From Reuters:

But even as Hu spoke, about 200 protesters waved signs outside the university gate saying “Free Tibet” and “No Pandas, No Poison Dumplings,” the latter referring to Hu’s offer to lend two pandas to a Tokyo zoo and a row over Chinese-made dumplings laced with pesticide that made several Japanese people ill.

When I was in Japan recently, the contaminated jiaozi/gyoza scandal was one of the first things most Japanese friends asked me about on learning I now live in Beijing. It seems like a bit of progress if anti-China demonstrators (who weren’t particularly numerous) are complaining about human rights and food safety rather than history-related issues. Anti-U.S. slogans were not as substantial when I happened upon a much larger demonstration on Sept. 11, 2004, at Tokyo’s Omotesando.

“I just want to say ‘Free Tibet’. I want to say ‘No’ to China’s oppression of human rights,” said 29-year-old Atsushi Hanazawa, who carried a guitar along with a Tibetan flag.

Again, this makes Japanese protesters in a similar position as many around the world. No comment on who’s well informed.

Some Waseda students were more concerned about getting to class. “I can’t get through the gate. It’s a pain,” said 18-year-old Takuhiro Waki of the protest.

About two dozen right-wing activists yelled anti-Chinese slogans such as “Hu Jintao, Go Back to China.” Earlier, some right-wing Waseda alumni protested against Hu’s speech in a blog.

There’s the nationalism. But two dozen? Pretty weak from people who get crowds twice that size in front of sound trucks on anonymous Tuesdays near busy train stations and somewhat regularly clog the streets near the Chinese embassy.

Nearby around 50 Chinese students held their own rally, yelling “Go, China” in Chinese, “Sino-Japanese Friendship” in Japanese, and “Yes, We Can” in English.

“When I hear the anti-Chinese slogans, I feel that the Chinese people’s character has been maligned,” said 28-year-old Chinese graduate student Cao Shunrui.

There’s a little more nationalism, perhaps, from the other side. I’m not sure what to make of that, but the “Sino-Japanese friendship” message is considerably more helpful than some of the vitriol on both sides in U.S. campuses, from Grace Wang’s experience at Duke to a few dozen other reported rallies.

Hu later shed his suit jacket to play ping-pong at Waseda with popular players from both countries, but Fukuda, 71, declined to pick up a paddle.

“I’m glad I didn’t play ping-pong with him,” Fukuda told reporters. “He’s very strategic. I thought you can’t be too careful.”

I wouldn’t play him either. If he’s playing with popular players, he’d kick my ass. Unless Prime Minister Fukuda has been training, it’s probably wise to save the embarrassment and watch a friendly match.

Ampontan points out that the media’s love for Li Yang’s instructional rallies and methods, called Crazy English, recently included a New Yorker article by Evan Osnos.

I’m pretty happy with myself because with my Mandarin tutor today I finished a textbook. But our meetings at a Beijing cafe are nothing like Crazy English.

One by one, the doctors tried it out. “I would like to take your temperature!” a woman in stylish black glasses yelled, followed by a man in a military uniform. As Li went around the room, each voice sounded a bit more confident than the one before.

In Shanghai at a gallery whose name I’ve forgotten on Moganshan Lu, I saw a photographic exhibition composed of massive prints of Li Yang’s instruction. The scenes were astonishing. Student-teacher ratio was actually optimized to be very high. The events in these images and in other reading on the subject emerge as motivational events, and one of Li Yang’s primary methods is to increase confidence in his students.

But there is a nationalist element. The title of this post, “Conquer English to make China stronger,” is Li’s motto, according to the New Yorker. Ampontan points to another article that contains this passage on China and Japan.

During a question and answer session with the crowd, one student told Li that he hated the Japanese for their rape and occupation of the mainland prior to World War II. The student then said he didn’t want to study Japanese because of this hatred.

“If you really hate the Japanese, then you will learn their language,” Li told the student and the crowd. “If you really want revenge against Japan, then master their language.”

Nationalism, I suspect, may be a tool to reach audiences and to keep his massive events (along with the potentially millions of books sold) from running afoul of the government. This, from the first article, may tell you something about his deeper motivations:

On the couch at the hotel, Li turned one of our interviews into a lecture for his employees, who crowded around to listen. (Someone recorded it on a video camera.) “How can we make Crazy English more successful?” he asked me, his voice rising. “We know that people are not going to be persistent, so we give them ten sentences a month, or one article a month, and then, when they master this, we give them a huge award, a big ceremony. Celebrate! Then we have them pay again, and we make money again.”

He turned toward the assembled employees and switched to Chinese: “The secret of success is to have them continuously paying—that’s the conclusion I’ve reached.” Then back to English: “How can we make them pay again and again and again?”

I wonder how much the students learn.

Danwei today posted an excellent set of material on the 1996 book China Can Say No (中国可以说不). The book was influential in Chinese nationalism and follows a 1989 book by Japanese novelist-turned-governor-of-Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro, and a top Sony executive, Morita Akio, called The Japan That Can Say No.

The Danwei post includes a recent interview with one of the Chinese book’s writers, Song Qiang. In it, Song says anti-Japanese nationalism is not as warranted as anti-U.S. sentiment.

NH: What were you thinking during the anti-Japanese demonstrations of 2005?
SQ: I think that China’s biggest enemy is America. Japan is relatively harmless, so it’s easy to confuse things if you’re anti-Japan. China is a poor country, but Japan and Korea have done things better than us: each move they’ve made has been carefully considered. A national attitude of prudence and self-protection is something that China lacks. I didn’t take part in the demonstrations but I did sign my name. I said to Tong Zeng [defender of the Diaoyu Islands] that I was afraid that the anti-Japanese demonstrations would slip up and be exploited by the Americans.

China Youth Daily reported that a Japanese exchange student had posted online, saying: The “Chinamen” (支那人) don’t have any warriors; the Yamato people are superior to the Chinese. When I first read that I thought it was fake. There was no source of stimulation inside the country, so why not make up a post by a Japanese exchange student to inflame the passions of the Chinese—then we’d all have something to do. This is taking things far too lightly. A few years later, people said that the post was a fake, something cooked up by a Chinese person. If you’re anti-Japanese to such an extent, I’d say there’s a problem.

Noted without comment.

A large travel agency is planning a big promotion overseas to get foreign sports teams to stay in Japan before going on to Beijing for the start of next year’s Olympic games. They are touting the facilities, the lack of pollution, the variety of food, the public safety, and the ease of access to Beijng.

The agency is serious–and they report the British swimming team has already decided to stay in Japan first!

Via Ampontan.

Fukuda tells the Washington Post that Asia is Japan’s top responsibility, sending a signal to the United States on Japan’s expired Afghanistan refueling mission. This is also a departure from Abe and Aso’s aspiration to “Eurasian” reach.

It wasn’t too long ago that then-Foreign Minister Aso Taro declared that Japan would work for an “arc of freedom and prosperity” (自由と繁栄の弧) reaching across the Eurasian landmass. Aso’s rhetoric, which was to set out a foreign policy framework for the newly minted premiership of Abe Shinzo, made some people uncomfortable because of its echoes of history—no doubt partially because of Abe and Aso’s general hawkishness.

Now, after the implosion of the Abe government and the rocky start for Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo, a man who was initially seen as an agent for stability, Japan is changing its foreign policy footing. Ahead of Fukuda’s first visit to the United States as prime minister, he gave an interview to the Washington Post. “I believe the heaviest responsibility for Japan is to see to it that there is stability and prosperity in Asia,” Fukuda said, while also calling the U.S.–Japan alliance the “very foundation” of his foreign policy.

Japanese-U.S. ties have been destabilized (if only slightly) recently by the refusal of the Japanese legislature, where the upper house is controlled by Japan’s opposition, to renew Japan’s refueling mission in support of a primarily U.S. military action in Afghanistan. Predictably, this drew attention from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on his trip to Asia last week. But as Tobias Harris writes, changes in China loom large in the U.S.–Japan alliance. Here’s Tobias, quoting Gates’ speech last week at Sofia University in Tokyo:

Most pressingly, the alliance has yet to coordinate an approach to China. To some, it is a bulwark against China. To others—and I think it’s safe to include Mr. Gates in this category—the stronger the U.S.–Japan alliance, the better able it will be to reach out to China and work on incorporating China into the regional security architecture. As Mr. Gates says of China, “I do not see China as a strategic adversary. It is a competitor in some respects and partner in others. While we candidly acknowledge our differences, it is important to strengthen communications and to engage the Chinese on all facets of our relationship to build mutual understanding and confidence.”

Fukuda’s emphasis on Asia, if not an isolated statement, could represent at least an orientation toward improving its relations with regional powers. It certainly would seem to reflect the reality of Japanese politics over involvement with U.S. military action.

–

Footnote: Gates’ not-adversary-but-competitor line also reminds me of Obama, for what it’s worth.

A press release from the Hillary Clinton campaign uses China as the primary “other” for the United States, a nation to which the United States should compare its progress.

An Oct. 10 press release outlining Clinton’s agenda on “Rebuilding the Road to the Middle Class” comes with several policy proposals and an attempt to frame the country’s economic challenges. And in the process of framing, China is set up as a main challenger for the United States, and a main point of comparison for U.S. development. Here, in full, is the section outlining “The Challenges”:

Other nations are increasingly investing in their innovation infrastructure, positioning themselves to challenge our leadership. In the last 12 years, China has doubled the percentage of GDP dedicated to R&D, and over that same period GDP itself doubled. Also, our share of the world’s scientists and engineers is declining, and too few American college students are preparing themselves for these careers. Fewer than 20% of American undergraduates are earning degrees in science or engineering, compared with more than 50% in China. Between 1970 and 2000, our global share of PhDs in science and engineering declined from 40% to 20%. And today, our global ranking in broadband has deteriorated to 25th.

Here, China is the primary “other” to which U.S. achievements are compared.

Later, in a section outlining a proposal for more education funding, China again is the only country named in comparison. “Education is the ultimate innovation prerequisite, but we are ceding ground to other nations,” the release states. “For example, 50% of undergraduates in China are earning degrees in science and engineering, but in America the rate is less than 20%. Our global share of PhDs in these fields has declined from 40% in 1970 to less than 20% today.”

Clinton’s rhetoric in this document compares the United States to China and to the world at large. But notably, no other country or political unit, not even the European Union, is mentioned by name. This is not an overt statement on China, but it tells us something about the way Hillary’s campaign views the rhetorical landscape: Among world powers, they apparently believe, the media and voters are concerned about China above all others.

Tomorrow, Clinton calls the U.S.–China relationship the world’s most important for the coming century, and Japan faces a demotion from the position of the United States’ most important Asian counterpart.

Japan’s history problem (歴史問題, rekishi mondai) is well-known in Asia, and it’s a common topic of discussion in Japanese political journals. Many are familiar with international criticism of Japan’s reckoning with its 20th century aggression, and the repeated approval by the Education Ministry of textbooks that underplay or gloss over the Nanjing Massacre and other incidents has been a cause for diplomatic and public protests in China since the 1980s.

Most recently, in April 2005, Beijing saw what media* reported to be the largest protest the city had seen since 1989. Anti-Japan demonstrations in 2005 began with an online petition against Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), but a quieter campaign was in the works calling for a boycott of Japanese businesses that they said supported a nationalist group in Japan known as the Committee to Make New History Textbooks (新しい歴史教科書を作る会, atarashii rekishi kyoukasho wo tsukuru kai)—Tsukurukai for short.

Then, a new edition of Tsukurukai’s textbook was approved by the Education Ministry. This coincided with an shift in the rhetoric of both the Chinese government and demonstrators in Beijing and elsewhere. The highest estimates of how many attended the largest Beijing protest were around 20,000.

But, the Japanese textbook protest does not oppose denials of Japanese atrocities outside of Japan…

This week in Japan’s distant island prefecture of Okinawa, 110,000 people reportedly turned out to protest the removal of language from seven history textbooks. The passage in question has to do with whether a mass suicide by Okinawans occurred with “military coercion.” (Coercion is a key term these days in Japanese historical politics. Abe Shinzo tried to get himself out of trouble over his “comfort women” statements by squabbling over the definition of “coercion.”)

I have not studied the Okinawa incident in question, nor have I watched closely the politics behind this dispute, so I can’t speak to the facts. But here are some other places to look:

• Ampontan has explored it at some length and his post includes background on the battle over the specific passages and language.
• Shisaku has a comment (with photo) and links to a Canadian Press story…
• … which reports that this is the largest protest on Okinawa since the United States returned it to Japan in 1972. The runner up? “In 1995, 85,000 people took part in a rally following the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl there by three American servicemen, according to [Kyodo News].”

The size of demonstrations isn’t usually of great interest to me, but it certainly is useful to remember that Japanese textbooks don’t just rile Chinese and Koreans.

* This was mentioned in various places. Here’s one. Jiangtao Shi and Jane Cai, “Japanese Warned to Avoid Campuses; Embassy Urges Its Citizens to Stay Away after Call on Students to Protest in Beijing Today,” South China Morning Post, April 9, 2005.

After almost two months in China (Friday makes it official), I’ve settled in to a rhythm of life in Beijing and I think it’s time to revive this site. I’ve missed a lot of news, which is OK with me. In the future, this blog will be less news-oriented (though as a journalist I can’t imagine I’ll leave it all behind). I’m also still working on a new format and identity for the site which I think will fit my interests. But for now, let’s just review some of the things I’ve missed in the last two months.

In no particular order:

• As we all know by now, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is finished. I’ve found Observing Japan to be the best source for detailed news on the selection of Fukuda Yasuo as the next prime minister. Most recently, the tireless blogger-scholar behind OJ gives us analysis of how Fukuda has made some peace in the party by appointing faction-heads to the cabinets.
• Very little has been said about China in the U.S. presidential contest over the last few months, but …
• Sen. Hillary Clinton’s trouble with a fugitive donor changed triggered some conservative criticism of her and her husband’s connections to Chinese (really, Chinese-American) money. See here for a representative example. I wrote about Clinton’s most prominent statement on China so far in this election cycle back in March.
• A recent violent roundup of black drug dealers and many other innocent black people in Beijing brought disquiet in the expat community. Though I was in the area the same night, I left too early to see it first hand. A first report came from Jen Brea, and a later, more detailed one from Chris O’Brien. A Newsweek blog has another first-hand account from an expat who was forced to delete photos of the event.
• A correspondent in Kyushu e-mailed with some interesting survey results (via Japan Probe and Jun Okumura, another great blogger on recent political developments).
  • In a survey of Chinese, 78 percent saw Japan as a threat, followed closely by 75 percent perceived a U.S. threat.
  • Forty-six percent of both South Koreans and Japanese saw China as a threat, and more than 70 percent of both of those populations saw North Korea as a threat.
• W. David Marx and friends launched Néojaponisme, an online journal that will eventually supplant Marxy’s Néomarxisme “post-blog.” I highly recommend the first week-long series, a detailed and interesting interview with Patricia Steinhoff, a sociologist and professor at University of Hawaii who has studied student radicalism in Japan with some of the best sourcing around. Start reading here. And I’m not just plugging this because you’ll see my work on the site in the future as a contributor from Beijing.

That’s all for now.

Documents revealed in March that the Japanese government’s long-held position that it had nothing to do with the enshrinement of war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo wasn’t exactly, well, accurate. This week at Japan Focus, Akiko Takenaka has written a great update on these revelations. It’s published with an Asahi Shimbun editorial calling for the release of more documents and repeating its position that a secular memorial to war dead ought to be established—a position shared by an unlikely ally for the center-left daily, the center-right Yomiuri Shimbun. Japan Focus two years ago translated two editorials that represented an up-tick in momentum for that movement. It was significant to see the two largest newspapers in Japan (and in the world) agree for once on such a controversial issue.

I want to include an excerpt from Takenaka’s analysis, because it describes well why World War II reconciliation between Japan and its victims is so fraught. No single issue, not even Yasukuni, is the linchpin of tension over history.

Many, particularly international critics, have pointed out that the heart of the Yasukuni problem is the Japanese government’s glorification of its military past and reluctance to accept responsibility for its wartime deeds. State patronage of Yasukuni is intimately related to LDP efforts to revise the Constitution in order to strengthen Japan’s war-making powers. But simple removal of the physical structure of Yasukuni, or disenshrinement of the war criminals, will not resolve the Yasukuni problem. Let me explain. Many Japanese who are critical of the war and of Japanese war crimes, focus their criticisms on the shrine itself, including state involvement in the shrine, and the failure of the state to adequately provide apology and reparations to Asian victims of Japan’s wartime aggression and war crimes. In the process, like the new postwar generation of nationalists who currently lead the LDP, they fail to question the war responsibilities of the Japanese people, including their parents and grandparents – or, even themselves, for their reluctance to initiate a sincere dialogue on making amends. The ultimate solution to the problems associated with Yasukuni Shrine and crimes of war can only be resolved when both state and people accept responsibility and act to put the dark episodes of the war behind them through sincere apologies, reparations, and education of the next generations of Japanese.

The political hack in me wonders what kind of deal might be struck to satisfy some Japanese voters’ nationalist emotions while backing off of the rhetoric and actions that draw so much diplomatic criticism from China, South Korea, and other countries. If Japanese nationalists truly desire to make their nation a “normal country” in international affairs, perhaps they could lose some of the bravado displayed by implicit glorification of Japan’s aggressive past. Indeed, objectives such as gaining a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council might meet less opposition if, to paraphrase Chinese government statements in April 2005, Japan faced up to its history.

I’m not so naïve as to imagine such a compromise is a realistic possibility; nationalism in Japan, as anywhere, is not often so cold and calculated as to cede ground on issues of pride in favor of more concrete gains. And it’s not necessarily safe to assume China would stop opposing Japan in the UNSC example just because leaders shunned Yasukuni.

What emerges from this line of reasoning is the possibility that concrete political moves such as UNSC membership or Article 9 revision are fundamentally secondary to questions of national pride. Perhaps liberals in Japan could achieve some of their goals by wrapping pacifism in the flag. If only that could work in both Japan and the United States, we’d be in business.

In a Hannity & Colmes interview last year devoted mostly to attacking U.S. efforts to control North Korea under President Bill Clinton, Senator John McCain—now a leading Republican presidential candidate—said if the United Nations doesn’t do enough to control North Korea, Japan will have to “rearm.” And he said, puzzlingly, that something he refers to as “it” would be in China’s interest … referring to Taiwan! Here’s the quote, from October 11, 2006:

HANNITY: Senator, you know, just as we’re coming on the air here tonight, Japan is suspecting that North Korea, in fact, conducted a second nuclear test. And, as we think about this, what is the answer here? Is the answer that we worked through the United Nations or is a stronger answer that we rearm Japan, that we offer them some type of missile defense, and perhaps they even become nuclear-prepared?

MCCAIN: If the United Nations, because of China and Russia, do not invoke the strictest form of sanctions, that will affect our relations with both countries in a variety of ways. It is in China’s interest, not for any reason other than it’s not in China’s interest to see an escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula.

Yes, the Japanese would have to rearm. The Japanese would have to acquire defensive weapons. What happens with Taiwan? The whole area could be in jeopardy of some kind of conflagration. That’s why it’s in China’s interest. [emphasis mine]

And, by the way, they control the food, and they control the oil that goes into North Korea. And they could exercise that if they want to.

So first the United Nations sanctions. But China has got to play a greater role. And they’ve been doing pretty well.

HANNITY: Rearming Japan, a resolution to defend Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, that would all be in the areas that you would suggest to the president at this particular point, remind the Chinese that, in fact, the Olympics are coming?

MCCAIN: Yes. And I would also make it clear to the Chinese that we’re not happy with some things, like the currency exchange. We’re not happy with their repression of democracy. We’re not happy with their failure to progress recently on a path to a free and open society.

And we will continue our steadfast belief that Taiwan will only be reunited to China if it’s done in a peaceful manner and the people of Taiwan desire to do so. Until then, we will protect them.

This second answer looks like an exercise in unloading predetermined China talking points. It strikes the usual ambiguous note on Taiwan.

But let’s take the bolded statement apart. He says Japan would have to “rearm” and “acquire defensive weapons,” when in fact Japan already has defensive weapons, and U.S. patriot missiles have been deployed in Okinawa since June 2006. Rearming could mean replacing current weapons with other, similar ones. More likely it means bringing Japan’s level of armament back to a higher, former level. Given McCain’s invocation of a possible regional “conflagration” that could involve Taiwan, we can only assume he means revising Article 9 of the Japanese constitution and giving Japan the right to engage in collective self defense.

It’s entirely unclear to me whether he means that rearming Japan would be in China’s interest or that a strong U.N. reaction to North Korea’s nuclear test is in its interest because anything less would lead to rearming Japan.

It would be nice to ask some follow-ups now that the North Korea situation has cooled off.