[Marxism] "Great Han chauvinists" riot against Japan

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Was this outbreak spurred in part by the visit by Taiwan "nationalist"
leaders to grave of Japanese generals guilty of crimes against Chinese
people?
Fred Feldman


NY Times
April 10, 2005
Riot Police Called In to Calm Anti-Japanese Protests in China
By JOSEPH KAHN

BEIJING, April 9 - Mass demonstrations here against Japan turned unruly
late Saturday afternoon, with scattered vandalism and confrontations
with the riot police intensifying what began as a fully legal and
generally peaceful student-led protest.

Several hundred protesters tried to storm the residence of the Japanese
ambassador in Beijing, hurling bottles and rocks into the walled
compound before riot police broke up the confrontation, witnesses said.

Crowds defaced billboards advertising Japanese electronics products,
shattered windows at a Beijing branch office of the Bank of
Tokyo-Mitsubishi, and threw rocks into a Japanese restaurant, but
thousands of ordinary police and paramilitary units in full riot gear
kept the violence from spreading.

The New China News Agency estimated that 10,000 demonstrators joined a
march calling for a boycott of Japanese goods in Beijing's high-tech and
university district earlier Saturday, making it one of the largest
protest events authorized by the Chinese government in years.

Subsequent gatherings at the Japanese ambassador's residence and the
Japanese Embassy appeared to have been organized without official
approval and were considerably more tense, with the police closing off
many roads and busing in reinforcements to maintain order.

The violence prompted an official protest in Tokyo by Japan's vice
foreign minister, Shotaro Yachi, who asked the Chinese minister to
Japan, Cheng Yonghua, to strengthen security, Reuters reported, citing
the Kyodo news agency.

Resentment against Japan runs deep in Chinese society, with an
overwhelming majority expressing the view that Japan has not fully
atoned for its World War II-era aggression against China. Even minor
disputes can provoke mass discontent, especially when the government
sends signals, as it has in recent days, that it will allow some public
political expression.

"Our generation believes that China must stand up for its rights and
stop being soft on Japan," said Li Jiangchuan, a student who joined the
march. "Japan should stop lying about history and tell the truth."

Beijing, which enforces a strict code of social stability, almost never
gives permission for protesters to march on the streets of the capital.
A widening wealth gap, land seizures, corruption and other issues cause
regular disturbances around the country, but the police usually move
quickly to disperse participants and arrest organizers.

But relations between China and Japan, Asia's two leading powers, have
sharply deteriorated in recent months, at least temporarily easing
Beijing's vigilance against grass-roots political activity.

In recent weeks, the two nations have taken steps to secure their rival
claims to a string of tiny islands in the East China Sea and the
reserves of natural gas in the seabed below.

China denounced new Japanese history textbooks that it maintains
whitewash Japan's massacre of Chinese civilians during its long
occupation of China in the 1930's and 1940's. It also lashed out at
Japan in February for pledging to join the United States in defending
Taiwan if China were to attack the island, which it claims as its
sovereign territory.

Japan has accused China of distorting history and fanning the flames of
xenophobia at home. Tokyo has also criticized China's rapid military
buildup.

In addition, last week China dealt a peremptory blow to expanding the
United Nations Security Council. An effort in China to rally public
opinion against Japan began last month, as word spread that the United
Nations was prepared to consider proposals to elevate Japan this year.



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