For eight years I’d been focusing more on the “your hatred of the Japanese is completely irrational” with my students, and avoiding mentioning, “and you do it because the government wants you to be busy hating someone else and not paying attention to what they’re doing.” Well, at least, I avoided it except in very private situations with students that I trusted to be able to handle it (ie students who are used to strange foreigners and their insane ideas). Certainly never mentioned it on college time or property, and never in front of a class. Then two weeks ago, I started answering a throw-away question, and realised that my mouth was working faster than my brain….oops.
(I think I caught it in time. Told them they’d have to come to me after class if they wanted to know more. Luckily none of them are that eager.)

December 12, 2005 @ 12:12 am | Comment

I am still frustrated about the other facet of the “Japanese-Hatred” problem. I do agree that the Chinese government is inciting it to some degree to its political advantage like averting the attention to the real problems in China; however, what many of my fellow Chinese do abhor is the Japanese unwillingness to atone their war crime more than half a century ago. How do you expect a Jew would respond if a German Chancellor pays annual tribute to a shrine of the Third Reich in which Aldorf Hitler and Goebbels is the most prominent figure, only with a half-hearted apology to the Jews? What do a Jew feel if German government approves a textbook proclaiming the Holocaust being just a fiction? That’s what we felt as a Chinese when Japanese Premier Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine and read about the Japanese history textbook incident. I used to like Japan, even with all the negative propaganda on it, because of its nice electronics and cartoon movies. What really turned me against it, is what JAPANESE is doing, not the Chinese government’s propaganda.

December 12, 2005 @ 1:13 am | Comment

Frank, we’ve had these discussions a hundred (thousand) times here. The many, many apologies of the Japanese government have been printed ad nauseum. We all know how vile and disgusting the Shrine people are, and how terrible some of the historical revisionists in Japan are (almost – but not quite – as terrible as those in the CCP). And most of all, we all know how atrocious the Japanese were to the Chinese and others during WWII, and they can never be fully forgiven. But that was generations ago, and today’s insane hatred toward present-day Japanese remains one of the great enigmas of China, tainting its image and portraying its people as childish and immature (whether that’s fair or not isn’t. Time to grow up, time to move on.

December 12, 2005 @ 1:23 am | Comment

The one thing I will say here is that I don’t think Japan as a nation has ever come to terms with its actions in WW2 the way that Germany has. And that’s always made me a little uneasy. The revisionist textbooks are particularly disturbing.

So I think there’s a proper place for Chinese (and Korean) demands that Japan more directly acknowledge its past. But I agree that the Chinese government manipulates this legitimate resentment, using Japan as a safe target to which all other anger and resentment can be diverted.

But like Richard says, we’ve been down this road so many times before, and end up rehashing the same tired arguments.

December 12, 2005 @ 1:45 am | Comment

No, Japan has never done nearly as good a job as the Germans, and I can fully understand some indignation and concern over the government’s shiftiness on the topic. But the blind rage and foaming-at-the-mouth fury….well, we’ve discussed it to death by now.

December 12, 2005 @ 2:02 am | Comment

I was sitting with a bunch of fresh-off-the-boat and 1st generation chinese americans last winter, of which one was a friend, and they started talking about how much they hated the japanese (my friend didn’t contribute to the conversation, but I’m not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t been there). It was very, very surreal, and as you can imagine, pretty uncomfortable for me. I’m not used to hearing young americans being overtly and willfully racist. It was if it were cool for them to be this way as well, as if hating japanese people added legitimacy to their otherwise bourgeois, upper middle class, “oh aren’t I lucky I got a table at Nobu (best restaurant in new york city, ironically Japanese-fusion) next week” cushy existence. Total BS

December 12, 2005 @ 3:48 am | Comment

I often hear this thing about how well the Germans have done relative to the Japanese. I suppose there is an element of truth to it if you want a certain type of disowning of the past but I think it is misleading to simplistically say that the Germans have come to terms with what happened, that the Japanese have not, and by omitting mention of any other nationality to imply that somehow nobody else has anything to apologise (because they won the war). I could go on ad nauseam on this but crudely what I want to say is that the Germans adopted a model of “It was nothing to do with the normal German guy on the street, it was done by a bunch of nutters called the Nazis and the SS.” As recent research has shown there was a lot wider participation in the crimes than that, but one consequence of this disowning of the past is that it is awfully easy to commemorate the nutters crimes and teach about how evil these people were. The Japanese did not adopt this model. One of the main reasons is that the Americans decided to leave the existing power structure in place, so it was less straighforward simply to criminalise a segregated group of criminals and disown popular involvement in the crimes. Both sides of the political debate in Japan (I have written about this debate here: http://buyo.blogspot.com/2005/08/war-guilt.html) have adopted a model much more based on collective guilt or suffering. This makes it much more problematic to adopt the positions Germans make without strong domestic feelings being aroused. But Im not sure the German way is straightforwardly more honest. Oh, and then of course there is the question of when the Americans are going to get around to apologising for the two genocides on which their nation was founded. And the British for all the evil they committed across the world. The Russians for the ir many crimes. I won:t mention atrocities committed by Chinese people because Im sure you all know plenty more about them than I do.

December 12, 2005 @ 5:25 am | Comment

Ok, I agree the Americans were pretty nasty to the Indians, took the land of the Indians and were wrong. But there has never been any credible indication of a directed mass extermination of the Indians. So I don’t quite think that justifies as genocide.

What is the second genocide? Slavery? Again a crime…but not genocide.

Your point still stands. I am just questioning the wording.

December 12, 2005 @ 7:55 am | Comment

Re: Founding of US and Canada.

There are more than a few books out that document the directed germ warfare used by the British and French against the native NA populations.

I think it would be difficult to find any major power today that hsa not engaged in some sort of atrocity in the past. Rehashing the past and blaming the living today is pointless and counterproductive.

December 12, 2005 @ 9:50 am | Comment

I don’t think it’s “rehashing the past” to come to terms with one’s nation’s serious historical crimes.

Certainly we are not done discussing slavery and the legacy of slavery here in the US, and you won’t find textbooks in school that make light of that issue.

I do agree there comes a point where this constant “rehashing” becomes counterproductive, though I’m not sure where that point is.

Acknowledging the mistakes has to happen first though.

December 12, 2005 @ 10:07 am | Comment

Allready the idea of a Anti-Japanese war movie for children doesn’t appeal like a good one to me.

A positive Japanese character confusing? Depands on what message you want to send out with the movie.

December 12, 2005 @ 11:29 am | Comment

“China’s obsession with hating Japan”

gime a break!

the film was made in 1963!
the memory was still fresh, and it was like any of the old movie where characters were black and white.

December 12, 2005 @ 11:30 am | Comment

there are equally as many movies that showed charcters who are totally good and totally sick, in CCP’s war against KMT. and invloving children soldier.

e.g. “twinking red star” – shanshan de hongxing.

December 12, 2005 @ 11:33 am | Comment

the only difference between CD and Times is that the last 2 paragraphs were deleted. Not a single word was changed otherwise.

the last 2 paragraph was not fair.
the purpose of the movie was also for showing ‘how good’ CCP was., and it was about a war and suffering.
to simplify it as hatred fanning is just absurd.
there was no such yasukuni/textbook quarrel between China and Japan back in 1963.
the focus at the time was KMT and USA. Japan was only viewed as a chesspiece of US in the cold war.

December 12, 2005 @ 12:11 pm | Comment

this is the story outline of the movie.

it also mentioneded some anecdote the pistol as a reward, ‘zhang had tried to hide one he obtained for himself before, when he was supposed to give to the head of the guerilla’. anyway, i don’t know what is wrong of giving a pistol to a guerilla soldier in france, poland or russia.

this is the link for those interested

http://cnmdb.com/title/5693/plotsummary

December 12, 2005 @ 12:17 pm | Comment

Ironically, I could probably take this film to Tokyo and use it to recruit Japanese nationalists.

THIS is why Japanese nationalists still exist. They thrive on showing people in Japan how much China hates them and how China tries to twist its peoples thoughts in ugly ways.

The more anti-Japanes setiment in China, the more power Japanese nationalists have. It is a vicious circle.

December 12, 2005 @ 12:37 pm | Comment

Sun Bin, the movie Time talked about is an animation remake, not the 1963 original. There had already been a TV drama remake this year, and it’s considered a failure. Young people are not interested in those so-called ‘Red Classics’.

Use of animation is clearly an attempt to attract young kids. Will it be a success? It’s hard to say as many Chinese parents are weary of propaganda children films (it’s a waste of their child’s time better spend on learning piano or English). Perhaps schools will organize students to watch?

I think the overall trend in the Chinese entertainment world is more realistic portrayal of Japan and Japanese. The 2003 drama ‘Toward the Republic’, for example, show a more favourable Meiji-era Japan than previous Chinese films. And they’re also starting to use Japanese actors rather than Chinese actors in make-up, another positive trend that may lead to more multi-dimensional Japanese characters.

Even the fact Mr.Sun seriously considered employing sympathetic Japanese character shows an improvement, IMHO, given the fact he’s remaking a old classic which portrayed Japanese as brutal, hysterical clowns.

December 12, 2005 @ 3:17 pm | Comment

and Wuliao, did you see “devils at my doorstep”?

I think the Chinese title is “Guize laile.”

December 12, 2005 @ 3:59 pm | Comment

Sun Bin, I think the headline was changed in the CD article as well – not just changed for space considerations, but to say nearly the opposite of the original!

December 12, 2005 @ 4:53 pm | Comment

GWBH, there is a single documented instance of germ warfare being used against the Indians, by a British Major during Pontiac’s War. For the French to have used germ warfare would have been suicidal, since the mass of French military power in North America was Indian. That does not mean that germs did not play a major role in reducing the numbers of Indians, but most of that contamination was unknowingly spread through trade and other contacts. The most documented case is probably that of the Mandans, who virtually disappeared as a people within 20 years. So, if “books” are being written on the subject of germ warfare in the Americas, they are likely rehashing the same incident and adding in lots of political commentary.
Back on subject, I sometimes wonder if the reason that “the Chinese” (however many thereof) hate “the Japanese” is that China’s revolution utterly failed to deliver a healthy and vibrant future for all, as it promised to do in 1949. Yet the Japanese, who were far more devastated in 1945 (no sympathy, there), not only recovered from the war, but went on to build one of the world’s leading trade economies, using precisely the same economic system that had been so violently rejected by the CCP. And whose architect was none other than Mao? (And, who coincidentally, killed far more Chinese than the Japanese had.) How could the Party not teach hatred of the Japanese? To do less is to invite today’s Chinese to think for themselves, and that could prove fatal to the CCP.

December 12, 2005 @ 5:18 pm | Comment

Thanks for the intelligence, as always, Lirelou.

December 12, 2005 @ 5:38 pm | Comment

wuliao, thx.

so it is an animation remake. the old one is black&white movie, i think.

other lisa,

the time article did talked about guiz laile, but that paragraph was truncated by CD.

December 12, 2005 @ 7:11 pm | Comment

richard,

that is a much better headline. 🙂

December 12, 2005 @ 7:14 pm | Comment

Couple of questions for our Chinese readers: other countries suffered badly under Japanese: Korea, Singapore etc, but they don’t get whipped up into spams of hatred the way the mainland Chinese do. Koreans are justifiably angry about Japan’s continial denial of its war crimes, but they act in a civilised way about it. Why is this? Anything to do with having a free press so they can see what’s really happening in Japan?

Second question: what do Taiwanese think of Japan? After all, as “Formosa” they were subjugated by the Japanese empire for much longer than mainland China. I haven’t seen riots in Taipei about this yet.

The treatment that China Daily gave to the plagiarised Time article typifies the way China deals with the Japanese shrine provocations – telling one side of the story while conveniently forgetting the other.

December 12, 2005 @ 7:39 pm | Comment

There were protests in S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. There was even a protest in New York.

December 12, 2005 @ 11:17 pm | Comment

Other Lisa,
I’ve made an attempt to watch Guizi Laile with rather embarrassing consequence (imagine you and your unsuspecting friends got together to watch a film, then the film started with… certain very unexpected scene).

Michael,
Have you ever seen the notorious Korean children subway drawings? Or read the story about Koreans cut their fingers off in front of Japanese embassy? What about Koreans labelled a pig ‘Junichiro Koizumi’ and hacked it to death near the Japanese embassy?

I would say one of the major reason for recent outburst of anti-Japanese sentiment in China is Chinse media’s extensive coverage on anti-Japanese activities in South Korea. If you read Chinese nationalist forums, you’ll find just about every anti-Japanese article slams the Chinese for not being as patriotic as Koreans. Given the Chinese media’s similar extensive coverage on Korean waves (and how all Korean wave stars are anti-Japanese), you may even wonder whether hating Japan is part of the Korean Wave. And ask yourself a question, if Chinese are starting to boycott Japanese products, which country’s goods are in the best position to replace them?

December 12, 2005 @ 11:54 pm | Comment

Thomas,
I think your questioning of my wording is legitimate.

However, I will stick by the suggestion that the annihilation of Indian society was a systematic and planned process in which their settlers and their government destroyed a civilisation and killed very many of its members. One way in which genocides are committed is by removing people’s ways of sustaining themselves (eg the Ukrainian famine). Anyway, I accept the legitimacy of the questioning of my wording there because you could argue that the annihilation of Indian nations was an incidental product of criminal greed.

I would more confidently argue that Slavery was a genocidal institution. It systematically destroyed entire societies in Western Africa and killed millions of people. It did so purposefully. The death rate was so high on the boats over and in the plantations that I think it would be sophistry to argue that the perpetrators were not planning to kill the millions of people who died. Infact, they built in mass death into the economics of their enterprises. The fact that Auschwitz produced products through slave labour and the fact that some people survived does not mean that there was not a genocide going on. Ok, you might legitimately say that the primary purpose of slavery was not extermination, whereas it was the primary purpose of the Nazis actions, but I really think that the meaning of genocide does not require that extermination be the primary purpose. I believe we only have to agree that extermination was foreseeable and that the perpetrators went ahead with the process in a planned and purposeful way. Anyway, this is all semantics. The fact remains that America was founded on two great crimes against humanity. (On slavery, of course many non-Americans have as much guilt). Anyway, my general point is why is it that it is only the Japanese and the Germans who have to apologise for their past evils. I think it goes something like: let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

December 13, 2005 @ 3:51 am | Comment

Note to China and Japan: Both of You Need to Shut Up and Think

The great article or book on the deep-seated mutual hatred and distrust
between post-war China and Japan,…

December 13, 2005 @ 4:13 am | Comment

I hate to jump in so late in a topic that evidently has been discussed to death on this site, but Michael is absolutely wrong. The demonstrations in South Korea were, if anything, far more violent than the ones in China. They simply didn’t get any press coverage in the West.

As for why there wasn’t government action by many of the other countries occupied by the Japanese, I think a simple reason is that none of those countries have the economic clout that China does. While Japanese businessmen worry about their position in the Chinese market, with these smaller countries the situation is reversed, since most of them are even more dependent on Japanese investment or tourism than China is, like Guam.

I find the racist attitudes to the Japanese disquieting, but I also find the free pass given to the Japanese by the China-bashers here also disgusting. Richard never answered what he would think if Germany’s cabinet members visited a Nazi shrine.

December 15, 2005 @ 11:04 pm | Comment

Danfried, you’re wrong about everything.

If German cabinet members went to a Nazi shrine I’d be hysterical. But there is no Nazi shrine in Germany. If they go to a cemetery where soldiers are buried, including SS and other Nazis, I’m okay with it as long as they never glorify the Nazis.

Korea’s demonstrations were far less violent than the Chinese and were covered in detail by bloggers and the media.

Other governments do not need to support such nonsense as anti-Japan demonstrations. They are mature and secure governments chosen in large part by their people. No secure government engages in such nonsense.

December 15, 2005 @ 11:31 pm | Comment

Richard, think about what you’ve just written. You’d be hysterical if German cabinet members visited a Nazi shrine, but you’d be fine with them visiting a “normal” cemetary? So is your implication that Yasukune is just a normal cemetary? (A cemetary without bodies, by the way.)

I haven’t read what you’ve posted in earlier threads about this topic, but surely you know what role the Shrine has played since the earlier Twentieth Century? Surely you know what is espoused in the Shrine museum? Calling the shrine just a cemetary and ignoring the function it has served for Japanese militarists and right wingers is facetious.

You basically admit you would be hysterical if German cabinet members visited a similar shrine. Why is it so strange that the Chinese act similarly?

I’m not trying to defend the Chinese government’s manipulation of its public. I’m just trying to point out — just as Frank Yu did in his above post — that Chinese throughout the world have genuine reason to be outraged. If Japan wants everybody to “move on”, blanket apologies won’t help if it continues to claim it never invaded anyone, and was the “liberator” during WW2 while the Americans were the aggressor.

Furthermore, I totally reject the idea that one country can’t criticize another if it also committed atrocities in its past. If German cabinet ministers visited a Nazi version of Yasukune, Israel would not lose any right to criticize this because of their own treatment of Palestinians. If you used that argument — that only those with clean hands can criticize — almost every country would have to shut up.

I don’t know what blogs you read covering the protests in Korea, but I saw just about zero coverage of the protests on the websites of the major American newspapers, and I read the New York Times and Washington Post sites daily. Their coverage at the time was focused almost entirely on what was going on in China. And I don’t see how you can say things like throwing molotov cocktails in Seoul was not as serious as the bottle-throwing in Beijing.

I take the duplicity of the Chinese government as a given. What upsets me more is the double standard applied by democratic countries in reporting about German and Japanese revisionism. The Chinese are just supposed to “get over it”, even though Japanese revisionist views are touted more openly in Japan than ever before, to an extent that Neo-Nazis would never be allowed to get away with.

December 16, 2005 @ 2:13 am | Comment

There’s nothing you can tell me about the shrine I don’t already know about. I know it’s history and have condemned the keepers of the shrine and the cult of militarists who want to rewrite history. but there are still plenty of ordinary Japanese soldiers buried there. Reagan visited Bitberg cemetery where there’s a lot of Waffen SS buried, but also a lot of regular soldiers.

You basically admit you would be hysterical if German cabinet members visited a similar shrine.

I really don’t like facile arguments. I never said any such thing.

About China and Korea – there were a few nutcases in Korea who used flaming arrows and molotovs. In China, it was a nationwide phenomenon, involving huge masses, often attacking Japanese brands and people at random. Far more alarming, far more shocking to the world than the oddball in Korea. And in Korea, you didn’t have the police organizing and helping the demonstratotrs and supplying them with eggs (or molotov cocktails).

December 16, 2005 @ 3:51 am | Comment

Do you remember what happened when Reagan visited? Jewish and U.S. veterans groups were outraged, even though the cemetary didn’t have a museum espousing Nazi views, and wasn’t the site of Neo Nazi demonstrations, unlike Yasukuni, which has such a museum, and is an annual gathering place for Japan’s ultra rightists.

At the time I wasn’t offended by Reagan’s visit, but I would have been if the Bitburg cemetary had been a place like Yasukuni. Can you imagine what the world’s reaction would have been? That is basically the gist of my argument.

By the way, Reagan hastily added a visit to a concentration camp to his agenda in order to placate the uproar. It’s too bad Koizumi isn’t going to make a similar gesture before hell freezes over…

Also, Yasukuni is a shrine, not a cemetary. There are no bodies there — which is one of the excuses the Shinto priests give as to why war criminals cannot be “unenshrined” from the temple.

December 16, 2005 @ 10:28 am | Comment

I have a chinese exchange student and she hates everything Japanese!!! It is terrible. One day she said that she was disapointed because she found out that one of her friends was *gasp* 1/3 Japanese!!! She loves Germany(although she seems to hate everything about it!) and blames Japanese for everything bad!!!!!! She is mean, rude, selfish, and a complete jerk!!!!! Not only is she racist, but she won’t even try new things or accept new ideas!!! All she does is watch TV and she is too cheap to help us pay for her(we are hosting for free)she is too spoiled and lazy to do chores or think on her own!!! HER FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND HER ALWAYS SAY, “CHINA HAS A 5,000 YEAR HISTORY!!” In 5,000 years, they should have been the first to go to the moon, drive cars, create technology…THEY HAD 5,000 YEARS AND THEY WASTED IT!!!!!!!!! The parents spoil the children until the kids can’t do anything on their own and only care about themselfs!!! People think that China is the next super power, but that will only happen because of other countries!!!

January 2, 2006 @ 10:04 pm | Comment

Simply, most american feel it was right to go out for a war on Irq as soon as their two buildings attacked by the terrs who were basically not from that country, why can’t the Chinese just go on the street to commemorate and show their feeling as their previous genearations were totally butchered in their old capital?

May 14, 2006 @ 2:55 pm | Comment

Growing up as a kid in Korea I knew how much Koreans and Chinese people hated Japanese. The past memories of the Japanese invasion were very difficult to understand when I was a kid, so I ignored them. I only began to understand when I grew up and I felt great anger toward the Japanese. Then I learned about racism and I began to focus my hate on the Japanese goverment rather then the civilians.

June 28, 2006 @ 10:11 pm | Comment

I grew up in Hong Kong, and my cousin grew up in Shanghai. Yes, we were raised with Chinese history books with topics like “National Humiliation”. Well, what the Japanese military had done during WWII wasn’t anything honorable, especially Nanjing Massacre. It is history; it happened, and unfortunately it is being showcased for everyone to see. And sometimes when I looked at those pictures showing how Chinese people being tortured and killed, I’d think the person in the picture could’ve been my grandparents. But well, we’re both in our early 20s now, and we NEVER hate Japanese people. I myself even dated one. The only thing I don’t do is to pay tribute to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which my current boyfriend (American) is trying to make me do. I mean…if it wasn’t for the bombing, the war might have lasted longer. He only pays tribute to the bombing of Japan? What about the people died in Nanjing Massacre?? I’m Chinese, I can only go this far to love Japanese people. I have principle.

August 14, 2006 @ 2:03 am | Comment

Right On Yamin! I’m all for you. The only problem is Japanese supposed “Superiority”. They treat other people like dirt and its no wonder that rarely anyone wants to immigrate to Japan for life (Hence why their population is dropping like crazy). Note that despite Nazi Germany’s holocaust, most Jews have forgiven the German people. Ever thought about why? This is because the German government was responsible for its actions. Just saying one is sorry for “liberating” other countries when in reality hundreds of thousands of people died is not sufficient. As a result, Asian people throughtout Asia hate Japanese people, but hey, what goes around comes around.
Note to Celene:
you typed
“I have a chinese exchange student and she hates everything Japanese!!! It is terrible. One day she said that she was disapointed because she found out that one of her friends was *gasp* 1/3 Japanese!!! She loves Germany(although she seems to hate everything about it!) and blames Japanese for everything bad!!!!!! She is mean, rude, selfish, and a complete jerk!!!!! Not only is she racist, but she won’t even try new things or accept new ideas!!! All she does is watch TV and she is too cheap to help us pay for her(we are hosting for free)she is too spoiled and lazy to do chores or think on her own!!! HER FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND HER ALWAYS SAY, “CHINA HAS A 5,000 YEAR HISTORY!!” In 5,000 years, they should have been the first to go to the moon, drive cars, create technology…THEY HAD 5,000 YEARS AND THEY WASTED IT!!!!!!!!! The parents spoil the children until the kids can’t do anything on their own and only care about themselfs!!! People think that China is the next super power, but that will only happen because of other countries!!! ”
Only uncultured people type in capital letters all the time, use exclamation marks every five words, and misspells a third of the words that are typed. Not only that, don’t even use your excuse about how Chinese people had five thousand years to do things like land on the moon. Don’t tell me your ethnicity was always improving and had no wars. As for the exchange student, you contradict yourself. How can someone hate a country and yet love it?
also, allow me the opportunity to correct your horrendous grammar, diction, spelling etc.
1. disappointed spelled wrong
2. “all she does is watch TV” sentence is repetitive.
3. Her is suppose to be she
4. themselves is spelled wrong
5.Superpower is a portmanteu and is one word

October 22, 2006 @ 6:14 am | Comment

It’s amazing that along with outrage against Japan, Korea doesn’t hold more disdain for the US, in allowing Japan to colonize them in the first place, based on the Taft-Katsura agreement

October 28, 2006 @ 2:58 pm | Comment