China Is Pushing and Scripting Anti-Japanese Protests

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
US (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)
The New York Times > China Is Pushing and Scripting Anti-Japanese Protests

China has tapped a deep strain of nationalism among its people, gambling, analysts say, that it can propel itself to a leadership role in Asia while cloaking its move for power in the guise of wounded pride and popular will.

But the government also seems to have taken steps to control - some say manipulate - a nascent protest movement to prevent a grass-roots challenge to the governing Communist Party.

In the last few weeks, relations between Asia's two leading powers have reached their most serious crisis since diplomatic ties were re-established in 1972. China has confronted Japan over newly revised history textbooks that gloss over wartime abuses. It stepped up its claim to disputed islands and undersea gas reserves between the countries.

China took Japan and the United States to task for declaring that they would jointly defend Taiwan in case of an attack from the mainland.

After weeks of hints, Chinese leaders said outright on Wednesday that Japan did not have the moral qualifications to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. That effectively thwarted Japan's ambition to attain that status as part of an overhaul plan this year.

The steps have proved immensely popular at home. But stirring up patriotic sentiment to unite the country carries big risks, because party officials fear nothing more than unscripted political activity. Furthermore, they depend heavily on the good will of the major foreign powers to keep investment flowing and the economy humming.

This is very scary stuff. Truly, the Japanese and the Chinese are playing with fire. The Japanese change their history books so the people are less inclined to oppose an active military force.
The Chinese remember their past in WWII. But have they forgotten what history has told us over and over? Stirring up a war fever seems to lead inevitably to war. I suspect there is a power struggle going on behind the scenes in China. President Hu Jintao was named China's top military chief on March 13th, 2005 telling the Chinese military to "prepare for war". He seems determined to turn the Chinese people away from the desire for freedom towards nationalism. He continues a trend of actions that suggest the inner circle of leadership in China is very concerned about internal turmoil in the rural areas and in the cities.
However, if China leaders realize their worry, and find control of the demonstrations is lost, the war fever will have to be squelched. Its likely that little short of war will diffuse the anger. China could face a ominous choice either risk a civil war or plan a war of retribution against Japan.

Complete Article
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April 15, 2005
China Is Pushing and Scripting Anti-Japanese Protests
By JOSEPH KAHN
EIJING, April 14 - Enraged about Japan's tendentious textbooks and territorial disputes in the East China Sea, Sun Wei, a college junior, joined thousands of Chinese in a rare legal protest march on the streets of Beijing last weekend.
Yet the police herded protesters into tight groups, let them take turns throwing rocks, then told them they had "vented their anger" long enough and bused them back to campus.
"It was partly a real protest and partly a political show," Mr. Sun said in an interview this week. "I felt a little like a puppet."
China has tapped a deep strain of nationalism among its people, gambling, analysts say, that it can propel itself to a leadership role in Asia while cloaking its move for power in the guise of wounded pride and popular will.
But the government also seems to have taken steps to control - some say manipulate - a nascent protest movement to prevent a grass-roots challenge to the governing Communist Party.
In the last few weeks, relations between Asia's two leading powers have reached their most serious crisis since diplomatic ties were re-established in 1972. China has confronted Japan over newly revised history textbooks that gloss over wartime abuses. It stepped up its claim to disputed islands and undersea gas reserves between the countries.
China took Japan and the United States to task for declaring that they would jointly defend Taiwan in case of an attack from the mainland.
After weeks of hints, Chinese leaders said outright on Wednesday that Japan did not have the moral qualifications to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. That effectively thwarted Japan's ambition to attain that status as part of an overhaul plan this year.
The steps have proved immensely popular at home. But stirring up patriotic sentiment to unite the country carries big risks, because party officials fear nothing more than unscripted political activity. Furthermore, they depend heavily on the good will of the major foreign powers to keep investment flowing and the economy humming.
"The basic policy of our government has been to be conciliatory to Japan and the rest of the world," said Pan Wei, a political theorist at Beijing University. "But that policy has become less viable today, when people are demanding a harder line."
The government's new approach will face a major test this weekend. It will juggle an emergency diplomatic visit from the Japanese foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, with a possible second wave of rallies against Japan. Messages have circulated on Internet forums and mobile phones calling for demonstrations in Beijing, Shanghai, Shengyang and Chengdu, though it remains uncertain if the authorities will allow them to proceed.
One well-connected government media editor in Beijing quoted a senior Communist Party leader as saying he was pleased with how protests unfolded last weekend. But the same official also warned about the spread of nationalist sentiment, including within the party itself.
"There is a state of concern, even panic, about whether this could get out of control," the editor said.
Hu Jintao, China's recently anointed top leader, adopted a nationalist stance after taking full control of the government and military last fall. In March he arranged for the country's legislature to approve a law authorizing military action if Taiwan moves too far toward formal independence.
Officials said the law was necessary because delegates at the generally passive legislature, the National People's Congress, demanded that the government do something concrete to check Taiwan's independence movement. But even Chinese officials say the legislation backfired overseas, probably delaying European plans to lift an embargo on arms sales to China.
China often emphasizes that it intends to have a "peaceful rise," integrating itself into the world economy while living in harmony with its neighbors and the United States.
For many years China extended that white-glove policy toward Japan. But it also fueled domestic rage with virulent anti-Japanese propaganda. Now, political analysts say, the government cannot easily suppress emotions over what many people see as Japan's failure to atone for past atrocities.
Some analysts say the authorities have managed the protests deftly, though, tolerating and even encouraging discourse that would normally be taboo. "I think the movement has been heavily manipulated," said Yu Jie, a critic of the government who has written extensively on China-Japan relations. "The sentiment against Japan is real, but the government has co-opted it for its own purposes."
Officially, the Foreign Ministry says China had no choice but to allow people to protest.
"This protest was held spontaneously by some Beijing people upset about Japan's wrong attitude and actions on the history of the invasion" of China and other issues, said Qin Gang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Earlier this month a government-run association of retail stores issued an appeal to boycott Japanese-made goods. The boycott's promoters have had free rein on the Internet and the use of the tightly monitored network for mobile phone text messages.
Internet sites and government-run newspapers have also rallied support for an online petition to keep Japan off the Security Council. The official news media claim that more than 30 million people signed the appeal.
The police, who routinely deny permits for protest marches and sometimes detain people who seek the permits, approved the anti-Japan protest with little advance notice last week.
But in one indication of how the government sought to manage the event, at least four leading organizers of previous grass-roots efforts to confront Japan were ordered to stay home, the four said in separate interviews. One organizer said the authorities had reminded him of that order by cellphone on Saturday.
"We were told this was an entirely spontaneous event, so the people leading the movement must have no role," said Tong Zeng, who has been organizing anti-Japan activities since the late 1980's. "The police wanted to maintain tight control."
Mr. Sun, the college junior, said he felt that most of those who had taken part, like himself, cared deeply about what he said was Japan's hostility toward China. "There is not a single person at my university who would defend Japan," he said. "It is clear that the Japanese have forgotten their own past."
But he said the micromanagement of the protest left him feeling that his own government was "playing tricks."
China arranged similar violent demonstrations against the United States in 1999, just after the American bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade. The United States called the incident, which occurred during NATO's war against Serbia, a mistake. But many Chinese saw it as intentional because China opposed the war.
Now, unlike 1999, the Chinese government has used the demonstrations as a popular platform for announcing a new policy. On a high-profile visit to India this week, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao bluntly stated what lower-level diplomats have been hinting for weeks: China will not allow Japan to assume a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council until it meets Chinese demands.
"Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history and wins over the trust of peoples in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibilities in the international community," Mr. Wen said.
Shi Yinhong, a foreign relations expert at People's University in Beijing, said the demand was a clear move for political leadership in Asia.
"The moral issue is China's trump card over Japan," Mr. Shi said. "China is now playing that card."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company