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Death to Japan, and America, and Sweden and ….: Freedom of speech is alive and well for Chinese nationalists
Apparently freedom of speech in China is not dead, just so long as people are expressing their ‘right’ to wish Japanese people, or any foreigners for that matter, were dead, or at the very least, much further away.
The protest outside the Japanese embassy, coming as it did a month after a peaceful rally in support of the late Zhou Ziyang, which was attended mostly by elderly men and women, was violently suppressed by police officers, is a demonstration of Beijing’s increasingly lopsided approach permitting freedom of speech. “It’s OK to criticize them, but if you criticize us, we’ll break your kneecaps.”
While Zhou’s supporters were beaten to the ground and told that they were supporting a dead criminal, Tuesday’s demonstrators were not even asked to move on because they were blocking a thoroughfare.
The same trends also appear to be true on China’s many public bulletin boards and web forums, were posts about democracy and freedom of speech quickly disappear into the cyber ether, while posts that incite racial hatred towards Japan and American citizen, and in many case openly call on Chinese citizens to commit acts of murder, remain.
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“would you leave your scars called humiliation upon your descendants or
would you be the ones to recover dignity for your descendants by
annihilating all japaneses.” Jang, Chinese racial supremacist. |
A post similar to the extract above would quickly be removed under European or American would ‘hate laws’ and in some countries the writer could face imprisonment. Instead, in China a writer would face similar penalties if he posted for a prominent dissident to be released from prison.
This one sided policy towards freedom of speech and expression has alarmed many Sinophiles who have sat and watched as Chinese censors remove post after post from moderates if they are perceived as being critical of the government, while allowing violent pro government/pro nationalist posts to remain.
While some worry that the trend towards allowing freedom of speech from selected perspectives makes China appear to be far more nationalistic that it really is, there is also another concern greater, that the increasing hyper nationalists within the Chinese government are actively courting the growing movement while censors are suppressing anti nationalist sentiments, because anti nationalist sentiments is starting to be seen as anti government and anti China
China’s nationalists have become increasingly antagonistic and increasingly xenophobic, and since the 2004 crackdown on liberal blogs and web posting that saw thousands of moderates and pro reformers ousted from the public eye, have increasingly been permitted to voice their views in public while moderates have increasingly not been permitted to air counter arguments.
This one sided form of censorship can only lead to one eventuality, that people will start believing that because they can’t see other opinions, or that they are told that other opinions are ‘unhealthy’, they will start to believe that they are no other appropriate opinions. As history tells us, the same thing happened in Germany and Japan during the 1930s, shortly afterwards, countless missions died.
While Chinese nationalism hasn’t reached the stage where it can overwhelm China’s economic need to cooperate with nations like Japan and America, towards who much of the nationalist xenophobia is currently being directed, it is dangerous and has lead to violent incidents like those seen at the Asian cup, when nationalists infiltrated China’s football supporters and publicly disgraced China in the full glare of the international media.
There is already a dangerous trend for every international gesture that is seen as being less than favourable towards China to be seen as a direct attack on China, this trend begun with Japan and has now spread to other nations. It is now common for Chinese officials and the public to openly denounce internal policy decisions made in Japan as being a continuation of Japan’s bloodthirsty occupation of China, and for the Chinese media to accuse the US trying to undermine its international position at every turn.
Until recently, China often reframed from commenting on the internal affairs of other countries, and the Chinese public felt little open animosity towards either Japan or America. Changes to this historic post are dangerous signals of an ever growing rise in nationalism in both the Chinese government and the Chinese public.
It can be argued that this one sided approach to freedom of speech is more damaging to China than blanket censorship, because hatred breeds more hatred, though for every xenophobe who is allowed to speak, there are still many hundreds of neutral and moderate speakers who use their limited outlets to further their causes, which is a lot more than they could do 10 years ago.
So, who are they?
Nationalism has never been a part of Chinese culture is most apparent among China’s urban youth population, with rural areas displaying little aggressive nationalism, and if anything displaying a self protective isolationism rather than the agressive xenophobia becoming apparent in some of China's cities.
Many of China’s nationalists appear to be young single men on the lower bounds of China’s middle classes, who have sufficient education and access to information to see the state of play in countries like Japan and America. They find themselves lacking the resources and opportunities to rise to the level of their foreign counterparts and upon seeing nations that they regard as being ‘lesser states’ remaining ahead of China, are looking for somebody to blame.
Much of this frustration at China's situation is coming out as anti-Japanese sentiment and the belief that China’s poverty and low world status is due to the repression and exploitation of the Chinese people by foreign powers, rather than the acceptance that the Chinese mentality has historically favored slow movement and stability over the introduction of new ideas, and that the majority of exploitation since the birth of modern China has been conducted by other Chinese.
To Chinese nationalist, Japan’s comparatively small size and short history, but high wealth, in contrast to China’s dominant size, long history, and 800 million peasants living on less than $US1 a day, is abhorrence. Their anger is easy to direct towards Japan, because of Japan’s historic aggression against China.
After WWII, it was China's policy to see Japan as a friend, a fellow Asian nation that needed to remove itself from the grip of America and the European powers. Chinese people were taught not to hate Japan. This policy appears to have ended.
Conversely to nationalist belief, areas of China that were controlled by foreign powers now make up some of the wealthiest and most modern parts of China, and much of China’s current economic success is solely due to foreign trade. Shanghai and Hong Kong are too prime examples of this interaction bringing prosperity rather than repression.
Comment Policy Note
There are many forums to address war guilt and war crimes but this is not one of them. Comments on this entry are restricted to double standards, issues of freedom of speech, and the existence/myth of Chinese nationalism.
Japan is only being used as an example and is NOT to be the topic of any comments.
The author has a sound knowledge of Japanese war crimes, but is sick and tired of debating them with apologists who say that they didn’t happen and right wing mental patients who can’t tell the difference between 1937 and 1997. Comment on war crimes will be deleted.
Hasn't China always been xenophobic and nationalistic? I seem to remember
an historical admiral being commanded to do no more exploring; China
wrapped its metaphorical robes around itself, tucked in the edges,
overlapped the lapels and spent the next few centuries looking inward. Is
this perhaps an integral part of the Chinese tradition?
Visit me @ http://www.journalscape.com/rhubarb/
Personally, I would say that Chia has never been particularly
nationalistic, at least the people haven't. Violant nationalism, and
nationalism without reason or perspective is new and
dangerous.
Historically China has been an isolationist sate, it has pulled up the drawbridge as much as it can and pretended that the rest of the worl isn't out there. What we are seeing now is xenophobian. China knows that the world is out there, and its looking for someone to blame for its own missfortunes.
China rearely used to comment on internal Japanese and american affairs unless they directly impacted upon China, but now both the people and the government are publicly denoncing internal desisions of these two countires that they have no business doing more than idly talking about in a tea shop.
What I am seeing in China, particularly since early 2004 is a trend for China to take its victim stance to new extremes and to angerly attack anything that it views as being a slight agains it. This is new and is potentially very dangerous, both to China's public image and to reagional diplomatic relations.
Visit me @ http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/
I thought that I made it very clear
CHINA
I will delete any and all of your Korea comments, regardless of whether or not I agree with them. This is not a Japan blog, or a Korea blog, it is for issues relating to China and China alone. There are many Japan forums and many Korea forums. Use them instead.
I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m trying to tell you that I won’t allow you to post this kind of comment on my site. It’s simply not appropriate.
Anyway, you are from Singapore, what do you know about Korea. Singapore suffered under the Japanese too, or didn’t you know that. You could at the very least write about the suffering of your own kin. Ask them they will tell you. Imperial Japan treated Singapore with equal contempt. We learn about this in history class, I presume that you do too.
I’m also sensing that you will never accept any apology from Japan, ever. No matter how it is worded, no matter how honest it is. You can let go of the past without having to forget about it, just admit that the people alive today are not the ones who invaded Korea and China, and that no mater how much you torment them, it won’t make you feel any better and it won’t bring back the dead.
I write on a lot of other topics, can’t you just read them instead.
If you think the threat is hollow, think again.
On April 2, a mob of 10,000 angry youth in Chengdu stormed Itoh deparment store (a Japan investment) and ransacked the first floor, in a protest against Japan's UNSC bid.
http://woooh.com/post/106.html
Video:
How close are Chinese from year 1900, the year changed China?
bellevue [bellavue@gmail.com]
Sorry, but you can’t post links to videos here.
I’m not going to check it to see if it is porn, so I’ve deleted it to be safe. I’ve seen enough of people’s genitals not to bother checking links all the time.
I doubt that there were 10,000 people there. Seriously, that is a huge number. You didn’t see 10,000 people protesting against Prime Minister Koizumi’s last shrine visit, or even the visit in 2001 which sparked a lot of this off.
This still, this is not a rational response and it is very out of character for Chinese people. It proves what I have been saying, somebody is agitating things. Even after all that has happened, this wouldn’t normally happen after 60 years without somebody purposefully stoking the coals.
Given that the Chinese people are becoming more restive these days because of internal problems, I am not surprised to see aggression coming out like this. It’s still out of character though, and fully within Beijing’s power to halt.
I know that this is not the real China, and that this is a temporary abhorrence brought about by poverty, the realization of China’s standing in relation to other nations, and feelings of frustration. I won’t let it get to me.
Could you please try writting about something nice. your comments always seem a bit combative, as if your trying to out do me in being nasty about China.
Bellevue
Which event in 1900, a lot went on that year
visitor