Anti Japan protests in your town? 钓鱼岛

[Kenny同志]

That argument wouldn't last ten seconds in any court of law.

Sure it's power that decides everything. The court of law is often no more than a joke.

[Kenny同志]

But do you seriously think that either country would care about these uninhabited, uninhabitable islands if it wasn't for the same old excuse for everything nasty - oil. It is nothing to do with nationalism or fishing. Oil. Oil. Oil. Got to keep your Ferrari moving.

Oil doesn't change the ownership.

[WestTexas]

To be clear, I have never liked the weak, corrupt government.

Why do you say the government is weak, exactly? Not disagreeing, I'm just not sure what 'weak' means in this context.

[liuzhou]

Oil doesn't change the ownership.

Haha!

Check out the history of the last 100 years and get back to me on that!

[Kenny同志]

Sounds like to be invaders is something that is honourable!

Edit: I am not interested in a war of words. I will stop here. Bye.

[liuzhou]

Sounds like to be invaders are something that is honourable!

How on earth did you extract that from anything I said? I didn't mention either invaders or honour. But for the record, no I don't think invasion is honourable.

But I haven't seen anyone "invading" the islands. People tend to invade inhabited places. Rape and pillage on uninhabited islands tends to get a bit incestuous and, to be frank, boring.

[Guest realmayo]

Sometimes I think China should be given back to the Mongolians and just leave it all at that.

Seems to me that there's no right or wrong or fairness or unfairness with these islands, so it comes to the status quo, how far one party will push in order to change the status quo, and how far the other party is willing to resist.

The protests are the subject of this thread: do we think they represent majority Chinese opinion? If China was democratic, would these islands more likely become part of the PRC (followed quickly, I suppose, by Taiwan)?

[liuzhou]

would these islands more likely become part of the PRC (followed quickly, I suppose, by Taiwan)?

Dunno, but the argument at the moment is whether they are Japanese or part of Taiwan - not the mainland. For once, Beijing is supporting Taiwan's claim (Taiwan being, of course, an integral part of The People's Republic.)

So, they would become part of Taiwan first, then maybe part of the PRC.

[Kenny同志]

Why do you say the government is weak, exactly? Not disagreeing, I'm just not sure what 'weak' means in this context.

The Chinese government is always protesting, protesting, and protesting in face of provocations but rarely takes substantial actions to punish those who do not behave themselves.

[liuzhou]

So are you suggesting China should invade those countries which disagree (or as you say, provoke)?

That would be less weak?

[Kenny同志]

How on earth did you extract that from these six words?

[liuzhou]

What six words?

You replied to the question "Why do you say the government is weak, exactly?“ by saying that China does not take "substantial actions to punish those who do not behave themselves."

Which to any reasonable reader would imply that if they did take such actions, they would be less weak.

[Kenny同志]

Whatever, liuzhou. Maybe you are bored alone at home and want to get a kick from here but my time is precious.

Edit: These six words were "those who do not behave themselves". You edited your post.

I will not post under this thread.

[liuzhou]

my time is precious.

oooooh!

The intellectual level of the whole protests is summed up here.

BTW. I did not edit my post; you edited yours.

[imron]

@count_zero, in #33 speaking of conspiracy theories, a much better one I heard is that the Japanese did this on purpose to provoke instability in the mainland in the lead up to the power changeover, to destablise the country and the leadership. However I put about as much faith in that as I do in what you suggested, which is to say none at all.

To me, the whole issue can’t be simpler. Ask both China and Japan to provide historical records. Who has the oldest official records saying the Islands belong to it would be the rightful owner

Kenny, if this was how things worked China would lose half of its size, after all, there exist records of rulership of both Tibet and Xinjiang before they came under Chinese rule for the first time however many centuries ago.

That's not to say I support the current actions, or that I support independence of Tibet or Xinjiang, just that you need to be careful about how you define the yardstick of who gets to own what and why, and it's vastly more complicated than simply saying we were there first.

brainwash is to make people believe something that is untrue

Brainwashing is to make people believe something so strongly that they will not consider any other view, regardless of the facts.

Speaking of facts, being curious about the situation I decided to find out why the Japanese government would do such as thing as purchase the islands from the private citizens who possessed the title to the land, when they surely must have known what a political hotbed it would be.

It turns out that the Tokyo municipal government, currently headed by a highly right wing governor, was planning to purchase the islands and possibly start development on them. The central government decided to pre-empt them and purchase them beforehand so that the ultra right-wingers hell-bent on poking a stick in the hornet's nest would be unable to do that.

Anyway, I'm not saying that the action was right or that it conveys ownership of the islands to the Japanese, but I think the situation is far more complex than many people believe, and is not necessarily about the Japanese government trying to assert control and ownership of the islands.

[Guest realmayo]

Yes, the Japanese government buying them was a calming measure, if the Tokyo guy had bought them things would have got a lot worse.

I wonder if this impacts on the jockeying for position in the Chinese leadership? Would who gets what post be all sorted out by now? Or, do these protests strengthen the hand of any one grouping in Beijing?

[Scandinavian]

The intellectual level of the whole protests is summed up here.

Wow, imagine that. A small kid being picky about what food he likes.

[frankwall]

As bad as the protests have been, I'm guessing they'll eventually die out. I'm sure nobody really wants a war over tiny uninhabited islands (and ok, a nearby gas field) when statistics show that China and Japan are major trading partners. Still, the situation seems to be quite bad as Panasonic have closed their plants in China due to the protests. Hopefully it won't escalate further or else Asia will have a disaster on its hands.

[imron]

Wow, imagine that. A small kid being picky about what food he likes.

Just for those not aware, The China Daily Show website is basically like the Onion but for China-related events, and is not to be taken too seriously

[joshuawbb]

I don't suppose the 1,000 or so boats headed towards the islands now are going to help anything. Brace yourselves for another few days of headaches.

http://www.japantime...20120917x1.html

Posts on Weibo claim there are in fact 10,000 headed to the islands, but I have a hard time believing that.