Alisa Batchelor Research Panel-Symposium 2015 Exploiting Anti-Japanese Sentiment in China The relationship between China and Japan in recent history has continuously been strained. When the Japanese invaded China during World War II, the Japanese committed massive atrocities against the Chinese people. After the end of World War II the relationship between China and Japan continued to be acrimonious and is currently unstable. The continuation of Japan and China s shaky relationship is partly due to a strategy by the Chinese Communist Party to channel internal criticism of its own faults and failings away to an external adversary. This is a reaction to their own insecurities they face within their own country. Japan s refusal to own up to their war crimes and the rise of Nationalism in China has made it easy for the CCP to continue to do this. This strategy is used by the communist government to continue to maintain popular public opinion and to keep themselves in power. It is also a way of isolating Japan in the region as to more easily become the dominant Asian power. Currently, the relationship between Japan and China has worsened and will continue to worsen if Japan does not make a full apology. If Japan is able to make full amends with China, the Chinese government would no longer be able to use the anti-japanese sentiment to their advantage. The number of deaths committed by the Japanese during World War II is less than the deaths committed by the Chinese Communist Party. However, this statistic does not lessen the dislike Chinese people have for Japan because the CCP manipulates Japan s wartime history to its advantage. This issue continues is because of the stubbornness that persists from both the Japanese and Chinese sides. While the reasons for the strain in China and Japan s relationship continuously points back to the war, the reasons now have more to do with current conflicting
interests of power. As China begins to gain more power in the region, Japan has felt threatened and uneasy and has begun to propagate their own nationalistic sentiment. This makes a full and sincere apology difficult for the Japanese and is in part why they have been unable to do so. This allows China to continue to use Japan s behavior as a scapegoat for their own problems. This creates a vicious cycle in which both parties feed off each other s negativity and their relationship deteriorates. The Second Sino Japanese war was fought from 1931 through 1945 between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The Japanese were trying to extend their imperialist sphere throughout China to take control and secure access to various raw materials and economic resources. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 marked the beginning of the Japanese invasion and occupation of China. Total war between the two countries began in 1937.The Japanese initially won many victories in places such as Shanghai and Nanjing and Japan held control over various regions in China. With these victories followed the death of thousands to millions of Chinese soldiers and civilians. Once war broke out between Japan, the Nationalists and the Communists joined forces to fight against their shared enemy. After the entry of the United States into the war, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered on September 2 nd 1945, and the war came to a close. Estimates vary with a range of ten to twenty million Chinese deaths or two to four percent of China s total population at the time. One of the most traumatic occurrences during the war was the invasion of the capital Nanking. The Japanese invaded Nanking and troops murdered and raped thousands of civilians over a six week period. This resulted in the destruction of the city. Today it is referred to as the Rape of Nanking and is a memory that is deeply engrained into the Chinese as one of the most horrific incidences in their recent history. The number of people killed in The Rape of Nanking 2
is greatly disputed, Chinese estimate range from two to three hundred thousand deaths while the Japanese deny such claims and admit to a range of twenty to thirty thousand. This is an issue of contingence that continues to be disputed today and is one of core conflicts that has persisted since the end of the war. While many died at the hands of the Japanese military, many others died from starvation and disease resulting in the scarcity of resources from the immense war effort. The atrocities the Japanese committed against the Chinese could not easy be forgiven. To this day, the memory of the Japanese invasion is burned into the minds of the Chinese people, (New World Encyclopedia). After the Japanese left, China was in shambles. After the end of World War II, the internal conflict between the Nationalists and Communists continued. The internal chaos finally ended and the Communist s victory gave people hope for peace and prosperity in China. The Communists established themselves as the ruling party of the nation-the People s Republic of China-and implemented Communist policies. However, the Communist Party ran into numerous problems and disasters in the first couple decades of their rule. Mao Zedong, the head of the Chinese Communist party and leader of China tried to make China a great socialist nation. Various campaigns such as The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution resulted in failure and the death of millions of Chinese. The Maoist period was an extremely unpredictable and difficult time for many Chinese. There were famines and murders and overall extreme adversity for most of the population. However, the deaths that occurred during this time period are seldom mentioned and sometimes covered up (Dreyer, chapters 3-7). The hardships in China s modern history that are frequently brought up are not those during the Maoist period. Instead, they focus all their attention on wartime sufferings inflicted by Japan. 3
The Japanese have never fully apologized to China for their war crimes. There has been no formal apology from the Japanese Emperor. Some apologetic statements have been made by Japanese prime ministers and government officials to China but many of them have been controversial. The ways in which these statements are carried out have been very ambiguous. People have questioned whether these apologies are formal genuine apologetic statements or vague statements of remorse with no substance. These convey different meanings in the level of responsibility and recognition the Japanese have about the war. When making apologetic statements Japanese government officials typically highlight that they did commit atrocities during the war but they do not specify the extent of these atrocities and are extremely vague. They use terms such as caused damage and humbly accepts which glosses over the significance of their actions. These statements are also typically short and delivered without much emotion. Conflicting statements have typically been carried out by Japanese prime ministers saying one thing to the Chinese and another to the Japanese. For example the current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other government officials have publically apologized to China for its wartime past while also going to the Yasukuni Shrine to memorialize their war dead including criminals (Spitzer). Recently, the Japanese government under Prime Minister Abe approved a textbook that highly glossed over and understated Japan s role in World War II. These textbooks contain only a few pages about the crimes Japan committed during the war and drastically understate the number of deaths they inflicted (Wang). Because these actions contradict the apologies they have made to China, the Japanese have never fully owned up to what they did to China among their own people. Some government officials have even gone as far as denying that the Nanjing massacre even happened. It is this hypocrisy that has caused the most conflict and tension between the two countries. Japan has also not given nearly enough 4
money and support to the Chinese as an act of apology, especially when compared to Germany. Germany has sincerely apologized for its role in World War II much better than Japan has. In Germany, the government insists that history textbooks clearly outline Germany s responsibility for the holocaust. There are no shrines or memorials dedicated to the Nazis or Hitler. If a German politician made any comment denying or supporting Germany s role in World War II, they would immediately lose public support and may get voted out of office. Germany has made peace with its neighbors and has enjoyed prosperity that has resulted from their participation in the European Union. Japan still has a long way to go before it gains the same level of respect in Asia that Germany has in Europe, and it has left them isolated in the region. However, Japan s actions and apologetic insincerity are not the only reasons why tensions between China and Japan continue to soar. The Chinese government has used Japan s wartime past to its own advantage as well (Maciamo). The Chinese Communist Party has many faults of its own and is responsible for the deaths and hardships of many of their own people. The Chinese government is an authoritarian dictatorship with immense power. However, the Chinese Communist Party s weakness has always been the lack of its own legitimacy. The CCP has numerous strategies and tactics to maintain its own power. One of these strategies is the manipulation of the views of its citizens. The CCP uses censorship and propaganda to influence the opinions of the Chinese people. This ensures that the government has control over its own people. If the government s faults were to be exposed to the general public, this may jeopardize their standing and rule over the people. In order for this to not occur, the government makes sure that they maintain a popular public opinion and that no negative criticism is directed toward them (Dreyer). Because the CCP has many faults to expose and much to criticize, one of the strategies the government uses to 5
minimize negative opinion is to divert this negative sentiment toward another source. The CCP has targeted numerous outside sources as a diversion to their own faults. These countries include the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan. Because of Japan s wartime activities and actions after the war, Japan has made itself an easy target for Chinese negativity. Similarly to how the Japanese heavily downplays their role in World War II, the Chinese greatly emphasize and exaggerate their victimization during the war. Chinese historical textbooks and media dramatize the crimes Japan committed against China and demonize the Japanese. Because the Chinese government controls all media outlets, education and propaganda, the Chinese government has been able to greatly manipulate the way Chinese people feel about Japan. Even though the Second Sino-Japanese war ended over fifty years ago and most people from that time have passed away, the Chinese government has made sure to keep the wartime memories fresh and alive amongst its people. Films and T.V. shows made about the anti- Japanese war are not restricted or censored. It is one of the only topics that filmmakers have complete freedom to do whatever they like, and they are highly encouraged. This has resulted in a flood of movies and T.V. shows about the war. It is estimated that around seventy percent of films and T.V. shows made are about World War II. With the amount of anti-japanese propaganda in China, it is inevitable that most Chinese people foster negative feelings toward Japan (Lague, Lee). The emphasis the Chinese government has placed on the atrocities of the war and their insistence that Japan has not formally apologized to China has gone on since the end of the war. The Chinese government has also used this not only as a way to divert negative opinion but also to increase their own popularity. Movies, novels, news outlets and even textbooks make the government seem like a hero and savior of China. Because the government liberated the Chinese from Japanese occupation it should be praised, had it not been for the 6
Chinese government, China would be under Japan s control. This facilitates a more positive outlook of the Chinese government (Dujarric) The hypocrisy of the Chinese government dramatizing the deaths of the Chinese at the hands of the Japanese is that the Chinese government sheds no light on the deaths they caused. During the Maoist period over 75 million Chinese were killed directly or indirectly from Mao s actions. However, the monstrosities that Mao and the government committed are hardly talked about in China. After the death of Mao the government stated that Mao s actions were thirty percent wrong and seventy percent right. Even after the Maoist period the Chinese government made numerous mistakes and caused the death of thousands. The Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989 resulted in the government firing on the students and causing the death of hundreds to thousands. Even to this day the government hides this event from its people and most people in China have no idea it occurred (Lim) The Chinese government is very skillful at hiding and the diverting the negative aspects of their history. Instead, they highlight the crimes committed against them by outside sources such as Japan and the west. There is a strong sense of victimization of China by the west, and China s Century of Humiliation is often talked about. The Chinese government likes to blame the west and Japan for their problems and the government constantly tells its people that the west is their enemy and that countries such as the United States and Japan are trying to contain China and inhibit its rise. This is the area in which the Chinese nationalist movement is the most strong. Chinese nationalism and the anti-japanese sentiment have resulted in protests and revolts by the Chinese people against Japan. In recent years, territorial conflicts between the two nations have sparked the rage of many Chinese people. There have been strikes outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing and mobs outside hotels where Japanese tourists resided. Many Chinese businesses 7
even blatantly have signs that read no Japanese allowed. People have boycotted Japanese products and vandalize people with them. (Osnos) The Chinese government has continued to allow this type of behavior regarding Japan to occur because it is in their best interests. This has resulted in a powerful nationalistic movement among many Chinese citizens. In China today, there has been an increase in unhappiness and disaffection among the people due to issues such as the unemployment, the deepening gap between the rich and the poor, corruption, and a general economic stagnation. Many people, especially the youth feel like their lives don t have much purpose or meaning and don t feel positively about the future. Students in high school and college study intensively and many of them are having difficulties finding jobs and establishing themselves in their adult life. Currently the goal for many Chinese is to get rich and make a lot of money. However this has become increasingly difficult to achieve. The dissatisfaction that many people feel has resulted in a general feeling of frustration. When many people are unable to attain their goals of getting good jobs and making a lot of money, they turn to their attention to other sources. The government has picked up on this and worries that people may turn their attention to the faults of the government. To prevent this, the government has given the people a different distraction to focus on, nationalism. Nationalism is a great distraction for Chinese people who feel their lives are unfulfilling and without meaningful. It is a sentiment that people can latch onto and feel better about their lives. There is a pattern of nationalism increasing as internally, things become more problematic and there is more inner turmoil. The government has encouraged nationalism amongst its people and part of this nationalistic movement is promoting the demonization of outside sources. This includes Japan (Osnos). 8
The way in which Chinese nationalism pushes an anti-japanese sentiment is very beneficial to the Chinese government. Not only does it divert the negative opinion from themselves but it is also a way of isolating Japan in the region. By milking the way the Japanese have handled post war apologies not only to China but other countries that were victims of Japan during the war, China has successfully been able to keep Japan from making alliances in the region. This is beneficial to China because in enables them to more easily become the dominant power in the region. Until recently, Japan was the top economic power in the region. In 2010, China surpassed them and became the second largest economic power in the world. China has also recently pushed military modernization and expansion. This has made China increasingly more threatening to Japan. The way the Japanese have continued to provoke China about the war is extremely detrimental to their own well-being. By keeping the anti-japanese sentiment alive not only in China but in other countries such as South Korea, it keeps the region divided. If Japan and South Korea were to mend their relationship China fears that they may band together in common opposition to Chinese policy. As Chinese nationalism grows and the Anti-Japanese sentiment increases, a large conflict between the two countries is becoming increasingly more likely. This also put the United States in a bind because Japan is a US ally. When conflict between China and Japan occurs, indirectly there is conflict between China and the US. The relationship between the US and China is currently uncertain so if Japan were to do something foolish to jeopardize the US China relationship, they may lose considerable support from the US and further isolate themselves. If this was to happen, it would put China as the uncontested dominant power in the region (Gries). China clearly benefits much more from the tension between Japan. If Japan were to genuinely apologize to China, the Chinese government would no longer have a source to divert 9
negative criticism to. It is in the Chinese governments benefit to keep the anti-japanese sentiment alive. For Japan, it is in their best interest to make amends with China about the war. However, because of the current rising tension between the two nations this is unlikely to happen. Japan has allowed itself to become isolated in the region and an easy target for Chinese opposition. Even if Japan were to sincerely reach out and apologize to China, the Chinese government probably would not accept it because they benefit from the tension and would like to continue to use it to their own advantage. 10
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