Wed, Oct 02, 2024 page8

• Nationalism at heart of Japan-China tensions

  • By Yu Kung 愚工
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  A series of anti-Japan demonstrations broke out in more than a dozen Chinese cities on Aug. 20, 2012. Protesters not only targeted Japanese businesses, but also Japanese-made vehicles on the road.

  One of the “little pinks” (小粉紅), a term used to refer to young Chinese nationalists, found his Japanese-made car damaged after participating in a demonstration. The photograph in which he wept by his car while holding a Chinese national flag in his hands went viral online.

  Little pinks drove Japanese-made vehicles to join an anti-Japan rally. They belittled the East Asian nation as “little Japan” and yet could not wait to travel to the country to shop as much as they could.

  This is just the tip of the iceberg of the dual and yet contradictory nature of little pinks’ love-hate relationship with Japan.

  They are well aware that Japan surpasses China in terms of technology and economy, but sentimentally, they hate Japan as they have been brainwashed to since they were children.

  The Chinese Communist Party regime has a long history of incorporating anti-Japanese sentiment in their education system, focusing on the Sino-Japanese War and incidents in which Chinese were harmed by Japanese soldiers, while also promoting anti-Japan television dramas.

  Against this background, some people believe there is “nothing wrong” with damaging Japanese vehicles. Some officials believe Japanese children “deserve” to be killed and some believe that those who visit brothels in Japan are “patriotic” in a perverted way.

  The Chinese government has reacted with coldness and passiveness over the fatal stabbing of a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen this month, the second attack on a Japanese national this year.

  A Chinese influencer vandalized Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals, and which China considers a symbol of Japan’s wartime militarism.

  Chinese warplanes and warships have in the past few months entered Japan’s territorial airspace and its waters, an incursion into Japanese territory.

  Beijing has also banned Japanese seafood imports under the guise of protecting people’s health, although it recently announced it would lift that ban.

  These incidents have catalyzed Chinese people’s euphoric mood, which in turn disgusts Japanese society.

  Sunday was the 52nd anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan relations. On the same day two years ago, the BBC described the two countries as “blowing hot and cold” on their relations. Radio France Internationale reported that there has been an “ebb and flow” and “contradictions” in the two countries’ interactions throughout the years.

  Such descriptions underline the duplicity of China’s love-hate relationship with Japan.

  The China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing’s Chaoyang District was designated a tertiary A-level hospital years after it was built with Japanese support in 1984. In 2015, the hospital was abbreviated as China-Japan Hospital. Different versions have been given for the reason the name was abbreviated to remove the word “friendship.”

  Now that China is no longer friendly to Japan, it is reasonable for Japan to “reciprocate.” The development of the two countries’ relations is worth contemplating.

  Yu Kung is a Taiwanese entrepreneur working in China.

  Translated by Fion Khan
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