Feng Li/Getty Images |
Hannah Beech
Thousands of angry locals vent
their rage at a foreign embassy, hurling bottles, defacing flags and chanting
murderous threats. These aren't Muslims swarming American diplomatic missions
because of that tawdry, U.S.-made film ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad. They
are Chinese protesters, and their target is Japan. Widespread resentment is still
felt in China over Japan's savage wartime atrocities and a feeling that Tokyo
has not adequately apologized for them. When the Japanese government decided
earlier this month to buy some uninhabited islets in the East China Sea from
private owners, a simmering territorial dispute with China over the same
outcroppings escalated, and that long-held antipathy exploded.
China is a police state.
Protests of this scale, which have convulsed dozens of Chinese cities for days,
just don't happen unless the government approves of them. Indeed, Beijing
authorities made clear their views on the islands, known as the Diaoyu in China
and the Senkaku in Japan, by blaring a recorded message near the Japanese
embassy: "Japan has violated China's sovereignty. It is right for you to
express your opinion." As protesters elsewhere in China destroyed Japanese
cars, the police declined to intervene. Compare this with last year, when the
faintest whiff of pro-democracy activism resulted in plainclothes thugs
attacking foreign journalists who showed up to cover a possible rally in
Beijing. Then, the security presence was so smothering that nary a Chinese
protester showed up to express solidarity with the Jasmine Revolution.
In the Muslim world,
anti-American protests have betrayed religious, societal and political fault
lines graver than those in China. But be they in Benghazi or Beijing, the
causes of the demonstrations run far deeper than their immediate pretexts. In
China's case, the outpouring of hatred toward the Japanese isn't simply about
who owns a collection of rocks in resource-rich waters.
The Chinese leadership, which
is facing a once-a-decade transition in the coming weeks, couldn't have asked
for a better diversion from the delicate power shift ahead. (In Japan too, a
weak government facing an upcoming election may have benefited from looking
tough on China.) Already, Beijing's leadership handover has been beset by
political scandal, a slowing economy and the two-week disappearance from public
view of Xi Jinping, the man expected to assume the helm in China. Vice
President Xi finally reappeared on Sept. 15, just as China's state media ran headlines
about Beijing dispatching surveillance ships to the contested islands. Banners
unfurled in Beijing urged: SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT! SUPPORT THE ARMY! KILL THE
JAPANESE! Mission Distraction accomplished.
In a China where income
inequality has spawned mass resentment, protests directed against an outward
enemy serve as a release valve. Beijing has primed the pump through history
lessons that stress Japan's cruel wartime record. But nationalism is a risky
instrument. Xi and current Chinese President Hu Jintao were nowhere to be seen
in the iconography of the anti-Japan rallies. (Instead, protesters held aloft
portraits of Mao Zedong, whose wartime efforts against the Japanese are
admired.) Online commentators called their government weak for not having stood
up more forcefully to Tokyo.
In Chinese history,
antiforeign rallies have a habit of morphing into anti-government movements.
"The government thinks they can control [nationalism], but it can turn
into something very dangerous," warns Wan Tao, who as a patriotic hacker a
decade ago targeted Japanese government websites. "It's like playing with
fire." On Sept. 16, among the few detained during the anti-Japanese
protests were a trio in the southern city of Shenzhen who raised banners
calling for democracy.
Back in 2004, while meeting a
group of young nationalists in Beijing, I spoke with an impassioned man who believed
in China's need to defend the disputed islands. Hu Jia went on to become a
famous dissident and spent more than three years in jail for his activism. This
Sept. 18, the anti-Japan protests took on further resonance because it was the
anniversary of "9.18" — the day in 1931 on which Japan unleashed its
invasion and occupation of China. As the demonstrations raged, Hu was stopped
from leaving his home to buy vegetables by plainclothes officers who monitor
him even though he is supposedly a free man. On Twitter, which is banned in
China, the 39-year-old wrote: "This 9.18, the shame of the country comes
from the existence of tyranny." He didn't mean the Japanese.
Hannah Beech —
with reporting by Chengcheng Jiang/Beijing, TIME Magazine
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