NATIONALISM IN CHINA AND JAPAN

NATIONALISM FEEDING FIRES OF TENSION IN EAST ASIA

China and Japan both reverting to ideology instead of addressing their real problems

Park Min-hee

The Hankyoreh, September 28, 2012

Portraits of Mao Zedong seemed to be dancing in every direction. It was Sept. 18, the peak of the protests in China against Japan’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands (the Diaoyu Islands in China), and a huge stage had been erected in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Toting big portaits of the "Great Helmsman" and placards with such bloodthirsty slogans as "Open fire on Japan" and "Kill the Japanese bastards," demonstrators marched in teams a few hundred strong, while security police "directed" them at the front of the ranks. It was an unusual spectacle to say the least.

The ones holding pictures of Mao praised him as a "powerful leader" and a "hero in the resistance against Japan." It was baffling to see the same man whose Great Leap Forward and Culture Revolution took tens of millions of lives making this sort of comeback in the hearts of the Chinese.

Maoism may indeed be the single most powerful religion in China today. As rage against widespread corruption, income inequality, and injustice combines with anxieties over an economy that is losing steam by the day, people in China have been turning to their old leader. In his book "China in Ten Words," Yu Hua writes that the many problems that emerged after development may be "precisely why Mao keeps being brought back to life." A dangerous combination, fed by discontent with reality, is taking shape between China's left wing and patriots, who are presenting nostalgia for the Mao days as some kind of alternative.

In Japan, we can also find shadows reminiscent of this growing Sinocentrism. The latest round of friction was touched off by Japan's far right, which irresponsibly exploited a territorial issue in the hopes of winning political points. Having lost their way amid a Fukushima nuclear crisis, an economy mired in quicksand, an aging society, and the disgruntlement of young people robbed of opportunity, these right-wingers have derided the Peace Constitution and any kind of reflection on history, and are working to promote a sense of nostalgia for the glories of the militarist [imperial] era.

(...) [article here]