While economic relations are good, there is still bitterness about Japanese occupation
CHINESE POLICE are preparing for major anti-Japan demonstrations today, the 79th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of China, as tensions between the two Asian powerhouses escalate after a Chinese boat captain was arrested near islands both countries claim as their own.
China’s relationship with Japan is often problematic, as resentment about Japan’s behaviour during the period it occupied China, 1931 to 1945, remains. China’s influence in the region is growing, and it recently overtook Japan as the world’s second largest economy.
The diplomatic spat was sparked last week when Japanese coastguards chased a Chinese trawler that entered waters near a group of islands controlled by Japan, called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. They are located 190km east of Taiwan.
The Japanese arrested the captain after the Chinese vessel collided with two Japanese patrol boats. The captain could face prosecution, although the trawler and its 14-member crew have returned to China.
The website of the China Federation for Defending Diaoyutai denied it was planning a demonstration.
“There are rumours that our federation is organising a protest. Actually we are not. And we issued a statement denying it,” said the organisation’s chief, Li Nan.
However, memories linger of violent anti-Japanese riots in 2004 over the publication of a history textbook in Japan that the Chinese said minimised atrocities carried out during the occupation of China from 1931 to 1945. Japanese businesses and the country’s embassy were attacked, and Japanese-made products destroyed in the incidents, which marked a low-point since relations normalised in 1972. There was strong suspicion that the government backed those demonstrations because staging a public display like that in China is difficult without state permission.
Even though economic relations between the two neighbours are good, the Chinese still bitterly resent the Japanese invasion in 1931 and the brutal occupation of China by the Imperial Army until 1945.
Huang Dahui of Renmin University’s international relations department said the row was all about “face” but had a major historical background.
“Relations between China and Japan have been good for the past five years, since they hit rock bottom over prime minister Junichiro Koizumi constantly visiting the Yasukuni Shrine ,” he said.
“September 18th is a very important day for both governments to think about their relations and reflect on the lessons of war. What I cannot understand is how on this most sensitive of days, the Japanese government still chose to deal with the issue in this way, which is guaranteed to pull the nationalism trigger in China,” said Mr Huang.
He believes the power structure is changing because of China’s growing economic influence, prompting Japan to behave in “a less proper way”.
Today marks the anniversary of the day in 1931 when the Imperial Japanese army based in Manchuria, known as the Kwantung Army, blew up a section of the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway and blamed it on local Chinese forces. It was the excuse for military action against China and eventually led to full-scale war.
Japan attacked Shenyang, then known as Mukden, and established a puppet state in Manchuria the next year. That was followed in 1937 by a brutal all-out invasion and occupation of much of China that only ended with Japan’s defeat at the end of the second World War.
Many Chinese insist Tokyo has never shown adequate contrition for atrocities carried out during the occupation, including the “Rape of Nanking”, which began when Japanese troops invaded China’s wartime capital on December 13th.
Chinese historians say that over a six-week period more than 300,000 Chinese were killed, one-third of the city’s buildings burned and more than 20,000 women were raped, although some Japanese historians insist the number was much lower.
Wang Xinsheng from the Japan studies department at Peking University, blogged about how the concepts of “China Threat” and “China Confrontation” were popular ideas in Japan today, especially since the reports about Chinese GDP surpassing Japan.
“Together with the historical problems and the territory issue, the situation between Japan and China is not calm. The new Japanese leader may use policy to stimulate support, and this kind of action will also have an influence on relations between Japan and China,” said Mr Wang.
It seems that nothing can go right in the world of Sino-Japanese relations these days. A male giant panda Kou Kou, or Xing Xing in Chinese, in a Japanese zoo died after it was sedated so it could donate semen in an artificial insemination programme. The giant panda is China’s national symbol, a part of the country’s diplomacy efforts, and the death of a panda is a big issue in China.
The 14-year-old died of a heart attack after failing to recover from an anaesthetic at the Oji Zoo in Kobe. Zoo officials said they are investigating Kou Kou’s death, and a team of Chinese officials has joined them.
The zoo faces a penalty of up to $500,000 (€383,000).