Angry Chinese Blogger

Angry Chinese Blogger: The news and views about China that the big media can't, or won't, tell you

The is no single truth

Menu: Home

Murder in Shizuoka, ripples in Tokyo and Beijing.

« H E News and Politics :: Sino-Japanese :: News and Perspectives :: email
posted Tuesday, 28 June 2005
Since the end of WWII, one of the many oddities of China and Japan’s strained relationship is that much of the strain has been been purely political; with business, tourism and industry remaining largely unaffected. One of the reasons for this disparity has been that public feeling in Japan has remained largely favorable towards China even as political relations deteriorate, however, there are growing concerns that this situation may soon change, and that Japanese public opinion is beginning to turn from viewing China as being an old neighbor ‘who is nice when sober but obnoxious when drunk’ to it being an active threat both at home and abroad.

Fears, that public perceptions of China might be in the midst of swinging again China, were highlighted late last week when it was announced that a Chinese national was in custody accused of the murder of Ishihara Yasuhiko, the Chief Director of the Shizuoka Japanese Education Center.

According to Japanese media reports, Director Ishihara was found in the Shizuoka based school suffering from serious stab wounds to his chest and stomach, he was taken to hospital but pronounced dead shortly afterwards. Li Zhizhong, a Chinese language teacher working with the school, was detained at the scene.

Li was carrying a knife at the time of the arrest and is believed to have called the police himself.

Though Li’s motives for the slaying are not entirely clear, a number of commentators have suggested that Director Ishihara was known to have harbored ‘unflattering racial opinions’ against both Chinese and Koreans and to ‘have had a tenancy to display them in public’, leading some to suggest that that Li may have been provoked or agitated by Director Ishihara, possibly over a sustained period of time, prior to the attack.

The stabbing is thought to have taken place around 11:00 AM on Saturday morning, shortly before the police were called. It is believed that Li acted alone

According to media eports, Li confessed to police at the time of his arrest.

The influence of Chinese nationalists; some of whom have openly called or the murder of Japanese citizens, has been largely ruled out by many observers.

Ripples

Though tragic in itself, the slaying of Director Ishihara comes at a time the normally neutral Japanese public has begun to express growing concerns over non Japanese Asians, particularly those from China, that have been born from Government agitated anti-Japanese sentiment in Asia, and a number of incidents on the Japanese home islands where foreign nationals have been involved in high profile incidents.

Social Concerns

Recent surveys showing that more Japanese are willing to believe that Chinese, and other non Japanese Asians, are responsible for the increasing levels of crime in the country and that many have been traveling to Japan under false pretenses with the intention of committing crimes or working illegally.

While tensions between Tokyo and Beijing are nothing new, some analysts and observers have express concern over this new trend, for ordinary Japanese to see Chinese in a threatening light, particularly as post war Japan has very little history of anti-Chinese sentiment; with most anti-Chinese views being expressed by discredited political minorities with little or no public backing and no real governmental influence.

There are real concerns that murder of Director Ishihara by a Chinese may be used by right wing groups to gain support from the growing number of people who are dissatisfied with Tokyo’s pacifistic handling of Beijing’s increasingly intrusive rhetoric and continuing inaccurate portrayals of post war Japan, and as a means of fueling existing public concerns over potential dangers to them from non Japanese Asian which have already been inflamed by past events involving foreigners, including the 2003 slaying of Mitaka drug store manager Sonoda Yuichiro by two Chinese nationals during a bungled robbery and calls on Chinese language websites for the slaughter of Japanese nationals in China.

Economic Concerns

Though strong anti-Japanese sentiment already exists in China, any growth of anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan is cause for concern to both countries because, under the current economic situation, China’s economy is being strongly boosted by tourism and the investment of expertise and capital from Japan, while Japan’s economy is being buoyed up by sales and manufacturing expansions into China.

If Japanese public opinion were to turn against China, both economies would suffer, as would the greater Asian economy, which is reliant on the expansion the Chinese economy, and the continuation of Japan economy, to provide growth opportunities and stability in many areas.

Shizuoka Japanese Education Center?

The Shizuoka Japanese Education Center, located in Shizuoka city, Shizuoka was established as a joint endeavor between the Japan-China Friendship Association and Shizuoka Chinese Academy. It provides 1-2 year college preparatory course and caters for up to 316 students per academic year. It has 9 full time 26 part time educational staff.

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit


View Comments/Add a Comment (6)


1. lifeinjiangxi left...
Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:05 am

An old family friend back in the UK is Japanese. He's very international, having worked abroad all his life and married a European wife. When I was home, he was expressing some disatisfaction with current Chinese nationalistic policies, and he was worried that feelings could spill over into violence between the two countries. It is a concern. How far will China push Japan and how far will Japan push China?


2. ACB left...
Thursday, 30 June 2005 4:20 am

The Chinese government knows how to rub Tokyo up the wrong way and how to get a reactio out of its natinalists, but it isn't stupid enought to let it come to blows. Look at the way that it stepped on the Shanghai demonstrations. Beijing is all hot air, it wants to provoke emotions but not actions, if it did it wuld have moved on the Senkakus militarily or made a political demand. Up until know almost of of Beijing's actions have been done through the media, it has threatened and cussed but it hasn't called in Tokyo's ambasedor more than a handful of times in the last decade. Beijing knows that most of its complaints are hogswash, it knows that Japan really is sorry for what it did, that Japnaese text booksare actually more accurate about the war than other countries, and it knows that when you compare Japanese and Chinese brutality, China is just as bad as Japan. It also knows that Japanese inverstment is a very good thing.

For Japan's part, Japanese culture dictates that you do not make a fuss, and that you don't argue about anything or raise any topic that breaks the illusion of social harmony, in short, Japan won't say very much or do very much because it is so ashamed of what happened and it is afraid that making a fuss will make the shame even greater by airing it in public (which ritual suicide magnitude of shame).

Long story short, Beijing will blow hot air through the media but reframe for going through official channels because it knows that Tokyo won't do much in response, and Tokyo will take it because Japnese culture demands that you sit and take it. The only way that Japan and China will ever come to blows is if China attacks US bases in Japan as a component of a Taiwan related conflict. Of course, when you look at it practically, Japan has no real military forces, only a short ranged self defence force, and China knows that it can't go up against Japan (and of course the US) on its own turf, and both countries are rellying on trade with the othr to boost their own economies (Japna invests, China buys and sells). Haven't you noticed that no matter what happenes politically, economic co-operation between China and Japan just keeps increasing.

You should be asking yourself, "Why isn't Beijing ordering a boycott, or even calling in Tokyo's ambasidor?"


3. lifeinjiangxi left...
Friday, 1 July 2005 10:14 pm

We've had this conversation before. Many times. Beijing isn't doing anything official mainly because of trade - yes, you're right. But also because all this extreme nationalistic feeling is designed to keep the Chinese populace occupied, and away from becoming occupied with internal politics. My question is: how long can Beijing play this game before they wind the Chinese populace up tight enough for violence to break out? Violence that they can't control. Also, my Japanese friend was talking about a Japanese/Chinese conflict with regard to Taiwan. He observed that should anything happen there, then Japan would definitely be on the side of Taiwan. However, CCTV9 has recently been spending a lot of time emphasising good mainland/Taiwan relations. (For example: the the first mainland tour groups are going to Tainwan, and Taiwanese fruit is now being sold on the mainland.) Thus we don't need to worry too much at the moment.


4. ACB left...
Saturday, 2 July 2005 12:25 am

WE have had this conversation, but I was answering for the outside world as well.

I think that Beijing can keep this boiling until such time as China becomes open enough for people to realize that what Beijing is saying isn't true and that Japan isn't actually doing the things that it is accused of doing, or at least that it is not doing them for the reasons that Beijing says that it is doing them (like the text books fiasco that is limited to one text book that almost nobody actually uses but Beijing makes out is widely used and is representitive of all Japanese text books).

Beijing learnt its lesson this year when the riots made China look like a spoilt child lashing out at an easy target and when they realized that things were getting to a level when they risked not being able to direct things. The riots scared Beijing and Beijing isn't going to let things go that far again in a hurry. So I guess your answer is never, unless Japan does soething imensly stupid like issuing an outright government level denial of war crimes or sending troops to Taiwan Beijing will not let things become violent because any significant level of nationalist violence could give Beijing's nationalists the support that they need to take over. Any significant Anti-Japanese violence, particularly at a military level, will lead to the fall of the current administration at the hands of nationalists.

Actually, Japan can't support Taiwan militarily because Japan's military is too short range and article 9 forbides Japan from becoming involved unless it is directly threatened. The worry is that Japan will be dragged in to a war because of US forces on Okinawa or the home islands being attacked. Japan will offer moral and diplomatic support, but it will try to avoid military involvement at all costs. Just imagine the headlines if it did something.

If CCTV 9 is promoting peace it means that Beijing is getting wobbly over its image, it is trying to convince people that things are OK in the run up to the 2008 games.


5. lifeinjiangxi left...
Sunday, 3 July 2005 9:25 pm

"If CCTV 9 is promoting peace it means that Beijing is getting wobbly over its image, it is trying to convince people that things are OK in the run up to the 2008 games." People keep on saying that. First, whenever Beijing was promoting peace and cooperation, we thought that it was just until the Olympic selection in 2002, now we're thinking it's until the games in 2008. In between 2002 and 2005 they still managed plenty of decent sabre-rattling. If they manage to keep up the lovey-dovey stuff until 2008, I'll be very impressed.


6. ACB left...
Sunday, 3 July 2005 11:44 pm

With China it is all about image and poor memories.

China expects people to believe what they are showing them, and to instantly forget about anything else that came before. They also don't expect people to think ahead. This probably comes forom having a system where you expect everybody to believe what they are told and to believe what they see if it looks flashy.

This rather ironic as China NEVER lets a grudge go and often complains that other countries are only giving lip service rather than doing anything substantial.

If Beijing was serious rather than just trying to prop up its image then it would be offering to make the first move in ending the missile standoff, or at least saying that force would be a last resort of a last resort.