Pandemonium is encircling the world. In China, the government authorities have clearly sanctioned the venting of anger by citizens against Japan and Japanese and Japanese goods over the small piece of real estate in the middle of the ocean called Senkaku Islands. Wag the dog.
From Japan Times quoting Kyodo News (9/13/2012):
China lets press splash Japan protests
BEIJING — China's state media Wednesday published front page photos depicting anti-Japan demonstrations in China, a clear signal that authorities are giving the green light for the public to vent their anger over the bilateral territorial dispute in the East China Sea.
Anti-Japan demonstrations have erupted in China in the past month after Japanese authorities arrested and deported Chinese activists who landed in the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands on Aug. 15. China claims them and calls them Diaoyu. These protests are rarely reported in China's state-controlled media.
The Chinese media broke precedent a day after the Foreign Ministry in Beijing angrily protested Japan's formal decision to nationalize the Senkaku Islands and demanded that Tokyo retract the decision.
On Wednesday, for a second straight day, a small crowd gathered outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing to protest Japan's nationalization of the Senkakus.
Small-scale anti-Japan rallies were also reported in Shanghai and Taipei on Wednesday.
In Shanghai, about 20 people demonstrated outside the Japanese Consulate General, while in Taipei, about 60 people rallied outside Japan's Interchange Association, Japan's de facto embassy in Taipei, to protest the nationalization move.
The Chinese government has vowed to "take measures" to protect its territorial sovereignty, with Premier Wen Jiabao declaring that China will not yield "half a step" in its territorial claim.
Yes, Mr. Wen. Your country has been like that for the past several thousand years, as the rest of Asia remember.
Numerous anti-Japanese demonstrations and riots took place across China in August, too. There was one young woman, eagerly participated in one anti-Japanese rally, only to come back to her Nissan and found it totaled by the mob. There was a Japanese restaurant trashed by the mob in another city, and it turned out that the owner and the cook of the restaurant were both Chinese. Oops. Collateral damage, I suppose. A Chinese cameraman was seen covering the protests using his Canon.
Adding to the dismay of net citizens in Japan, that ultra-statist-fascist boy-wonder mayor of Osaka City (and one of the "young global leaders" selected at Davos confab) is being strongly promoted by the media to be the next prime minister of Japan, even before the general election is even considered. Destroying Osaka is not enough for him. In one survey by a major national newspaper, he is favored by 30% of the respondents (top of the list) to be the next prime minister.
Good luck Japan, good luck world. (Now, has Virgin Galactic started service to Alpha Centauri yet?)
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10 comments:
Japanese tourists attacked in Korea, too. In the streets. "Hello, nihonjin desu ka. - Hai !" Bang, smash at the face.
It used to happen only in bars or restaurants, after some drinking, and a rant.
Once again I cancell a tour in Korea with japanese friends, sadly.
- your last words : I didn't expect you had such ... hm funny readings, congratulations.
Well I guess it was a revenge of some sort, then, at Fukushima airport. Korean tourists arrived, and they were greeted by Fukushima people, offering them peach juice made in Fukushima.
Funny readings? Sci-fi?
Not only Korea and China. Japan, too, is using nationalism and patriotism to divert attention from Fukushima and the worsening working conditions for young people. I fled from Tokyo to Fukuoka, and I am disgusted how many times my son is pushed to the ground and called halfu by young Japanese children. At least in Tokyo, no one dared call you halfu, but here in the backwards province of Fukuoka, non-Japanese are always pointed out. Small children point at me and ask their parents if I am foreign. It is disgusting. So much for globalization and internationalization. Radiation in Tokyo and fear and hatred in Fukuoka.
Hey, waiting for a ticket out of here too? Hope the shuttles won't be too full.
This news is the usual... people being their usual, ignorant and prejudiced selves.
The Chinese government is playing with fire, and they know it. This could end badly.
Check out the top ten or so here.
2012 may yet turn into 2012.
Nationalism apart, China is (or has been till present day) the economic rising star of the World, surpassing Japan in GDP years ago and poised to surpass the USA in GDP(PPP) in just three or four years from now. It's not GDP per capita indeed but still a measure of overall economic might.
The situation reminds of the rise of Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century, displacing Britain as first European and global economic power. Like Britain the USA has an Empire, a global one, while, like Germany back in the day, China does not, and like the II Reich it is investing in sovereign countries over which it has limited influence (comparisons with the Baghdad railroad or the unstable alliances of Germany with Russia, Austria and Italy before WWI can be made easily).
And as a key part of that rising power, China seeks to consolidate its control of the neighboring seas. And Taiwan (including these islands arguably) and the South China Sea are key in this strategy because they'd give China access to the Pacific Ocean and (via Singapore and Malaysia) to the Indian Ocean, where it has already established a line of small naval bases known as "the chain of pearls".
So IMO China will enforce at almost any cost the control of Senkoku and most of South China Sea islands and then, in some sort of political maneouver hard to foresee, annex Taiwan, which sits in between. Japan can't do much about that in the current conditions without the US backing.
And guess what? The USA is busy in Libya, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and who knows where else. And even the largest military on Earth can only be stretched that much.
The USA is also decaying, slowly but clearly, so China just has to bid its time. However the global economic crisis is also hitting China and that can precipitate things. But even if a revolution would happen in China, the overall "needs" of the dragon would not be diminished at all and the process would continue no matter the "color" of the regime.
and grab some more land in northern India, probably, and buy up more farmland in Africa.
Read an article about this in the Times of India. All the Indian commenters on the article were pretty PO'd about China and ready to fight. (In the online comments section, anyway.)
It will be pretty funny if the US ends up teaming up with Vietnam over this.
John B - Half is celebrated in Hawaii. Aloha.
at arevamirpal::laprimavera
Yes fiction works, myths, etc, no economics information. Sorry beeing late at answering.
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