The China Thread

[jimmy olsen]

Isn't this stuff uncharacteristically aggressive for the middle kingdom?

They managed to conquer and hold onto Vietnam for a thousand years, so I don't think so.

[CountDeMoney]

Lol, because planning for short wars with other great powers ALWAYS works.

You're not seeing it from the Chinese historical perspective.  You don't need to win a war to achieve your goals.  Sometimes winning doesn't even enter into the equation.

[CountDeMoney]

Isn't this stuff uncharacteristically aggressive for the middle kingdom?

Don't buy into that centuries-old Confucian "we're just a pacifist culture, ROR" hype, my friend.  That's exactly what they want you to think with that public relations ad campaign.

[Monoriu]

Beijing's problem is how to placate the population's increasing anger toward Japan without doing anything drastic.  The communists need to be seen to be doing something. 

I increasingly consider Japan's revisionist antics as giving China an advantage.  It is rare for the communists to gain the moral high ground. 

[CountDeMoney]

Oh, bullshit.

[Jacob]

Beijing's problem is how to placate the population's increasing anger toward Japan without doing anything drastic.  The communists need to be seen to be doing something. 

I increasingly consider Japan's revisionist antics as giving China an advantage.  It is rare for the communists to gain the moral high ground.

Hah!

The population's growing anger has been carefully nurtured and encouraged by Beijing.

In 1972, when the then Japanese Prime Minister, Kakuei Tanaka, apologised for what Japan did during the war, "Chairman Mao told him not to apologise because 'you destroyed the Kuomintang, you helped us come to power'," Prof Dujarric says.

But the Party's propaganda seems to have taken a turn towards nationalism after the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which the Chinese army crushed to death students who were demanding democratic rights, on 4 June 1989.

"Before the 4 June, it portrayed the Communist Party as victorious and glorious - it defeated the nationalist Kuomintang army in the civil war. But after 4 June, the government started emphasising China as a victim," says Prof Akio Takahara, who teaches contemporary Chinese politics at Tokyo University.

The Communist Party now casts itself as the party which ended a century of humiliation at the hands of outsiders, he says.

"And the way they do it is to breed hatred against the most recent invader and aggressor."

Switching on the television in my Chinese hotel room, it was easy to find television programmes dramatising China's resistance to the Japanese invasion. As part of the country's "patriotic education" policy, more than 200 were made last year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25411700

[Neil]

Hey now.  Mono is just the victim of his state-run media.

[Ed Anger]

He's gonna be pissed when they seize his anime.

[garbon]

I might then have to support their leaders.

[Monoriu]

Hah!

The population's growing anger has been carefully nurtured and encouraged by Beijing.

It is more complex than that, I think.  A lot of anti-Japan protests got out of control, and they need to put a stop to it.  If they nurtured the sentiment, they probably overdid it. 

[Neil]

I might then have to support their leaders.

I would think that you'd be Mr. Anime, what with the hair colouring.

[garbon]

I might then have to support their leaders.

I would think that you'd be Mr. Anime, what with the hair colouring.

Well that makes just another example of your poor cognition.

[Jacob]

It is more complex than that, I think.  A lot of anti-Japan protests got out of control, and they need to put a stop to it.  If they nurtured the sentiment, they probably overdid it.

They were out of control only because different factions (i.e Zhou's clique) pushed it out of control to send a message as part of internal CPC struggles. There are plenty of reports that rioters were bussed in from the countryside and plain-clothes internal security types.

Coincidentally, Zhou was in charge of internal security which include dealing with riots and demonstrations.

[Monoriu]

It is more complex than that, I think.  A lot of anti-Japan protests got out of control, and they need to put a stop to it.  If they nurtured the sentiment, they probably overdid it.

They were out of control only because different factions (i.e Zhou's clique) pushed it out of control to send a message as part of internal CPC struggles. There are plenty of reports that rioters were bussed in from the countryside and plain-clothes internal security types.

Coincidentally, Zhou was in charge of internal security which include dealing with riots and demonstrations.

Have your heard Zhou's story?  Guy's wife was killed in a traffic accident.  The perpetrator was then jailed for 4 years (light by Chinese standards).  When he got out of jail, he was promptly given a manager's job in one of the biggest state-owned oil companies.  Zhou was chairman of the company at that time.  Within month's of his wife's death, Zhou remarried.  His son refused to speak to him for years 

I don't doubt that the communists have something to do with the demonstrations.  But regardless, nothing would have come out of it without Japan's...active cooperation. 

[Jacob]

Have your heard Zhou's story?  Guy's wife was killed in a traffic accident.  The perpetrator was then jailed for 4 years (light by Chinese standards).  When he got out of jail, he was promptly given a manager's job in one of the biggest state-owned oil companies.  Zhou was chairman of the company at that time.  Within month's of his wife's death, Zhou remarried.  His son refused to speak to him for years 

Yeah, Zhou seems particularly unpleasant, even by the low standards of high level CPC leaders.

I don't doubt that the communists have something to do with the demonstrations.  But regardless, nothing would have come out of it without Japan's...active cooperation.

Yeah, Abe and his crew are playing their own little game, I have no doubt about that.