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China's fury doesn't wash, but why
the froth?
By Marc Erikson
SHENZHEN - Here in Shenzhen from Hong Kong
last Sunday with a couple of friends for some
weekend shopping, I had the misfortune of bumping
into a several-thousand strong anti-Japanese
demonstration at a shopping center - a day trip
wasted. Demonstrations had also been held the
previous Sunday in this special-economic-zone city
across the mainland border with Hong Kong.
At that time, some Japanese (and for good
measure, other) department store display windows
were smashed, some items looted. This has been
going on for the better part of the past two
weeks, not just in Shenzhen, but in Beijing,
Changsha, Chengdu and other places. Guangzhou
seems to have joined in this past Sunday. Shanghai
to date has been largely unaffected.
The
never-ending controversy over Japanese textbooks
once again allegedly touched off the anti-Japanese
protests; other issues apparently include Japan's
effort to gain a permanent seat on the United
Nations Security Council, the true ownership of
the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands, and claims to
oil-and-gas rich undersea territory in the East
China Sea.
What struck me was the
well-organized nature of the demonstration. A guy
in a dark brown suit (no tie, though) diligently
burned a Japanese flag; once aflame, it was
quickly doused by another protester prudently
equipped with a fire extinguisher. Then there was
the designated hitter/screamer - a fellow wielding
a broom stick (which, unbeknownst to me, may have
some marshal arts significance) who - carried
aloft by two stout men - delivered vicious blows
with both ends of the stick to the head and body
of a puppet of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi carried by a guy wearing a protective
motor cycle helmet. And then there were the "riot
police", accompanying the protest march more like
parade marshals at New York's St Patrick's Day
parade up Fifth Avenue.
We thought we'd
ask some of the protesters - more like revelers,
actually - what this was all about. "Whitewash,"
said one of them (in English) and repeated the
word several times over, presumably referring to
the alleged whitewash of Japanese war crimes
against China in present-day textbooks. "They [the
Japanese] are too arrogant; we can't take it any
longer," said another. How did they know about the
"whitewash"? They were told about it in their work
unit. Where did the Japanese flags come from that
were ceremoniously burnt? A guy handed them out
when they boarded the bus that took them to the
demonstration.
I can't vouch for it that
the Beijing demonstrations were as contrived and
carefully staged. But people picking up rocks on
cue as TV cameras focused on them and making quite
a show of hurling them at the windows of the
Japanese Embassy while "riot police" looked the
other way strongly suggest it - and suggest the
same organizers of the spontaneous anti-Japanese
outpouring.
Sunday noon, Asia Times
Online's Chinese-language sister publication
(along with most or all Chinese media outlets)
received an instruction from the Communist Party's
central publicity department (via provincial
propaganda units) to black out completely any and
all reports of the protest rallies. Publications
staff were, however, permitted to join the
demonstrations if they saw fit.
The
obvious question is, why was all this cooked up,
for what purpose, and why now? There are no
convincing answers, and it's in the nature of such
contrivances that the originators won't talk. One
thing, though, is quite certain: the Chinese claim
(at vice foreign minister's level) that Japan is
to blame for the unrest is absurd. Sure, Koizumi
has insisted on visiting Yasukuni Shrine (war
memorial were the remains of several convicted and
executed Japanese war criminals are interred)
every year. Sure, the textbooks are an issue. And,
yes, the Japanese are not the most repentant of
souls when it comes to their actions in World War
II.
But after seeing what I saw in
Shenzhen, I know that the Chinese government
and/or Communist Party got this thing going and
kept it going. Students might do this sort of
thing on their own. They certainly did at
Tiananmen in 1989. From the looks of it (the TV
pictures), students were involved in the Beijing
demonstrations. But in Shenzhen there are no
students. It's a special economic zone chock full
of contract workers from all over China, working
in factories or - per chance - in brothels. And
don't tell me this is an arrogant "elitist" view
and that factory workers are as capable of being
indignant about the historical wrongs done to the
nation as university students!
The
questions remain: why and why now?
To be
systematic about it, there seem to be three
possibilities: 1) the government wants to divert
attention from pressing domestic problems; 2)
Communist Party factional issues are fought out in
a strange arena; 3) Beijing wants leverage to
stoke up nationalist fervor for international
gain. Neither 1) nor 2) can be entirely ruled out.
While the anti-Japan protests were going
on in Beijing and other cities, villagers in
Zhejiang province did battle with police (and
won!), protesting operation of a chemical plant on
land appropriated from them by local authorities.
Similar such protests over land, taxes and so on
have been erupting regularly over the past several
years. Still, they do not appear to pose a serious
or immediate threat to governmental authority. It
has also been noted that Shanghai did not
participate in the protests. But it would seem
quite a stretch to construe an ongoing factional
quarrel between former party chief and state
president Jiang Zemin and his successor Hu Jintao
out of that.
That leaves international
leverage - and that certainly appeared to be the
message when Premier Wen Jiabao told Tokyo on
Tuesday that it must squarely face up to history.
"The strong reactions from the Asian [sic] people
should evoke deep reflections by the Japanese
government," Wen said, adding, "Only by doing so
[facing up to history] can it exert greater
responsibility in the international community."
Japan is lobbying
to become a permanent member of the United
Nations Security Council. Wen is telling Japan, shape up if you
want "Asia's" support. Note, he didn't say
China's. Beijing is challenging Japan for economic
leadership in Asia. And Beijing wants to be the
acknowledged leading and unchallenged regional
power. That appears to be the message. As for the
vehicle for conveying it, the issue of distortion
of history doesn't seem the best choice. The
distortions that litter Chinese history from 1949
till now are too many to count.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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