Anti Japan protests in your town? 钓鱼岛

[xiaocai]

Nationalism whipped up by party or not, the hatred has much to do with what happened not so long ago between Japan and China and how the aftermath was handled, thanks to some third parties. We do not play the victim, we were and have been, also thanks to some third parties.

And some people seem to think that we Chinese should appreciate that it is the Japanese national government purchasing the islands instead of Tokyo local government? Seriously? The Japanese have been handling the disputed area like their backyard, then of course we are going to protest. I'm not an expert of Japanese legal system, I Don't know if any of you are or not. But please do not assume if you are not sure. However, if you are, I'd like to ask a few questions. We don't have elections and get to choose our leaders, but do Japanese? How did Ishihara become the governor to Tokyo? Was it not through local election? And how is his support rate? Is it not getting higher since his incumbency? How do we know that the central government is not with him, and all they have been doing is not yet another conspiracy? (yes these kind of things happened before, if you do not remember)

Anyways, I am against the violence involved in the protest and I think it is time to put and end to it. And also it is stupid to protest Japanese businesses and products. But we also have had enough "kind attention" from third parties. So yeah, that's cool you don't care about to whom these islands should belong to, and I also think anyone here to pass on their judgement on our claims to the islands can go and f**k themselves.

[realmayo]

Unfortunately for China its neighbours don't want to be pushed around by China; they prefer to snuggle up to the US. I think people are wary of a sense in China that once it's "back to its rightful place" it can boss other countries around, and that it's starting to think it's already strong enough to start. China believes the world is about to enter "China's century". It doesn't know, or perhaps doesn't care, that most countries don't want to live in China's century. Certainly its neighbours don't. Look at Vietnam ... even Ho Chi Minh preferred French rule to Chinese influence.

Now, Japan has these islands, and their ownership is being disputed by China. It's hard for a neutral to see how China's claim is any better than Japan's claim. So, neutrals will see maintaining the status quo as the least bad option, absent any compromise. Neutrals will criticise the Tokyo governor for increasing tension. And they will criticise China for its threats and ranting against Japan.

As for people f**ing themselves, I rather think that job is already being done by those Chinese protesters who are encouraging Japanese factories to leave the country, taking jobs with them. Already there are US manufacturers leaving China and returning home because (unrelated to the island fun and games) the economic advantages of the mainland are slipping away. China, like any autocratic regime with a command economy and a low starting base (Soviet Russia, 1930s Germany) has enjoyed a massive economic boost but is now starting to confront the severity of the flaws inherent in its system: those could lead to extremely severe economic shocks, making the talk of China as "overtaking America" seem as laughable as earlier US fears of being overtaken by the USSR, then by Japan. The earlier China is told that other countries take a dim view of it lashing out at its neighbours the better for everyone involved.

[querido]

I don't know who really owns us and I suspect you don't either; governments are fronts for a very thin layer at the top. So, you are wasting your intellectual effort here as stupidly as the rioters are wasting their physical effort. It's an addiction. I hope you escape it! <3

[realmayo]

You believe the Chinese government is being controlled by a small number of secret rulers we've never heard of? Interesting. As for who owns me, well the Chinese have got some maps which go back over three decades but the Japanese say I was given to them by the US and the only reason China started kicking up a fuss is because it recently discovered I'm full of gas.

[外国赤佬]

It really puzzles me why so many people with such anti-Chinese, pro-US views would bother learning Chinese. To hate 'em chinks better, eh?

[xiaocai]

Oh realmayo, seriously I don't know where all those came from. Are we still talking about 钓鱼岛 here? I admit that we are greedy, we need more land, more sea and more oil. But no one was f**king talking about "China's century" what so ever and I do not care, as a Chinese, and nor do I really give it a f**k. Yeah they can snuggle up to the US as much as they want as long as they don't go across the line, we can still do our businesses just as fine (And guess who is the biggest trade partner of ASEAN?). And what the hell does this discussion have anything to do with "overtaking America" and our economical outlook under an autocratic regime? Seriously, some people just think too much. I'd recommend you to open a new thread and write whatever c**p you can pull out from your a**s, and trust me, I will not say a word.

It really puzzles me why so many people with such anti-Chinese, pro-US views would bother learning Chinese. To hate 'em chinks better, eh?

I'd really like to know their progress on the Chinese language.

[realmayo]

外国赤佬: Fortunately I know you're not referring to me or my earlier post #82, because there's nothing there that anyone could sensibly construe as anti-Chinese or pro-US. Which of the posters on this thread are you saying hate Chinese people and refer to them as "chinks"?

xiaocai: maybe I burbled on a bit but it's daft to pretend this event is occurring in isolation. In fact you actually accept this -- you refer to earlier Japanese atrocities and aggression against China. If there wasn't that context, these islands would be less of a problem. So, context is important. You complained about attention from "third parties". I suggested some context about why "third parties" across the world are keeping an eye on these islands. Don't you see that Chinese attitudes about its smaller neighbours are linked to its attitude about itself and its place in the world? Isn't it reasonable to link anti-Japanese protests with the wider fears about the possible unrest that could follow a worsening economic situation in China?

[querido]

I said nothing negative about the Chinese government in particular; when I said "governments" I meant all of them, generally.

A critical mass of the people (all kinds of people, generally) of my own country (not China) are incompetent to truly govern themselves (and I can include myself as having been hot-headed and lacking information and judgment when I was young, and even now). In some contexts ("man in the street" interview, etc.) it is obvious to most people, but in other contexts (politics) they can't quite retain that unfortunate realization, and continue to believe that they do and should govern themselves, until you ask them whether or not they think their neighbor or mother-in-law etc. should be allowed to run the world, when they might say no without understanding what they've admitted to in principle. They've admitted that they don't want a representative government anyway unless it does what they say, without being able to compute or admit that that means they want an authoritarian government that "makes the trains run on time". So, every election is one authoritarian wing against another slightly different authoritarian wing (of the same machine, it seems to me).

But if my own government (not China) is not truly representative, and my own people (not Chinese) are incompetent to govern themselves anyway, and I have no reason to believe that any other country or people are much better, then I conclude that the whole thing (the whole world) is fake. But here's worse news- it is fake by necessity. I mourn that fact but there's nothing to be done. "Nothing to be done" = futile = what I said above.

Above, I was just helpfully advising you all that you're wasting your breath here, as I just did. Bye. :-)

[rob07]

Thank you to Xiaocai, Outofin and Kenny for making the effort to post on this thread.

[count_zero]

"It really puzzles me why so many people with such anti-Chinese, pro-US views would bother learning Chinese. To hate 'em chinks better, eh?"

When you say "Chinese" here you actually mean "the Chinese Communist Party". In other words you are saying "I don't understand why anyone would study Chinese and not fully support the Chinese Community Party in everything they do". You use the word "chinks" to suggest that any opposition to Chinese political policy is racism against the people of China - do you work for Xinhua perhaps?

In fact, many or most panda lickers are people who study Chinese. They simple don't like the intellectual complexity of studying a language yet not considering everything in their new garden to be rosy. Personally I find it easy. Here's my trick.

1. Study Chinese

2. Remain objective.

I'm neither pro-China nor pro-US (that's a false dichotomy that you probably learned from the hordes or moronic internet fenqing). In Japan the people are behaving peaceable and in a civilized manner. The population hopes the issue can be solved through diplomacy. In China they are burning buildings, smashing cars, injuring dozens of people a day, attempting to kill Japanese hotel guests and causing millions of RMB in damages to Chinese companies. Is this civil war? How far up a panda's asshole would your tongue have to be not to be disgusted with how millions of Chinese people are behaving now and to not wish that they would learn from the example of the peaceful Japanese? It's lazy thinking. Lazy thinking on the part of the Chinese and lazy thinking on the part of panda lickers.

[Kenny同志]

I am sorry I was a bit emotional when I was debating with liuzhou and said some strong words. Nonetheless, I think a few forum members are biased, or at least their wording makes me uncomfortable. That said, I am not going to name names to get into another futile debate.

[count_zero]

Oooops! Now the Chinese government is arresting people for expressing views that are different from the communist party policy.

If you are Chinese, you had better say "I think Daoyudao is part of China!" take your five mao and be grateful your dear leaders haven't put you in prison!

[count_zero]

The rule of law in China is just extraordinary isn’t it! During the 2008 Olympic Games an official protest zone was set up at 紫竹园. A woman went there to protest the illegal demolition of her house. Ready for the punchline….

….

She was arrested.

I guess she should have smashed a few cars on her way because apparently, protesting in China is now completely legal as long as it's violent!

[Kenny同志]

In Japan the people are behaving peaceable and in a civilized manner. The population hopes the issue can be solved through diplomacy. In China they are burning buildings, smashing cars, injuring dozens of people a day, attempting to kill Japanese hotel guests and causing millions of RMB in damages to Chinese companies. Is this civil war? How far up a panda's asshole would your tongue have to be not to be disgusted with how millions of Chinese people are behaving now and to not wish that they would learn from the example of the peaceful Japanese? It's lazy thinking. Lazy thinking on the part of the Chinese and lazy thinking on the part of panda lickers.

Count Zero:

I think you’re right about that – Japanese are behaving in a peaceful and civilised manner. However, the truth is that the Diaoyu Islands are under de facto control of the Japanese government. The Japanese Coast Guards arrest Chinese fishermen and Chinese civilians who try to land on the disputed Islands. Do you think things would still the same in Japan if the situation is the other way around? Probably not. Yes, if there’re protests in Japan, they could be milder. But what if it had been the Chinese army who invaded Japan, and committed all kind of unimaginably horrible atrocities to the Japanese people, i.e. raping tens of thousands of Japanese women aged from six to sixty or even older, ripping some of their bellies apart and sometimes even ramming a stick into their vagina to vandalise their bodies, vivisecting thousands of Japanese civilians for developing biochemical weapons, massacring countless Japanese civilians, and even eating flesh and organs of some of those killed? Can they still keep calm when China nationalises the Islands? I guess not.

Smashing Japanese cars and damaging properties are illegal and of course unacceptable, still more so attacking Japanese expats in China. Protesters who do such things should be arrested, and punished by law. And for them, I absolutely have no sympathy.

Everyone please be polite, fair and objective, like Imron, and don't confuse the government with Chinese people. Thanks.

[gato]

count_zero Posted Today' date=' 09:56 AM

In fact, many or most panda lickers are people who study Chinese. They simple don't like the intellectual complexity of studying a language yet not considering everything in their new garden to be rosy.

In Japan the people are behaving peaceable and in a civilized manner. The population hopes the issue can be solved through diplomacy. In China they are burning buildings, smashing cars, injuring dozens of people a day, attempting to kill Japanese hotel guests and causing millions of RMB in damages to Chinese companies. Is this civil war?

How far up a panda's asshole would your tongue have to be not to be disgusted with how millions of Chinese people are behaving now and to not wish that they would learn from the example of the peaceful Japanese?[/quote']

Puleeze.

[realmayo]

querido, I understand where you're coming from but then again just because one can't change anything about a system it doesn't mean one shouldn't be interested in learning more about it. I can't do anything about evolution but I'm glad I understand the basics behind it. I can't do anything about global warming but I'm glad I know about the possibilities of dramatic climate changes in the future. The alternative view is that you can do something to make a change in the world, e.g. the essay "What Is to Be Done?", but for that it helps if you don't mind killing people who get in your way.

Kenny, I think one reason why some people are cynical about these protests is because we believe that they're not just about the feelings of the Chinese people, but also linked to internal Chinese politics and quite possibly linked to the government's foreign policy objectives too. I just read an article here which says:

Diplomats say China is calibrating the crisis to probe the strength of US ties with Japan, knowing that alliance fatigue in Washington and the clumsy handling of the dispute by Tokyo has created a rare opportunity. The Obama administration must navigate a delicate course. A tough line against China risks putting the world’s two superpowers on a collision course: a soft line risks setting off alarm bells in Japan and pushing the country towards rearmament.

The same article goes on:

Christian Le Miere from the International Institute for Strategic Studies said the crisis had become dangerous, citing Mao Zedong’s aphorism from 1930 that “a single spark can start a prairie fire”. He said the region is “rife with historical enmity and chauvinism”, encouraged by Tokyo’s “seeming lack of contrition for wartime atrocities” and China’s own well-nurtured narrative of humiliation by foreigners.

China’s post-Maoist regime derives its legitimacy from nationalism, especially now that the boom is fading and China is losing some of its competititve edge. The anti-Japanese fervour was systematically stoked by the “Patriotic Education Campaign” of Jiang Zemin in the 1990s to divert attention from party corruption and the growing gap between rich and poor. But it is a double-edged sword for China’s leaders. “Given its potency, it is difficult to control. Nationalism can turn against the government, if it is perceived as doing too little,” he said.

Kenny, I appreciate it must be extremely annoying to read neutrals calmly discussing the rights and wrongs of this emotional issue, to read them confidently say who is right, who is wrong, who is behaving badly and so on. It clearly got too much for xiaocai's keyboard to deal with (and on the other side count_zero with this weird tongue-fetish suddenly poking out). But China wants to play an active role in the world these days, and the world has become a small place: if two neighbours are arguing out in the street for days and days, wouldn't other people talk about it?

And what happens with these islands really matters to the rest of the world ("no island is an island"!), politically and economically. Not only that: this could -- could -- mark the real start of China turning back inwards on itself again, starting to close out the rest of the world: those of us who have spent time in China over the past 10+ years have been so lucky to benefit from the relative "openness" we discovered from people in China so if the door is starting to close again it's no wonder we are taking an interest.

[li3wei1]

But what if it had been the Chinese army who invaded Japan, and committed all kind of unimaginably horrible atrocities to the Japanese people, i.e. raping tens of thousands of Japanese women aged from six to sixty or even older, ripping some of their bellies apart and sometimes even ramming a stick into their vagina to vadalise their bodies, vivisecting thousands of Japanese civilians for developing biochemical weapons, massacring countless Japanese civilians, and even eating flesh and organs of some of those killed?

What you’re saying here is that the protests are partly in response to the atrocities that happened in WWII. In the same war, Japan’s ally, Germany, was committing a few atrocities on citizens of many European countries, even its own people. These have been well documented and publicised. Yet today, those countries are working alongside Germany on a daily basis, hammering out ways that their people can work in closer and closer economic partnership. There are occasional jesting references to Germany’s expansionist tendencies, but no one treats Angela Merkel as if she has their grandmother’s head on a spike in her garden.

I’m no historian, so perhaps someone could make this clear. Does the present Japanese government a) refuse to acknowledge the atrocities occurred, or b) insist that they were the right thing to do and, if given the chance, they’d do them again? There are no doubt individuals in Japan who do, and the Tokyo mayor may be that way inclined, or playing to that constituency, just as there are individuals in Germany who, with various degrees of openness, look back nostalgically on the good old days of the gas chambers.

The argument “At some point in history, someone of nationality X did something horrible to someone of my nationality, so today I’m going to commit acts of violence on people and property of nationality X” doesn’t make a lot of sense, no matter how many someones, how many victims, and how far back you have to go. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atrocities. Just about every nationality or ethnic group, if you go back far enough, is guilty of something or other. I don’t think you’d have to scratch very hard at Chinese history to find examples, and I won’t try.

Why should a Japanese student, born long after the atrocities and having no choice about their nationality, suffer for this? Or a Chinese person driving a Japanese car? Or working in a factory making Japanese cars? or running a franchise of a Japanese-themed restaurant? You may as well pick random strangers out of the phonebook and unleash your anger on them, for all the good it will do, for all the justice it will bring.

[Kenny同志]

Diplomats say China is calibrating the crisis to probe the strength of US ties with Japan, knowing that alliance fatigue in Washington and the clumsy handling of the dispute by Tokyo has created a rare opportunity.

Realmayo, I think we need to remember that it was Japan, backed up by the United States, who provoked China first by nationalising the Islands. The United States is fanning the fire in the backstage by repeatedly reassuring Japan that the US-Japan Security Treaty applies to the Diaoyu Islands so as to use Japan to thwart China’s rise. Unfortunately, all these don’t lead me to the conclusion that China is “calibrating the crisis to probe the strength of US ties with Japan”. Quite on the contrary, the crisis is but the newest move of the United States’ “Return to Asia” strategy after instigating disturbances in the South China Sea not very long ago.

As far as the Western media is concerned, they often tend to put China in a very bad light regardless of the facts. Admittedly, the Chinese government is bad, but they shouldn’t let that colour their judgement. Hmm, this is somewhat naive. The world’s major media is controlled by but a small bunch of guys who are with politicians.

[fanglu]

I think we need to remember that it was Japan, backed up by the United States, who provoked China first by nationalising the Islands

True, that is what launched the latest tensions, but to be fair, it's hard to know what else they could have done. The Tokyo government was planning on buying the islands and populating them in order to strengthen Japan's claim, which would have been much more provocative. The national government bought the islands in order to ensure they could not be populated, thus maintaining the status quo as best they could.

What do you think the Japanese government should have done?

[realmayo]

Kenny, you could be right that the US government is glad to see this dispute and the Chinese government is not, or it could be the opposite way around, both views are believable and both make sense. Again, in the South China Sea the sense we get is that it's China that started the recent upping of tensions there and that the US jumped in (very happily) after that process began, but it could be that the US instigated it, obviously that's not 100% clear to either of us. Both sides have perfect motives: China because it (apparently) wants to push out and expand its influence, the US because it (apparently) wants to contain China from expanding its influence. This is called diplomacy, which is better than war.

I suppose, if the main difference between us is disagreeing over who started it, well that's a fairly small detail and implies that there's no big disagreement.

As for the world's media being "controlled", I truly believe the situation is more nuanced than that.