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Why China Resents Japan, and Us
By PETER HAYS GRIES
Norman, Okla.
LAST week, anti-Japanese protests swept nearly a dozen Chinese cities. Angry demonstrators overturned Toyotas while Japanese restaurants and businesses were vandalized. In the central Chinese city of Chengdu, where thousands protested, some banners declared, “Even if China is covered with graves, we must kill all Japanese!”
The immediate cause for the demonstrations was a flare-up over a few disputed, uninhabited islands controlled by Japan. (China calls them the Diaoyus; Japan calls them the Senkakus). On Aug. 15, Chinese nationalists landed and planted flags on the islands before being deported. Japanese nationalists retaliated by swimming ashore from nearby boats, further inflaming Chinese passions.
The rage of China’s crowds is genuine, and its roots lie in China’s nationalist ideology. The Chinese Communist Party uses its educational and propaganda systems to socialize citizens into a particular understanding of history. Maoist triumphalism has been eclipsed since the mid-1990s by a new “victim narrative” about Chinese suffering.
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