Anti-Japanese Sentiment in China...contradictions?

[chengdude]

Although this isn't meant to be a troll or an inflammatory post, I suppose the subject matter will make it inevitable to some degree. No, I do not need any lectures as to why folks in China bear lingering resentment/virulent hatred for Japan, but my question is this: if this is such a common sentiment, why do so many people drive around in Japanese-designed cars (even the 'beloved' Xiali is a Daihatsu or a Toyota (depending on model) and the Changan Alto, the best-known toy/taxi/starter car in Sichuan is a just a Suzuki), buy Japanese electronics and consumer goods (I know someone who is violently anti-Japanese and has a Sony laptop, Sony MD player, and Kyocera phone), and shop in Japanese-owned stores (Ito Yokado is, if not the most popular department store location-for-location, then at least certainly in the top three)? So what's going on here? Let's try to play nice; I just want a few perspectives on the topic from people who know a lot more than I do.

[confucius]

Chinese animosity toward Japan does not include Japanese tourists, business investment, products, animation, and cuisine.

Chinese kids hate Japan because their grandparents tell them too, but when was the last time you saw a Chinese grandmother wearing a Hello Kitty scarf drive a Honda motorcycle to a sushi restaurant in Dalian?

[Quest]

I don't see there's any contradiction. You can hate your business partner, yet you still do business with him. It happens all the time.

我讨厌你我不要跟你玩！

rather childish?

[sunyata]

hmm yeah, do you expect them to boycott all things japanese? that would seem very unchinese to me...

[Yuchi]

The resentment passed down from grandparents isn't the true resentment the grandparents felt, the kids can never feel the same way the grandparents do about the japs, unless they experience around the same thing the the grandparents did.

My grandmother watched her little brother get shot to death by the japs, I doubt I could ever comprehend such hatred.

[Lu]

I can imagine old people, who really suffered from the Japanese, to hate them. But the younger generations just learned to hate the Japanese. I think it's stupid, 没有道理.

That they still buy Japanese stuff is pragmatic: it's good, I want the best, so I buy it.

[林彪]

I'm guessing it's because the Chinese people are utilitarian, Japanese products are of high quality, and the people who make the products have nothing to do with the atrocities that were committed in WWII. I buy Japanese products when they're better than the competition, despite the fact that I live in the US and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and a Japanese soldier beat up my granddad in WWII. It's something that I hold the people who did it accountable for, but not the current generation of Japanese.

[ananda]

"

I'm guessing it's because the Chinese people are utilitarian, Japanese products are of high quality, and the people who make the products have nothing to do with the atrocities that were committed in WWII. I buy Japanese products when they're better than the competition, despite the fact that I live in the US and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and a Japanese soldier beat up my granddad in WWII. It's something that I hold the people who did it accountable for, but not the current generation of Japanese.

"

I think it's different between China and US. During WWII, many chinese

people were slaughtered by japanese, and till now, their elected primier

still solute to their 'Hitler', it's definitely unfurgivable.

[Lu]

I'm guessing it's because the Chinese people are utilitarian, Japanese products are of high quality, and the people who make the products have nothing to do with the atrocities that were committed in WWII.

Exactely, most Japanese living now have nothing to do with those atrocities. But still the Chinese hate them.

[ananda]

Lu Location: Leiden

Posted: Sun May 09, 2004 8:06 pm Post subject:

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Quote:

I'm guessing it's because the Chinese people are utilitarian, Japanese products are of high quality, and the people who make the products have nothing to do with the atrocities that were committed in WWII.

Exactely, most Japanese living now have nothing to do with those atrocities. But still the Chinese hate them.

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then how you want chinese to do? of course, Chinese doesn't hate

every individual Japanese, being a CIVILISED society, their attitude to

the atrocities couldn't gain respect from Chinese, although they're rich

and 'democracy'.

[Lu]

then how you want chinese to do? of course, Chinese doesn't hate

every individual Japanese, being a CIVILISED society, their attitude to

the atrocities couldn't gain respect from Chinese, although they're rich

and 'democracy'.

But those atrocities happened more than 50 years ago! And in the sixties and seventies, the CCP killed thousands, millions, I don't know how many, and they are still respected enough! It's not about something objective, it really makes no sense.

How do I want Chinese people to do? I would like them to realise that you can't blame the present-day Japanese for what their grandparents have done, 'cause they (present-day J.) can't help it.

[林彪]

in the sixties and seventies, the CCP killed thousands, millions, I don't know how many, and they are still respected enough!

Famine due to bungled policies is not the same as deliberately killing people, like the Japanese soldiers did in Nanjing or like what Harry Truman did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[sunyata]

in addition, it may be easier to "forgive" your own people, than foreign invaders, especially during a time of civil war and general chaos

[Quest]

I don't know how many

if you don't know, don't say it, duh.

[Lu]

Well thank you Quest for that nice remark. It was not my point HOW many, and I didn't bother to look it up, as it wasn't important for my point, and please forgive me for not knowing the number by heart. >:-(

Sunyata, Lin: Yes, apparently it's easier to forgive your own people. But that might also be because many Chinese don't even really know what happened during those years, while they do know about what the Japanese did.

And apart from the famine, of which the CCP is at least partially guilty, there was the Cultural Revolution, in which many people died also. Maybe it wasn't as intentionally cruel as what the Japanese did in the war, but then, the war was longer ago than the CR. The Japanese are hated, the CCP and Mao aren't blamed at all. That doesn't really make sense, I think.

[ananda]

Lu, I think you words would make people misunderstood. I don't

know your sentence "Chinese hate Japanese"'s meaning, in fact, the

chinese doesn't hate each japanese now, and the japanese in china won't

gain bad and rude treatment. If the hatry you said exists, it's not toward

the individual japanese now, it's mainly toward the Japanese Government

now, especially to the Primier and those Japanese politicians. yes, it's

the thing 50-year ago, but why the Japanese politicians still pray for

those butchers? what do they want? I definitely can't understand. I won't

deny there're extreme people in china, but it's reasonable in such

situation.

The Mao's problem, I won't debate here. One side hides something, and

the other exaggerates greately. but it's not his single person's responsibility. why and how you think Mao was not blamed at all, will it

make you satisfied to pull his corpse out from the coffin? If you were

governed by your feeling, it's useless to debate anything.

[tokyo_girl]

There is fault on both sides.

The Chinese have killed many many of their own people - and yet sweep it under the carpet.

Japan also has done terrible things for which they should apologise - and mean it.

That is very hard for Japan to do, and in my view their inability to do so shows national immaturity. At the end of WW2 the Tokyo trials were conducted, trying people for war crimes. They were very different from the Nuremburg trials. In Nuremburg the Germans themselves conducted the trials. The results of the trials could be accepted by Germans quite easily. The Tokyo trials were not conducted by Japanese, there were allegedly errors in translation, some people who should have been punished were not, some people who were punished severely, had lesser crimes. Every Japanese person that I have met - which includes Japanese communists believe the trials were illegitimate.

Additionally in Germany the regime change. No-one in their right mind would have exonerated Hitler. Hirohito was exonerated, he remained emperor, many many senior decision makers were allowed by the Americans to remain in positions of power. At the end of the war it was more important that Japan not become communist than it was that Japan could acknowlege their mistakes.

As far as most Japanese are concerned, WW2 means the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A number of Japanese to whom I have suggested this idea, agree.

Allied countries did not force Japan to examine their behaviour and so they haven't - even now.... It is up to the Japanese people to do so, I don't think they will, they don't see it as relevent -sadly.

I often wondered when I was in China too, why they were so happy to buy Japanese products - a consumer boycott of Japanese goods would force discussion in Japan.

Japanese people in general associate acknowledgement of war atrocities with a campaign by China / Korea and SEA to get money from Japan. I think the two issues should be separate.

I think that while Japan has not made peace with its neighbours, it will not really be at peace with itself.

[pazu]

I think that while Japan has not made peace with its neighbours, it will not really be at peace with itself.

I appreciated Tokyo Girl to have observed this very clearly. While Japanese insisted their crimes in war as a "construction" and "liberation" of Asia from imperialism, they tied their hands. While Europe can almost forgive the crimes committed by German, Japanese are still struggling to change their textbook, still busy making excuses to go to Yasukuni (to worship the criminals) and the Japanese Government still get such a strong opposition (both from within and outside) when they decide to send troops to Iraq... okay this time they are not going to do the laundry (as what they did in the Gulf War) only. In a word, they tied their hands and they can never be really at peace with themselves.

but it's not his single person's responsibility. why and how you think Mao was not blamed at all

Indeed I hate Mao more than the Japanese especially when I saw his popularity in China. This is something I can't understand. Ananda, do you really have a clear idea of what happened during the Cultural Revolution? It is obvious enough that it was one person's responsibility who brought this tragedy to China. The Chinese didn't blame him because they didn't have a full image of the Revolution, or they were brought up with great respect to Mao, they couldn't "betray" him even if they got a full view of the Revolution. The Chinese forgave Mao by (officially) claiming that Mao is 七分功三分過 (70% right; 30% wrong), this is the Party's line. The Party worships Mao to strengthen the image of the Party. How can they deny him?

Mao is now a genius, a protector, even a god. He's worshipped, he's a cult.

But it's obvious, he was a only single person who can turn the wheel. He was the Helmsman.

Indeed I think there's not much connection with hating Japanese while worshipping Mao, they are two different things.

[tokyo_girl]

I've been thinking what would it take for the Japanese to apologise and mean it. A consumer boycott in China would certainly get discussion going. I am not sure that an apology under this circumstance would be very sincere though.

I cannot imagine a groundswell in popular opinion in Japan forcing politicians to act.

I cannot imagine the politicians acting without a very strong grassroots campaign among Japanese people.

I think the only way it could be addresssed is if the emperor (or more likely the crown prince when he becomese emperor) actually did the apologising....

the crown prince does have strong opinions, which on occassion he expresses (he basically said that Japanese have their origins in Korea).

I think it unlikely that he would comment on Japan and WW2 - for one the emperor is forbidden from being involved in politics....

It's seems the most likely though of all the options I can think of.

[ananda]

pazu, I (maybe most of those have no clear image of that period) can't

understand why you put Mao and the Japanese army of WWII together.

I think I have read many materials of that period, if you have time,

would you please provide more to make us clear? How long have you

been china and how deeply communications have you done with chinese

now, and how could you gain the result that "The Chinese didn't blame him because they didn't have a full image of the Revolution, or they were brought up with great respect to Mao, they couldn't "betray" him even if they got a full view of the Revolution."?