China Warns U.S. on Taiwan

[Drake Tungsten]

China is different and it should be obvious that artificial anti-Japanese nationalism, as Drake suggests, serves no purpose and provides no benefits to the Communist party.

Are you really arguing that anti-Japanese sentiment and nationalism aren't useful tools for the Communist party in their attempts to maintain control over the various malcontents in Chinese society who are being left behind by China's rise? Man, you're lucky Ted is posting in this thread or you would be the dumbest one in here...

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Man, you're lucky Ted is posting in this thread or you would be the dumbest one in here...

Gut shots

[SlowwHand]

That was a definite shot.

[Barnabas]

All east asians are ultra nationalistic loonies.

[DaShi]

Tingkai appears to be living in a fantasy land. I don't I've seen him post anything accurate about China at all. In fact, his own actions seem to support the nationalist ideology. Saying China doesn't need Japan is ridiculous. The truth is that they both need eachother. That's one of the main reasons things are tempered on both sides. In the future that could change, but it's not the case now.

As for Tingkai, it seems that my initial impression of him was absolutely correct.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Tingkai
The Chinese people don't need anyone to tell them that they are Chinese or that they should be proud to be Chinese.

Actually, this is the cornerstone of Chinese education and media. I've never seen a society with such a massive inferiorty complex as modern China.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Tingkai



Read much?
I never said the party is accepted no matter how they rule.

In fact, what I wrote was: No, they are instead realistic and know that the Communist Party is in charge, it is doing a decent job and there is little chance of overthrowing it.

If the Communist Party stops doing a decent job, then the situation changes. This should be obvious.

If you had been in China 25 years ago, and then visited it now, you would see the vast improvements. That is why the Chinese Communist party remains in power while the Soviet communist party collapsed.

Again, this should be obvious.

The Chinese people don't need anyone to tell them that they are Chinese or that they should be proud to be Chinese. It is different from the U.S., a land of migrants, who are often not quite sure it means to be American because the meaning constantly changes. Again, this should be obvious

China is different and it should be obvious that artificial anti-Japanese nationalism, as Drake suggests, serves no purpose and provides no benefits to the Communist party. Again, this should be obvious.

"This is acknowledged by the international community."

or

"Everybody knows this."

[Urban Ranger]

"319" comes back to haunt Chen

Released footage on '319 Incident' probe challenged

The "319 Incident" occurred last year in Tainan as an alleged lone gunman open fired on Chen and Lu during their re-election campaign. The incident is widely believed to help Chen won the re-election. The opposition ("Pan-Blue" camp) maintains that Chen orchestrated the incident and presses for a more thorough investigation.

Video footage released by a Tainan district prosecutor of two interrogation sessions for the March 19 Incident was challenged yesterday, while police denied doctoring the tapes and insisted the questioning was not done in violation of law.

Prosecutor Wang Shen-yung showed the selected footage Monday after the bereaved family of Chen Yi-hsiung, the alleged gunman trying to kill President Chen Shui-bian on the eve of the 2004 election, had told the press he was falsely accused.

Wang Ching-fen, spokeswoman for the 2005 "truth" committee, and former lawmaker Su Ying-kuei questioned the authenticity of the released footage, hinting at the possibility of doctoring.

"Pictures showing Chen Yi-hsiung running along a Tainan street may have been edited," said Wang, a lawyer who spoke for the Committee in Search for the Truth about the March 19 Incident," which was forced to cease to function on February 20 last year.

(emphasis added)

At the Legislative Yuan, opposition lawmakers grilled Hung Sheng-kun, deputy director-general of the National Police Administration, for failing to follow through the investigation of the shooting incident that helped President Chen get reelected.

Hou Yu-ih, NPA director-general, was responsible for concluding that Chen Yi-hsiung was the gunman who shot at President Chen.

In his capacity as director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, Hou announced the conclusion of the investigation a few days before the first anniversary of the 319 Incident.

Promoted NPA director-general on March 2, Hou did not attend the Legislative Yuan session where his deputy was grilled.

In particular, opposition lawmakers asked why police did not continue investigating Wang Hsing-nan, a Democratic Progressive Party legislator who had been bugged for half a year.

Kuomintang lawmaker Chiu Yi charged the two bullets said to have hit the president and the vice president "had been planted by Wang Hsing-nan."

But police failed to find the homemade gun. Suicide notes were destroyed. Chen Yi-hsiung committed suicide by drowning himself at a Tainan canal 10 days after the shooting. Police said he did away with himself to atone for his assassination attempt.

No gun. No evidence. Dead suspect. Very neat indeed.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Originally posted by Sprayber
Originally posted by SlowwHand

LOL @ the 36% Reactionaries in here.

I need to start signing autographs. "Oh no teh Defector he makes me soo mad!"

[DaShi]

Re: "319" comes back to haunt Chen

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Released footage on '319 Incident' probe challenged

The "319 Incident" occurred last year in Tainan as an alleged lone gunman open fired on Chen and Lu during their re-election campaign. The incident is widely believed to help Chen won the re-election. The opposition ("Pan-Blue" camp) maintains that Chen orchestrated the incident and presses for a more thorough investigation.



(emphasis added)





No gun. No evidence. Dead suspect. Very neat indeed.

Great. More misleading and inaccurate information. Do you really expect anyone to believe you?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Are you really arguing that anti-Japanese sentiment and nationalism aren't useful tools for the Communist party in their attempts to maintain control over the various malcontents in Chinese society who are being left behind by China's rise?

So in your theory, the guy who has been evicited from his house and who has lost his government job will stop being angry at the government because of anti-Japanese sentiment. Yeah right, hate to break it to you Einstein, the guy is still going to hate the government, and probably the Japanese too.

And the farmer whose land is being poisoned by a nearby factory will be kept in control by anti-Japanese sentiments.

Man, you don't understand human nature, politics ... you don't understand much at all.

Complaining about the Japanese is completely separate from complaining about the government. One can feel proud of a nation and still dislike the government.

The idea that Beijing is using anti-Japanese propaganda to control the people is wrong because one does not lead to the other. I know you're a bit slow, so let me say it again. Anti-Japanese comments will not make people love the Communist Party or reduce their complaints of the government. Therefore, it is cannot be used as a tool to keep society under control.

But go ahead, explain how your wacky idea works. Tell us all about how nationalism is being used to control the Chinese people. At the very least, it'll be good for a laugh.

[DaShi]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0602280153feb28,1,1265812.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Hear China's `angry youth'
An increasingly influential slice of society, activists called fenqing are uprooting stereotypes about liberal youth

By Evan Osnos, Tribune foreign correspondent. Jingxian Lu and Yang Xiao contributed to this report
Published February 28, 2006


TIANJIN, China -- From a tidy apartment crammed with canvases, paintbrushes and his all-important computer, Wang Lei is a foot soldier in the fight for China's glory.

Online, this soft-spoken art instructor becomes a hard-line patriot. He savages Japan for growing "militarism." He urges his national leaders to actively confront foes. And he chides the U.S. for its "hostile" policy toward China.

Wang is part of an increasingly influential slice of Chinese society known as the fenqing, or angry youth. Depending on who is talking, the title can mean "striving youth" or "idiotic youth," underscoring a deepening divide over this unpredictable ingredient in today's China.

Young activists have a mythic political history in China, from anti-Japanese protesters of 1919 to Red Guard zealots of the Cultural Revolution and democracy advocates who filled Tiananmen Square in 1989. Indeed, these new nationalists--who subvert the stereotype of Chinese youth as a uniformly liberal force--are shaping how leaders tackle sensitive issues.

"Some people think we are just talking about China and Japan's past," Wang said of his nationalist writings, "but I try to make people understand that this is about the future."

The young activists led anti-Japan protests last year that drew thousands into the streets, until authorities, worried the protests could veer into domestic issues, silenced them. This year they became caught up in the government side of censorship, when authorities cited nationalists' criticism of a liberal essay as a reason to shut down its publisher, one of China's most outspoken investigative journals.

Equal parts pawns and provocateurs, they have buttressed some hard-line Chinese policies at home and abroad, as leaders seek to defuse domestic tension and define a new global profile. In foreign affairs, China has responded to nationalists by drawing a sharper line against Japan, helping to drag China-Japan relations to the lowest point in years.

Pitting patriotism, reform

At home, nationalism has grown beside and, sometimes, in opposition to the call for democracy. As communism fades into the free-market reality of today's China, party authorities permit and manipulate patriotism as a counterweight to pro-reform forces and a way to unify young people groping for an ideology. But stoking them is a risky strategy because the government must struggle to keep control of these bursts of social and political steam.

"The fenqing has become the label for extreme sentiment in China," said Xiong Peiyun, a senior correspondent for Nanfeng Chuang magazine. "It's too soon to say if the phenomenon is good or bad, but it is clearly a power."

"Angry youth" first emerged as a label in the mid-1990s among mainland China's fast-growing community of Web users, now estimated to be the world's second-largest, at 100 million.

Like Wang, the nationalists are generally well educated and urban. Though called youth, they range into their mid-30s, and came of age after the political chaos of the Cultural Revolution. There is no reliable measure of their ranks. The Patriots Alliance Web, one of the largest nationalist forums, touts more than 70,000 registered users, and an online petition against Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council has drawn more than 41 million signatures.

Their rise reflects the shifting political identities of China today. They are neither simply pro- nor anti-government; some fiercely support the Communist Party, but others fault national leaders for failing to curb rampant corruption, social inequality and rising costs of education and health care.

For now, the central issue that unites them is Japanese war crimes committed against the Chinese before and during World War II and Japanese leaders' regular visit to the Yasukuni national shrine. But more notably, the new nationalists pursue a growing range of contemporary demands as well, including control of a disputed island chain in the oil-rich East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

They also condemn Japan's rising nationalism, Taiwan's moves toward independence and the U.S. Defense Department's description of China's expanding military as a strategic threat.

`Just a matter of time'

Lu Yunfei, a 31-year-old Web designer who founded the Patriots Alliance Web, said his group was glad to see the government's recent ban of "Memoirs of a Geisha," which nationalists condemned for depicting a Chinese actress in a sensitive Japanese role. He believes China and Japan could face conflict, but only if Japan provokes it.

"Look into the history, war between Japan and China breaks out every 100 years. It is just a matter of time and scale," Lu said.

In a nation where protests are illegal, nationalists act out in other ways. In January 2005, Guo Quan, a 38-year-old literature and philosophy professor at Nanjing Normal University, became a Web sensation after he used an ax to destroy the tomb of Wang Zhi, a Ming Dynasty figure accused of being a collaborator with Japan.

Guo, who said he favors a strong, democratic China, integrated with the West, said he understands why the government is wary of anti-Japan activism.

"The government is facing a lot of opposing voices, so they are worried that anti-Japan activities could spark a movement against the government," he said.

Last month, the fenqing trained their fury on an essay by historian Yuan Weishi, in which he criticized Chinese middle-school textbooks for glossing over missteps by Qing Dynasty leaders, which might have incited foreign powers to attack China at the end of the 19th Century. The response was swift. Conservative historians complained to the party while young nationalists also lashed out, calling Yuan's article, in the words of one Internet posting, "a clear sign that old and young traitors have taken another big step forward."

On Jan. 24, the party moved against the essay's publisher, Freezing Point, a popular supplement to the China Youth Daily newspaper. The Party removed prominent editor Li Datong and deputy editor Lu Yuegang and closed the paper for six weeks. The State Council Information Office, which speaks for the government, said "large numbers of readers and Internet users strongly criticized the China Youth Daily" for the essay, which "severely hurt the national feelings of the Chinese people, creating malicious social consequences."

But the former editors and many analysts believe the government only used the nationalists' criticism as a pretext to punish the journal for its liberal leanings. The case has highlighted a growing rift between those who support or oppose government censors.

Within days, 13 prominent intellectuals and retired officials had issued a rare public statement criticizing propaganda officials and calling to reinstate the editors. Today, the fenqing say the issue is too sensitive to discuss their role--witting or unwitting--in the Freezing Point case, but Beijing University professor Yang Kuisong says the government's reliance on such nationalists is a delicate game.

A delicate balance

"They try to foment nationalism through education and through public opinion," he said, "and at the same time they also try to keep it from growing out of control."

The art professor, Wang, 36, knows the government is wary of group activism, so he vents his politics through his art. For one recent piece, he erected a wooden statue of Japanese Emperor Hirohito and invited Chinese passersby to whip it with a chain. After spending nearly $3,000 on his political pieces, he hopes a gallery will pick up the tab for his dream project: creating bronze statues of Japanese politicians and then melting them with a blowtorch.

"In my analysis Japan is a lot like Germany before World War II, so we must oppose that," he said. "Otherwise Japan could engage other countries and start a war. This is very dangerous."

Emphasis mine for both points and humor.

Clearly there is a nationalist movement in China fueled by the government. However, the government is concerned that it could easily turn against them as nationalists expect more from the government. This is where Japan comes in. Played correctly, Japan can be used to allow the nationalists to vent their anger. However, it is still heavily controlled to prevent that outrage from being directed at the government.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Tingkai

Not the dreaded triple rolleyes!

Originally posted by Tingkai

The Chinese people don't need anyone to tell them that they are Chinese or that they should be proud to be Chinese. It is different from the U.S., a land of migrants, who are often not quite sure it means to be American because the meaning constantly changes. Again, this should be obvious

China is different and it should be obvious that artificial anti-Japanese nationalism, as Drake suggests, serves no purpose and provides no benefits to the Communist party. Again, this should be obvious.

Chinese people desperately need to identify themselves as Chinese and be proud of the fact. So desperate that these things are drilled into them by their family at an early age. Overseas Chinese retain their culture and identity moreso than any people in similar circumstances I can think of as a result.

The difficulty for the ruling party is that this strong ethnic identity doesn't necessarily mean that Chinese people identify with the state, much less the ruling party. Hence the perceived need for the state / party to control information / political and religious activity etc. to a degree unusual in the world. They don't feel they are operating from a position of strength if their actions are any indication of their perceptions.

One arrow in the quiver of any state is to use nationalism to bind their people closer together. We see this done all the time in almost every state, though it can take different forms, from the "us vs them" rhetoric and foreign policy adventurism of George Bush to the "self reliance" mantra of North Korea to the anti-U.S. scare mongering in Venezuela. China is no different in this regard. The end in the case of China is to bind those who may not support the party at least to the state.

Nationalistic propoganda is however a two-edged sword, and should not be used lightly. It builds a momentum of its own and makes it difficult for the leadership to moderate or reverse their course. It was two decades after the great famines and economic disasters of Mao before China was able to begin to really reform its economy for instance. Another more recent example is Bush's difficulties with the Dubai terminal management deal. Bush owes his second term largely to fears he himself had a hand in creating, but it came back and bit his policy in the ass. Therefore wise / strong leaders avoid nationalistic propoganda, at least when they think that there is a chance that they may eventually want to moderate or even reverse their political course.

I have no doubt that there are many people in the CCP leadership that are completely aware of this. So the question is, if "anti-Japanese nationalism serves no purpose", then why does the CCP tolerate it in the popular press when they tolerate so very little else that might discomfit them? The answer is that despite the fact that something might be bad for China or the Chinese people in general, it might be good for those who run China, or at least it may be perceived that way by those who hold power.

[Tingkai]

As you mentioned, nationalism is a two-edged sword. That's the major flaw in the theory that the Communists are using nationalism to manipulate the Chinese people.

Beijing has proven time and again that it won't tolerate any threats.

So rather than promoting anti-Japanese nationalism, Beijing has cracked down on this type of nationalism because it represents a potential force that it cannot control. (see below)

Yes, there were anti-Japanese protests last year, but when those protests turned violent, the authorities started banning additional marches because the nationalist protesters were becoming a threat to Beijing.

The idea that the Chinese government is manipulating anti-Japanese opinion ignores the fact that many Chinese honestly feel insulted by what the Japanese have done. The anger I have heard in Hong Kong is not driven by Beijing.

Yet, the pro-Japanese side simply brushes it all away as a nationalistic propaganda campaign, even though Beijing has not allowed anti-Japanese protests to run unchecked.


May 5, 2005
By Jim Yardley
NYT
A sensitive political anniversary passed without incident Wednesday despite the government's concern that protesters wanted to use the occasion to renew angry marches against Japan. The quiet in the capital reflected China's aggressive efforts to prevent a new wave of protests that many analysts have said could be redirected toward the government.
Anonymous protesters on the Internet had once targeted May 4 for a massive rally, possibly culminating at Tiananmen Square. The date, which is often abbreviated as 5/4, is the anniversary of a 1919 student uprising against Western colonialism — specifically against the decision by World War I Allied powers to give Japan control of Germany's colonial territories in China.
Busloads of police officers and riot troops stood guard at the Japanese Embassy, where last month several thousand protesters threw bottles and shouted anti-Japanese slogans. At Tiananmen Square, paramilitary police officers and soldiers were posted in large numbers. In the morning, public access to the square was blocked to allow for a youth pageant before being reopened at noon.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Tingkai
As you mentioned, nationalism is a two-edged sword. That's the major flaw in the theory that the Communists are using nationalism to manipulate the Chinese people.

Beijing has proven time and again that it won't tolerate any threats.

So rather than promoting anti-Japanese nationalism, Beijing has cracked down on this type of nationalism because it represents a potential force that it cannot control. (see below)

Yes, there were anti-Japanese protests last year, but when those protests turned violent, the authorities started banning additional marches because the nationalist protesters were becoming a threat to Beijing.

The idea that the Chinese government is manipulating anti-Japanese opinion ignores the fact that many Chinese honestly feel insulted by what the Japanese have done. The anger I have heard in Hong Kong is not driven by Beijing.

Yet, the pro-Japanese side simply brushes it all away as a nationalistic propaganda campaign, even though Beijing has not allowed anti-Japanese protests to run unchecked.

Why doesn't the Chinese government tell the people about Japan's efforts to ease tensions after the war? Why do so many Chinese believe that Japan never apologized, when leaders did so about 20 times? Why are they not informed of the enormous sums of capital that Japan poured into China to stimulate and support its budding economy as a gesture of good faith?

Why ban "Memoirs of a Geisha"?

The main issue between China and Japan is that Japan has taken some steps to easing relations, but China won't even take the smallest ones. Restricting riots? Come on! The riots were initially supported by the government. In Hangzhou, students were bussed to the city at the government's expense to engage in riots.

Yes, the Chinese are still angry at the Japanese because they've been fed nothing but that the Japanese are evil. Where do they get this information? From the Chinese government in their schools and media. I'll agree with you that the Chinese people are angry at Japan, but to think that the government isn't trying to use this to its advantage is foolish and naive.

That's just one aspect of Chinese nationalism. The bigger one that Sikander mentions is the massive Chinese inferiority complex. This is just a result of being blanketed with constant propaganda that doesn't conform to reality. I could relate some seriously sad cases. Then there's Chinese television.