This is the paper I was freaking out over yesterday. Figured some of you might be interested, though it's definitely not my best work seeing as how crunched I was while writing it. I didn't even get to re-read it fully before turning it in. *FACEPALM*
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The 2005 anti-Japanese protests in China are one of the biggest and most recent showings of Chinese hostility in a long series of anti-Japanese outbursts. China is greeted with underlying hostility by many countries, America in particular, so circumstances beg the question, why do the Chinese people react with so much hostility towards the Japanese textbook revisions and Japan as a whole? And likewise, why are the Japanese reluctant to give into the Chinese demands to acknowledge their atrocities?
This paper strives to show that China’s historic hostility towards the Japanese is due to a combination of factors: first and most apparent is the war atrocities Japan has committed against China, the same atrocities that the Japanese is criticized for glossing over in their textbooks; second, the general Chinese population’s ignorance of Japanese culture outside of history books and other Communist Party controlled media severely restricts either sides from comprehending or cooperating with each other; last and most significantly is China’s view of Japan as being an inferior and yet similar country. Considering the last point, the Japanese atrocities are made particularly insulting for China because they were committed by a supposedly lesser country. The Japanese similarly see China as a threat because China is a communist country whereas Japan is democratic, and the Japanese also see the Chinese as a still-backwards, inferior country to their own. This clash causes heightened hostility towards China as well as heightened nationalism within Japanese society; the Japanese people become more nationalistic as the threat of China looms closer. Because the people of both countries see the other as a threat, political cooperation between the two is made very difficult.
Chinese animosity towards the Japanese for past transgressions spans decades; some Chinese claim that it even traces back to the Song dynasty. The most pressing issues in contemporary politics are concerning China’s losses to Japan during both Sino-Japanese wars, and more specifically, Japan’s lack of acknowledgment of Nanking and other war atrocities.
These grievances made way for a series of outbursts such as the May Fourth Movement in 1919 that protested Japanese imperialism and more specifically a provision in the Versailles Treaty that gave a German-ruled enclave to Japan, the 1985 anti-Japanese protests, the Luo Gang Incident that involved a prank call by a Chinese student pretending to be a racist Japanese, and riots during the Asian Cup Soccer Games 2004 following China’s loss to Japan, all this leading up to the protests of the textbook revisions in 2005.
The textbooks that were being protested against were a right-wing revision of Japanese history published by Fuso-sha that at the time was recently approved by the Japanese government. Because Japanese schools have the option of choosing which textbooks to use, this particular textbook was not widely distributed; only 0.13 of junior highs used it in their classes, and even then, these schools tended to be for disadvantaged students rather than for more regular use. The most widely distributed books, published by Tokyo Shoseki and Nihon Shoseki, were mostly neutral or even leaned more towards a liberal view of Japanese history as was the case with the latter publishing. Both books used the word “invasion” to refer to Japan’s presence in China instead of “advance,” which was a prior suggested change before protests in China made it otherwise. However, one characteristic that all Japanese history textbooks share is a general lack of acknowledgment of the most heinous of Japanese atrocities; although the two most widely used books both address Nanking, they both only give brief descriptions.
It should be noted that the right-wing book, easily the most controversial and biased of the textbooks, was written to heighten Japanese nationalism. Japanese pride had been falling due to a prior explosion of history books in mid 80s-90s that revealed the dark side of Japanese history. This right-wing revision of history glosses over and justifies Japanese atrocities not in order to offend the victimized parties, but rather because they believed that softening history for Japanese youth would allow the Japanese people as a whole to adopt a less self-admonishing view on their own history. Furthermore, none of the books degrades the victimized countries, but simply disregards atrocities and tries to put Japan in a more sympathetic light. This supports the argument that Japan is not actively behaving in an aggressive manner towards China, but rather Japan’s newfound resistance towards China is due to China’s continued aggression against Japan.
Conversely, approved Chinese textbooks are much more blatant in their bias, and throughout the text, they often refer to the Japanese as aggressors and paint the Chinese as heroic victors against foreign imperialism. History is one of the earliest, and for the poorer citizens of China who could never afford to go abroad, one of the only windows through which they can look at other countries; such a biased portrayal could clearly instill an early prejudice against the Japanese. This also shows that Japan is in a lose-lose situation; whether the Japanese published more accurate textbooks, such as, or less accurate right-wing textbooks, the Chinese still portrayed the Japanese as aggressors in the textbooks of their own country.
It is important to note that in 2005, South Koreans also protested textbook revisions, as well as the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine, just as ferociously as the Chinese, as the textbooks also glossed over atrocities committed against Koreans. But South Korea’s overall prejudice against Japan appears to be lesser than China’s, which implies that China’s grievances with Japan stem back further than simple historical inaccuracies; the issue is more unique to China and Japan. Unfortunately, this paper is too limited to explore whether or not the assumption that South Korea holds less prejudice against Japan than China is true or if South Koreans are simply less blatant than the Chinese, but in any case, the Chinese do appear much more persistent in their demonstrations of anti-Japanese sentiment.
Likewise, although it could be argued that the Sino-Japanese war and Japanese invasion of China is an enduring trauma for the Chinese people and that such historic tragedies lie at the root of the Chinese prejudice against Japan, war atrocities alone cannot be the only reason, else other foreign imperialists, namely many countries in the west, would be held in equal contempt.
Thus Chinese grievances cannot be chalked up to a demand for historical reparations alone; the issue seems to run deeper and be more specific to the Japanese. This Japanese-specific prejudice is demonstrated through a survey taken by a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate college students in Chinese cities. In regards to the Japanese language, the Chinese stated that it is “complicated and long-winded,” “the Japanese manner of speech is annoying,” “dislike for Japan,” and “unsuitable for learning by Chinese” The survey also showed that many of the students were ignorant of Japanese classical works, food, and most importantly, its history. Significantly, the surveyor makes it a point to stress that more students than expected sympathized with the Japanese on the question of whether or not the Japanese government’s understanding of WWII was acceptable, which implies that “some students are no longer influenced by ideological propaganda in China.” When students think for themselves and are not under the influence of Communist Party propaganda, they are not as hostile towards Japan, which begs the question how the perception of the Chinese might change if anti-Japanese sentiments were not instilled in them at an early age.
Hong Kong could be used as a basis of comparison in answering this question. Despite the ties between Hong Kong and mainland China, especially now that Hong Kong has been re-incorporated into China, general dislike of the Japanese language, food, and other aspects of their pop culture is not prevalent in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is especially contradictory with the rest of China in terms of language preferences. Japanese is one of the most popular non-mandatory languages in Hong Kong and seems to be a generally well-liked language, which directly conflicts with the prior quote that the Chinese are not suited for learning Japanese. Hong Kong also has much greater access to Japanese pop culture than the rest of China and interest in pop culture is the main reason that the youth of Hong Kong initially begin learning Japanese. Interestingly, the Chinese in Hong Kong also contend that the proximity of Hong Kong and Japan allows them to have greater access to everything Japanese, which then allows greater understanding between the two countries. However, the rest of China is also physically near Japan and there is still a lack of understanding between the people of both countries; even now that study abroad between the two countries has greatly increased, the Chinese still “find Japan cold and unfriendly, while many Japanese think China is dirty and dangerous.” The comments complement each other; the Chinese see the Japanese as aloof, whereas the Japanese see the Chinese as a less civil and modernized country. This implies that proximity does not necessarily increase understanding between countries; rather understanding between seems to better exist when countries are less ignorant of and more exposed to the other’s culture and if there aren’t pre-existing prejudices. Unfortunately, I do not know whether the perspective of those in Hong Kong has changed since the re-incorporation of Hong Kong into China.
Another Asian country that is heavily tied in with China and yet has an amicable relationship with Japan is Taiwan. Taiwan is an area of conflict between China and Japan; the Japanese feel connected to Taiwan because of their similar democratic government and economy. Likewise, both countries similarly support the US and have a shared sense of threat from China, particularly because of its ballistic missiles. Taiwan most likely also feels threatened because of the historical conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party that governs Taiwan. Also from a more political point of view, the conflicts with China concerning the Taiwan Strait being in Japan’s self-defense sphere has continued to strain relations between the two countries. China interprets Japan’s actions as imperialistic greed, as they perceive that Japan and the US meddle with Taiwan in an effort to claim Taiwan independence, which is made illegal by China’s anti-secession law.
It is important to note that Japan-Taiwan relations are amicable in spite of the Taiwanese government being run by the Guomindang, the Nationalist party that ruled China post-Japanese invasion. Being thus also aware of Japanese war atrocities, it would be expected that the Taiwanese government would feel just as indignant towards the Japanese as mainland China. However, as previously mentioned, rather than mutual animosity, Japan instead feels a connection with Taiwan. Although the Taiwanese people and the mainland Chinese may originate from the same place, that fact that Taiwan is democratic means that Taiwan does not pose the same political threat that China does. Presumably Taiwan is also more aware of Japanese culture than mainland Chinese because Taiwan has opened its borders for a longer period of time, and so the Taiwanese, like the people of Hong Kong, can sympathize with and take greater interest in the Japanese. Because there is a lack of ideological competition as well as decreased ignorance, Taiwan is perhaps better able to forgive Japan’s past grievances against them than China.
However, it must be acknowledged that there could be a host of reasons other than culture exposure that explain why Taiwan has chosen to befriend Japan. Taiwan, being a very different country from China, may have necessarily distanced itself from the ideologies from the mainland or the Taiwanese government may have decided to maintain relations with Japan for political advantages. More research on Taiwan-Japanese relations would need to be conducted in order to give any conclusive reasoning. In any case, anti-Japanese sentiments do not appear to be instilled in the citizens of Taiwan in the same way that it is for the Chinese, and given that both countries have been aggrieved by Japan in the past, this once more reinforces that history is not the underlying root cause in the China-Japan conflict.
If history alone is not to blame, then analyzing other points of conflict between China and Japan will lead us to a clearer answer. For example, the various cognitive differences between the Chinese and Japanese also seems to affect cooperation between the two countries. One cognitive difference helps explain the disparity between Japan’s perspective on the causes of animosity between them and China versus China’s perspective on the same issue; China directly blames history and Japan’s refusal to acknowledge that history as being the focal point of contention, whereas Japan blames their differences in government and a broad lack of understanding between the two peoples. On a political level, Japan believes that their historical debt to China is not an issue because of funds in developmental assistance the Japanese government gives to the Chinese government, which the majority of Chinese people are unaware of. On a more societal level, the Japanese do not dwell on past because they wish to move forward from their past. Liu Yazhou states that Japan is a country that is “indifferent to the past, attaches importance to the present, and does not try to idealize the future.” The Japanese believe they’ve effectively distanced themselves from their military-centric problems of World War II and are now a legitimate democracy that has made its peace with most of the world. China, on the other hand, has not yet made peace with its past and still dwells on it. These different ways of looking at the past is the primary cause of the previously mentioned disparity; Japan does not understand that the past is so important to the Chinese because the Japanese have long moved forward from their own past. Thus, the Japanese instead hold their differences in government as a primary point of focus because it reflects their own fears, whereas for the Chinese it is more of a secondary issue in relation to Japan.
Because of China’s traumatic past, the country as a whole is still picking itself up from the terrors of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Despite giant improvements in economy, even having recently surpassed Japan as having the 2nd largest economy, China has not yet reached a level of stable legitimacy in the rest of the world’s eyes, largely due to its reputation as a Communist country with a long list of human rights violations. Because Japan holds a more stable position, China still sees itself at a comparative disadvantage, and thus feel that they can continue to admonish Japan for past crimes. Thus China has adopted a victim narrative in relation to Japan; as is reflected in their textbooks, Japan is seen as the aggressor to China’s noble protagonist in China’s narrative of history.
The idea of the Chinese being victims of Japan is particularly insulting in that the Chinese appear to consider Japan as historically inferior. Prior to the Sino-Japanese War, Japan was considered the little brother and thus subordinate to China. Thus Japan’s political and economic successes over China, particularly post-WWII, are seen by the Chinese as unjustified, since the past shows that China is more entitled to recognition than the historically subordinate Japan.
In modern times, this belief in Japanese inferiority persists. In the survey of college students, the majority of students held a negative view of Japanese culture because “its history is short; its cultural foundations do not go very deep; its history is replete with invasions; its culture, which has inherited Chinese culture and assimilated foreign cultures, is nondescript; it has been heavily influenced by the West.” Although not explicitly stated, these criticisms were clearly thought of as in comparison to China’s history and culture; Japan’s history is short in comparison to China’s, its culture is not as unique as China’s, it is more Westernized than China, and so on. The criticism that Japan’s history is replete with invasions most likely reflects China’s personal grievances against Japan for invading China.
History seems to have an effect even on contemporary societal cognition. Fabrizio Eva points to the differences in power given to the past emperors of both countries and how the disparity in power affects contemporary politics. The Mandate of Heaven granted the Chinese people the power to overthrow their Emperor if they became corrupt or inefficient, whereas Japanese emperors had absolute authority. Eva argues that the Mandate of Heaven made Chinese people less reliant and quicker to respond to situations of all kinds, whereas the absolute authority that Japanese emperors had made the Japanese more indecisive in the absence of such a figure, and to this day, authority figures in Japan are more dependent upon equals in decision-making. This case easily furthers the view of Chinese being culturally and historically superior the Japanese.
Furthermore, Liu Yazhou claims: “Japan has never been a cradle of culture, because, situated at a passageway for cultures, it is a point of cultural convergence and has always chased after and imitated the world’s most fashionable countries. It has learned from China, and then later from the United States. It is always learning—from whom it learns is all the same to them.” The Chinese criticize the originality and creativity in Japanese culture and society, most likely as an attempt to de-legitimize the Japanese, considering Japan’s current considerate level of legitimacy and power on the world stage. Thus, although America and other western countries are certainly a threat to China, Japan is China’s closest rival in this historical power struggle.
It is also argued that a large part of China and Japan’s rivalry stems from the similarities between the two countries. Makes the argument that Japan is China’s “other”; Japan is more of a threat to China’s very existence than even America because Japan’s culture and economic and political position in the world is more similar to that of China. Because the two countries are similar in these aspects, they are in danger of supplanting one another; the political struggle between the two countries essentially boils down to which of the two countries will be the biggest enduring political and economical superpower in the East, a struggle that America and other western countries are shut out from. Also claims that a country’s sense of self rises with encountering of “others” who are similar and yet still rivals. This explains China’s strong sense of national indignation towards Japan, as well as Japan’s increasing resistance to adhere to China’s demands and their newly heightened nationalism, as was demonstrated by their need to publish nationalistic textbooks, in the face the looming Chinese threat.
Despite the stark differences in perspective between China and Japan, the similarities in perspective are what make this rivalry so strong, and likewise, are what makes cooperation between the two so difficult. Both see the other as a threat to its survival, both see the other as somehow inferior to itself, both are ignorant to how the other thinks. Most importantly, because they see each other as threats, they refuse to see the other as a victim. This refusal, accompanied with the rise in nationalism in both countries, makes the eventual solving of their historical conflicts very difficult. If the two countries ever hope to resolve their conflicts, they will have to learn to see each other eye-to-eye on these sensitive topics as well as establish trust in spite of their differing governments. Only then can they hope to put an end to this decades-long rivalry.
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