it’s OK” when ccp bully chinese people?

the logic of your argument reminds me how ccp refused the us human rights report about china

April 17, 2005 @ 1:07 am | Comment

Bingfeng,

You haven’t posted in your blog for awhile, did you go to the protest in Shanghai? Did you take any photos?

April 17, 2005 @ 1:17 am | Comment

I have too many points to make in a comment, so I’ll limit myself to this:

1. If the German government approved textbooks as “historically accurate” for use in German schools that whitewashed German atrocities during WWII, we wouldn’t be having this debate. And I don’t think anyone here would be using the ‘physician heal thyself’ argument. And no one would have the balls to say to Poland or Russia or France: “Lots of terrible things have happened. To what extent do you allow the ghosts of 60 years ago to dominate your behavior today? ”

2. The only reason people are making these arguments is that they are blinded by the diabolical evil of the CCP, as a lot of people are on almost any issue related to China.

3. Of course the CCP is using the protests for its own purposes. Of course Chinese textbooks are completely distorted. This pot and kettle argument is ultimately weak, however. It actually reminds me of arguments the CCP itself uses whenever it is criticized. It is an ad hominem attack — attack the person (or country) presenting the argument instead of the argument itself.

4. If China were a democracy right now, do you think there would be more or fewer Chinese out in the streets right now protesting? Do you think Chinese nationalism is merely a tool of the CCP and has no independent existence? I don’t care what form of government China has, the Chinese people would still be anti-Japanese and so would their government.

This issue does illustrate how a lot of people approach China in general.

April 17, 2005 @ 1:27 am | Comment

Tuode,

Thank you for the words of wisdom. You can see the bigger picture, a lot of other people are reluctant to see in here.

April 17, 2005 @ 1:54 am | Comment

who says “it’s OK” when ccp bully chinese people?

Chinese history books don’t spend a lot of time talking about the Tiananmen “incident.” They downplay the achievements of the Nationalists in WWII, among other things. And there are constant government abuses of human rights cases of corruption, and limitations on freedom. There are many, many things wrong with Chinese society. Yet I don’t see many Chinese people as passionate about the CCP’s problems as they are about Japan’s. Not having an outlet for their anger is not an excuse. Let’s face it, most people aren’t exactlly calling for revolution–if they did, we’d hear from them. Chinese people tend to think, “Since the CCP is at least doing some good things, and there’s hope for improvement, we can deal with these disadvantages.” Therefore, I reason out that Chinese people think it’s “okay” to tolerate CCP abuses, at least for now. I wonder if it’s just my personal experience, or my friends’ experiences, but it seems that most Chinese people are more resentful of Japan than the CCP, even though the CCP has a much more negative impact on them. The degree of anger felt against the Japanese outweighs that against the CCP by far. Those demonstrators don’t really know many facts about Japan, yet they are much too willing to believe the worst about it.

Disclaimer:
I’m not trying to use a “pot calling kettle” argument here. I agree that Chinese people have every right to protest. All I’m trying to say is that nationalism has a big role in it, otherwise we’d hear a few more “anti-CCP” voices around.

April 17, 2005 @ 6:36 am | Comment

the logic of your argument reminds me how ccp refused the us human rights report about china

By the way, I wasn’t making an argument about anything. I was expressing an opinion: that Chinese people tolerate Japan’s wrongdoings less than CCP’s wrongdoings, and this is because of nationalism. It’s a perfectly legitimate opinion, and I know many people who agree with me.

As I reread my post, I think you misunderstood my intentions to something pro-Japan, anti-China. I never said that it’s okay for Japan to be bad because the CCP is bad. I said that, in the eyes of many Chinese, it’s okay for the CCP to bad, but not the Japanese.

April 17, 2005 @ 7:01 am | Comment

Jing:
Having re-read your and my comments several times again, let’s just say I stand by my criticism.

As a well meaning suggestion, remember that what you might meanwith your written words is not always what the reader thinks is meant by your words.

I think you missed my second point regarding the DDP of Taiwan and the mainland government. The DDP did not hiding anything about its involvement in the march. The mainland government hides its position on the anti-Japanese protests. If it didn’t want them, it could have stopped them from the start or at least denounced them. Or it could have indicated on its 3 prong disagreement with Japan, that the masses had complaints that justified peaceful protests against the Japan. It just appears to me the government wanted the protests, but does not want to own up to that.

There is no way that I would take your references to the Chinese government and the CCP as interchangable in that comment. Consider your own words, “As noted, the communist party isn’t called the communist party for nothing and it is within their (sic) ability to mobilize massive demostrations if they (sic) so wish.” That, it seems to me is not a reference that would be interchangable for the word “government.” The following sentence also provides a factual distinction in what you think the government didn’t do and what you said the communist party did. I do think you can reconcile these thoughts of yours with your protestation you merely were using the word “government” interchangably with the communist party.

April 17, 2005 @ 7:22 am | Comment

Well no matter what CCP did, it belongs to the section of intern affair, while the matter which Japan is the involvement with a foreign power, those thing arent on the same level.

April 17, 2005 @ 7:27 am | Comment

bingfeng:
Actually, I travel, not really staying any place.

April 17, 2005 @ 7:28 am | Comment

Anyone else read about China’s refusal to apologise for not containing these protests due to Japan’s failure to own up to the past, territorial claims, and HUMAN RIGHTS? The Chinese complaining about another country’s human rights? Maybe it’s a bad translation, but here’s China’s foreign minister’s words:
“The Chinese government has never done anything for which it has to apologise to the Japanese people,” said Mr Li. He added: “The main problem now is that the Japanese government has done a series of things that have hurt the feelings of the Chinese people on the Taiwan issue, some international issues including human rights, and especially in its treatment of history.”
What is he referring to?

April 17, 2005 @ 4:21 pm | Comment

jr,

i have been very busy the past week and didn’t attend the protest. but many of my friends were there.

April 17, 2005 @ 7:01 pm | Comment

a news of last night says people in north eastern china found several japanese bombs in a construction site

similar chemical bombs left by japanese during wwii are found in many places of china and killed some chinese in recent years.

japanese government refused to provide a map of where those dangerous bombs are located in china

it is japanese attitute towards their past that makes chinese angry

April 17, 2005 @ 7:08 pm | Comment

I’m in the unusual position of (partly) agreeing with Jing. I don’t think Pete’s argument saying that Jing was trying to differentiate between the CCP and government is a valid one. I pretty much agree with everything Jing said in terms of practical details, but I disagree on the significance of it all. I think that in future years when historians are discussing the origins of the 3rd Sino-Japanese War, they’ll devote at least a paragraph, if not a whole section of a chapter, to the anti-Japanese riots of 2005.

April 17, 2005 @ 11:47 pm | Comment

Well no matter what CCP did, it belongs to the section of intern affair, while the matter which Japan is the involvement with a foreign power, those thing arent on the same level.

Very good arguement to explain why Chinese are privileged to commit atrocities against fellow Chinese. That’s in the core of Chinese mindset. Thank you for making it known to non-Chinese.

April 18, 2005 @ 6:40 am | Comment

Bellevue, while I agree with you in principle about your criticism of the Chinese mindset, it’s important to remember that pretty much every country recognises that there is a major difference between doing nasty things to your own people, and doing nasty things to people in other countries. According the international law, war is justified against a state that does it to another country, but not against internal nastiness.

Related to this is the internationally accepted definition of what is a refugee … you have to be in another country, before you can be classed as a refugee. It doesn’t matter what kind of nastiness you’ve been suffering in your home country, and you can even be in a “refugee camp” miles from your normal home, but until you cross an international border, you don’t qualify as a refugee.

Then there’s another question … aren’t school textbooks and the education system, and the religious practises of a country’s politicians in visiting a certain shrine all domestic affairs? China certainly doesn’t like it very much when foreign countries start telling them how they should behave …

April 19, 2005 @ 1:27 am | Comment

FSN9:

You have a good chance to be right about the mindset of other peoples, but I’m afraid you haven’t yu3 shi2 ju4 jin4 (go along with time) – at least not updated your definition of refugees. Now UN high commissioner has a new category for ‘internally displaced people’, who are forced out of their home but not beyond border. They now can be treated as refugees.

International law aside, the new development in practice will more and more often treat the perpetrators of domestic violence as war criminals against a foreign state. People should not be given a license to kill just because they happen to be of the same tribal group of the victims. We are obviously not there yet – look at Tibet.

April 19, 2005 @ 4:07 am | Comment