[Marxism] Chinese Protesters Seek Japan Boycott

[Alex Briscoe <obeynow20001@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Japanese govt, what a disgusting bunch of pigs...supported by the criminals 
of our govt.

I majored in East Asian Lang and Area Studies in college and lived in a rural 
area of Japan for a year.  I would say about 20% of the pop are hard or 
incipient fascists, maybe another 20% are on the Left (JCP, etc).  The rest of 
the pop are somewhere between, maybe liberal, if that is an accurate term to 
use...Yoshie or others know better nowadays than I probably do.

There are a lot of good regular people in Japan, probably more humane on 
average than many people in the U.S. due to their wartime experiences, but I've 
read that the younger generation because of their lack of connection to the 
evils of war and fascism and because the right has been on the ascendency since 
the 80s, nationalism has been growing.  To what extent that's been mitigated by 
the rise of the "anti-globalization" movement after Seattle and subsequent 
anti-war wave, maybe others can tell better than I.

I would totally support a Japan boycott.  Because I'm forced to drive here in 
Chicago, my next car will be Korean- I like the nice kickass Korean workers- 
they know how to demonstrate...

Alex Briscoe


Chinese Protesters Seek Japan Boycott

45 minutes ago

By STEPHANIE HOO, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - About 1,000 protesters threw rocks and broke windows at the Japanese 
Embassy on Saturday after a noisy march by demanding a boycott of Japanese 
goods to oppose new textbooks that critics say gloss over Tokyo's wartime 
atrocities.

AP Photo

Protesters shouted "Boycott Japan!" as hundreds of police, some with riot 
helmets and shields, formed a human wall to keep the crowd away from the 
embassy. Protesters smashed the windows of a guardhouse outside the fenced 
compound.

In Tokyo, Japan filed a formal protest to the Chinese Embassy over the protest 
saying that windows in the Japanese diplomatic compound were broken by 
demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles.

Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi complained to Chinese envoy Cheng 
Yonghua about the damage and asked that security be bolstered to prevent a 
recurrence, Foreign Ministry official Keiji Kamei said.

The protesters in Beijing marched to the embassy after a rally by more than 
6,000 people in the Chinese capital's northwest university district, where some 
burned a Japanese flag.

Waving Chinese flags and singing the national anthem, marchers carried signs 
saying "Protest new Japanese textbooks," a reference to schoolbooks that 
critics say whitewash wartime aggression against China.

"Boycott Japanese goods!" the protesters chanted. "Long live China!"

"I think China should be more firm," said protester James Liu, 25, an engineer 
who works for a French company. "This is a good way to pass our voice to the 
government and to the Japanese people."

Others called for the rejection of Tokyo's campaign for a permanent seat on the 
U.N. Security Council ? a status held now by only China, the United States, 
Russia, Britain and France. Referring to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro 
Koizumi, some protesters chanted, "Koizumi is a dog!"

After the rally, some protesters spent hours marching across the Chinese 
capital to the diplomatic neighborhood on its east side. Some tore down a half 
dozen advertisements for Japanese-made Canon cameras along the road as they 
passed.

Police maintained order among the marchers and kept passers-by from joining in 
but didn't try to stop the protesters.

The government's Xinhua News Agency took the rare step of reporting on the 
protest. It put the number of demonstrators at more than 10,000 and quoted some 
of their chants.

Several hundred protesters also gathered at the Japanese ambassador's official 
residence on the northeastern side of Beijing, but police with riot shields 
pushed them away. It wasn't clear whether the ambassador was home at the time.

China hasn't said whether it will oppose a Security Council seat for Japan. But 
Beijing regards Tokyo as its rival and could be unwilling to give up its status 
as the only Asian nation with a permanent council seat, which carries veto 
power over U.N. actions.

Public anger has mounted in China and South Korea over new Japanese history 
textbooks that critics say gloss over offenses including mass sex slavery of 
Asian women by Japan's military.

A trade association for Chinese chain stores called last week for a boycott of 
beer, coffee and other products made by Japanese companies that it claims 
supported the textbook revision. Protesters reportedly smashed windows of a 
Japanese-owned department store last weekend in the southwestern city of 
Chengdu.

Despite the criticism, Japan approved the history books on Tuesday for use in 
schools beginning in April 2006. In response, the Foreign Ministry issued a 
stinging statement calling the new textbooks "poison for Japan's younger 
generations."

Most protests in the Chinese capital are banned, but the government 
occasionally allows brief protests by a few dozen people at a time outside the 
Japanese Embassy on key war anniversaries.





***************************
***************************

http://www.ilgp.org
http://www.thegreenalliance.org
http://www.labornotes.org
http://www.solidarity-us.org
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org
http://www.marxsite.com
                
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism