Overview

The anti-Japan protests in Shanghai, Beijing, and other Chinese cities over the last several weeks appear to be orchestrated by the government of China, with one motivation being thwarting Japan’s bid for permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council. Chinese officials may have other motivations as well, including letting people blow off steam in a state-approved cause, as an alternative to the real riots that some towns have recently experienced. “In a country where dissent normally brings swift retribution,” (see last section below), people take protest opportunities where they are offered.

Evidence of government sponsorship

Here’s some handiwork from last week’s Beijing anti-Japan protest from Johan, a Swede who works for an American consultancy there. Nifty and professional protest poster, complete with Chairman Mao:

全国人民团结起来, 坚决抵制日货
“The people of the whole country! Unite and rise! Firmly boycott Japanese goods!”

And here’s today’s protest via Instapundit:

Here’s the widely disseminated email giving instructions for today’s Shanghai protest, from Shanghai Diaries via Simon World. Excerpt:

1、此次活动不针对任何在华日本友人、仅仅针对日本右翼势力和其支持者，所以在活
动中请不要过激地针对友人；

1.The protest is not aimed at friendly Japanese, but again Japanese right wings.

2、警察是人民的公仆，在游行过程中，他们和我们一样也是爱国的，只是因为他们有
他们的任务——保证活动的安全性，所以大家配合警察叔叔，特别是在使馆门口，如果
警察叔叔看着你，就不要乱丢东西，如果没有人看着你，就丢一个鸡蛋或者一个番茄，
万一丢完了被警察叔叔发现，就朝他笑笑；

2. The police are public servants, they are just as patriotic as us, but they have their duties — to ensure security during the protest. Therefore, please cooperate with them, especially in front of the Japanese consulate. If a policeman looks at you, don’t throw anything, if not, throw an egg or a tomato. If you are spotted throwing stuff at the consulate, smile at the policeman.

3、沿途经过日本人投资的商店、公司等，不要给予破坏性打击，因为破坏了以后，日
本人会向中国政府索要赔偿的，所以大家届时理智一点；

3. Don’t attack Japanese shops, companies en route the protest, for the Japanese government will claim losses with the Chinese government. Please stay calm!

Here’s Andrés Gentry’s verdict on Chinese government involvement, issued even before Shanghai (where he lives), in the midst of a fascinating piece which says that only 0.3% of Japanese schools chose the textbooks offensive to the Chinese:

Without resorting to the mistaken trope that the CCP controls everything in this country, let’s just say I find it doubtful that the recent protests could have happened without either the help of the government (as in Beijing where city buses helpfully brought students back to their campuses after they shook their fists and threw bottles and rocks at the Japanese Embassy) or the tacit acceptance of them (as in Chengdu’s first riot where the police were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about preventing the destruction of private property). Somewhere between organization and acceptance probably best describes the CCP’s role in the riots and it was probably a slightly different mix in each city. Such is life in a soft authoritarian state.

For fun, here’s how the NYT characterized some of the protest signs:

The assault on this city’s consulate was the culmination of a march that began in central Shanghai early in the morning, and drew thousands of participants along a 10-mile route. The demonstrators chanted slogans like, “Show China’s strength,” “Japan out of Asia,” and “Down with little Japan.”

Then there’s what Ian Hamet saw, which looks a lot more like Glenn Reynolds’ photo:

Around this time, a banner came from the north and drew the heartiest cheer of the morning. It was very large, and professionally made, in color. The English read “Dogs Always Eat Shit” and had a drawing of a steaming pile. Next to that was a cartoon dog, with Japanese prime minister Koizumi’s face photoshopped onto it, saying “Taste Good!”

UN Security Council Angle

What are we to make of this? A mixture of professional looking, English language and genuinely angry protest signs, an email appeal to conduct the protest so that it doesn’t cost the Chinese government insurance money, and government busing of protesters. It’s pretty obvious that the Chinese government is sponsoring or abetting the demonstrations, tapping into genuine anti-Japan feelings among the Chinese people. From Peoples’ Daily, where Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao may have provided the strategic overview:

Recent large-scale demonstrations and protests have occurred in China and some Japan’s neighboring countries targeting on Japan’s attempt to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. “The strong responses from the Asian people should make the Japanese authorities to have deep and profound reflections,” Wen said. He said the two sides should learn from history and face up to the future to continue to develop the relationship between China and Japan.

“Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for its past, and wins over the trust of the people of Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibility in the international community,” he said. Demonstrations erupted in some major cities in China at the weekend against Japan’s perceived distortion of history and whitewashing of its wartime atrocities. Protesters in China and elsewhere in Asia have also spoken out against Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular media briefing that the protests were “totally spontaneous”, saying they were prompted by the Chinese public’s dissatisfaction at “the bad practice and attitude adopted by the Japanese side on its history of aggression.” “What I want to stress is that they (the protests) are not targeted against the Japanese people,” Qin said.

Interestingly, this week China explicitly backed India for permanent UN Security Council membership, and has more tepidly endorsed Germany’s bid for a larger UN role. From our perch, it looks as though China is using the protests to further its aim of keeping strong US ally Japan off the Security Council, while pushing for its own greater role by backing its favored nations for permanent UNSC slots.

Inferiority Complex

It would be a mistake, however, to see the Chinese protest as just one thing. Ian Hamet explains:

There is, of course, the anger over Japan’s behavior in WWII and reluctance to officially admit to it now. This is, to an extent, justified. If you’ve no idea what I mean, read the late Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. Japanese war atrocities were fully as horrific as those of the Nazis.

However, people here don’t know, or don’t care, that Japan today is vastly different than 60-70 years ago. The government there was formed under occupation, and I seriously doubt that anyone outside of China (and possibly Korea) has any fear of a renewal in Japanese military aggression. And if you try to explain that to anyone here, the pretty much discount what you say or get shriekingly angry at you for dismissing their grievances.

Furthermore, one aspect of Chinese culture you don’t read much about is a nationwide inferiority complex. I don’t know what else to call it. There’s overcompensation everywhere, from the constant proclamations of how great China and the Chinese people are, to the flogging of this or that achievement (such as the first Chinese man in space a few years ago), to how big the population is, to… well, everything. Many of the people here protest way too much about how great and wonderful and important China is, and it makes you suspect that they’re afraid it’s not true. The most obvious example of it at the march today was the sign:

– Little Japan Never Ever Against BIG China

which I already reported. Think on that for a minute. Japan isn’t “against” China right now — much of the Chinese economy is driven by Japanese business, something I saw quite a bit of in Nantong, where many or most of the largest companies were Japanese. But China is the one threatening military action these days, while little Japan is winning in the market.

So a nation’s inferiority complex may also have something to do with the protests. Understandable in a country just beginning to flex its economic and military muscles — and, as we have previously pointed out, China is in fact vastly economically inferior to Japan, with 35% of the GDP and 7x the population, so its inferiority complex is perhaps appropriate. But whose fault is it that tiny Japan is so much more economically potent than great China? Why that would be the fault of the repressive, historically Communist Chinese government. Perhaps the Chinese people would really like to protest their own government as well as Japan’s.

State-sponsored protests as an alternative to real protests

Hamet goes on to say this, just after the clip above:

Another aspect is dissatisfaction with the present government. Oh, you’ll never hear anyone say that, of course. But Tiananmen Square is only 16 years in the past, and I think someone in Beijing, someone who is all too familiar with both The Prince and The Art of War, has been working to divert frustration to a more acceptable target.

Which brings us at last to genuine, uncontrolled and unsponsored, protests, via the Times of London on April 12 (photo via Epoch Times):

THOUSANDS of Chinese farmers overturned buses, smashed cars and attacked policemen during a riot in a village in eastern China against chemical plants that they say are destroying their crops. Villagers said that 3,000 police officers armed with electric batons and teargas descended on the village of Huaxi before dawn on Sunday to clear roadblocks that villagers had set up to stop deliveries to and from chemical plants built on land where rice and vegetable farms once stood.

The scene yesterday was one of complete devastation and anarchy: 40 buses lay smashed in the grounds of a local school and 14 cars were piled upside down in an alley, some draped with police uniforms. There were unconfirmed reports that two of the elderly protesters died during efforts to disperse them, and more than a hundred people were treated for minor injuries in hospital.

In a country where dissent normally brings swift retribution, the weekend riots were just the latest clashes between local authorities and farmworkers, who feel marginalised by the extraordinary growth of China’s economy and the expansion of its industrial base deeper into rural areas.

The 13 chemical plants in Zhejiang, built during the current economic boom and operational since 2002, produce fertiliser, dyes and pesticides. Farmers say that waste from the factories is poisoning the wells that provide their drinking water and that the plants periodically release clouds of stinging gas. They also claim that the effluents are causing stillborn babies and birth defects. “I’m afraid my children won’t live to reach my age. I want my land back, I want my food back and I want my water back,” said one 60-year-old woman…

Farmers do not own their land, but receive 30 leases from the government, which has the right to move them as it sees fit and as development needs dictate. Apparently some of the people affected by the government’s policies do not like them.

Summary

Somebody in the Chinese government thought that these orchestrated demonstrations against Japan were a swell idea. In our opinion they were wrong — maybe they don’t know the proverb about glass houses. From the Iraq vote to the protests in the Ukraine and in Beirut, those who would maintain order through central control, intimidation, terror or oppression have found out to their dismay that mass demonstrations are often very powerful, if you are unwilling or unable to kill the protesters in large numbers. China has shown in the past that it was willing to take the harshest measures when the protests got out of control. But the China of 2005 — where the government shows its power by manipulating CNN polls on Japan and the UNSC — is not the China of 1989. It remains to be seen precisely what the differences are.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2005 at 10:36 am and is filed under China, General, business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.