Protesting in China - demanding a Japanese apology

Re: Relevance - Taiwan - Hu Jintao

Check this out:
China parades 'the guilty' to placate Japan

[ QUOTE ]
Leave it alone outsider. I am ethnic Chinese, but even I am only willing to observe.


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I don't want to get caught up in the current debate on relevent information, which (for better or for worse) is still exposing those to dealings and politics of China or at least hopefully getting some peeps interested, but please understand the above quote is from Ice9 to SgtRamrod.

I just want to say to the other "outsiders" out there do not let such messages keep you from posting in this thread.

Now, the "undercurrents" that Ice9 mentioned is key here. China and Japan obviously has a long history full of many reasons for them to hate each other. The media of China has never let people forget about this history. I think what we are seeing here is a balance between expression, face, and resource. We got the leaders of both countries meeting to calm the chaos, but at the same time we got Beijing officials expressing dissatisfaction with the PM Koizumi's "apology" and Japan questioning China's own history and their visiting of a WWII shrine during this whole scene. Beijing did not immediately disperse the protesters in the beginning but now they are deciding enough is enough. Why now? Probably because of fear of May 4th and the possibility of social unstability. Japan has shown they will not back down, but neither will China. But both countries will strive to maintain a social stability because their economic relations are just that important. IMHO, however, if it start to gets too hot...Japan will make a direct apology and perhaps even "back it up with action" (whatever that means)

BTW, keep an eye on the Taiwan situation...because Taiwan just visited China

And not to change the subject but what do you guys think about President Hu Jintao? I have read some disturbing articles on this man.

I have put Taiwan and Hu Jintao in the subject in case peeps have such relevent queries.

 

Re: Relevance - Taiwan - Hu Jintao

Neko wrote:

"I just want to say to the other "outsiders" out there do not let such messages keep you from posting in this thread."

(applause)

This is an international BBS where people from all over the world try to talk about things in a civil manner. No one has the right to tell anyone else to stay out of a thread, or to not express an opinion, or say that someone else's opinion is invalid.

Often, a party from outside a debate, impartial to either side, can provide the most objective opinion. I don't claim that this is the case here, but people outside China can have just as valid an opinion as someone inside the issue. I agree with Neko that this is just this week's episode in what, to me, is the larger ongoing battle of prejudice between the Asian "Big 3": China, Japan, and Korea. This prejudice is so strong and close to the surface that I once started asking all the Chinese, Japanese and Korean people I knew what they thought of people from the other 2 countries, a kind of survey for myself out of interest. The replies I got included some pretty horrendous stuff.

I don't really have anything else to add to the real issue at this point, but I did want to say something about this:

Srider wrote:

"What they [Japanese military] did to the Chinese people is beyond the scope of the Germans and the Nazi's."

this is a really stupid thing to say. I didn't live through these events, so I'd never be willing to say something as insulting as this is to all the people who suffered through the Holocaust (just as I'd never say that they suffered more than the Chinese). You've gone out on an offensive limb, simply to argue a point. Is it really worth de-meaning the crimes committed against millions to make this arguement? That's the same kind of attitude that caused right-wingers in Japan to belittle the facts in the textbook they wrote.

Bryan

PS if people are interested in seeing death tolls for these and other events laid out in an interesting way with many links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_toll

Rape of Nanking is about 1/4 of the way down, under "Individual Massacres, Air Raids and Death Camps"

 

Re: Relevance

Srider: Whoa, hang on there, I'm not excusing the Great Leap Forwards or the Cultural Revolution in any way. They were without question dark periods in China's history. And I think it's pointless to compare one atrocity to another. They are all BAD.

Neko, Bryan: *Shrug* you're right, I don't have any right to tell anyone to not talk about this topic. But this isn't a subject that can be adequately addressed on a video game message board by a bunch of people who don't really understand the issue. So, I'm going to be a spoilsport and decline from further participating in the conversation.....

Peace.

 

Re: Relevance

[ QUOTE ]
But this isn't a subject that can be adequately addressed on a video game message board by a bunch of people who don't really understand the issue. So, I'm going to be a spoilsport and decline from further participating in the conversation.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, I mean no disrespect to you Ice, but please people continue to post. Do not be deterred that you are posting about an issue that is non-VF related and do not be afraid to post if you do not understand the issue as well. I posted on this forum because (a) this is the only forum I check often(b) I have read many of peeps post here and respect many of you guys (c) I know the views are quite diverse as many people come different parts of the world...heh...all thanks to VF.

If you feel uncomfortable about the situation and feel you are one of the people "who don't really understand the issue", then I CHALLENGE YOU to understand the issue to the best of your ability through question and research.

Ice,
I wish you could stay in the conversation, because I value your insight. Thanks for your input, though!

Now, here is an interesting article that relates the relationship b/w China and Japan to Germany and France.

N

 

Relevance

[ QUOTE ]
ice-9 said:...But this isn't a subject that can be adequately addressed on a video game message board by a bunch of people who don't really understand the issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Please stop with the qualifiers. I don't think the type of board makes much of a difference.

 

Re: Relevance

Oh I forgot to mention this...

I read in many places that Japan HAS officially apologized to China <font color="red"> 17 times!</font>

Can anyone else verify this with documents? Because I can't find the dates or scripts of such apologies.

 

Nationalism

C'mon guys, this is an issue that only a Chinese or Japanese person can be counted on to speak coolly and rationally about.

Psyche!!!!!

Srider, you seem like a nice guy, but you are way off in saying that the Japanese conquest of China was of a greater magnitude than what Nazi Germany did. The Holocaust alone claimed more victims than the Sino-Japanese war, and that does not begin to get into the military casualties of WWII (in Europe). And all this in an area with a smaller population than China. I think that here you and Ice-9 are falling victim to some ethnic nationalism in your upbringings.

It bears repeating: Yes, what the Japanese did to China in World War II was terrible. The Japanese attempted to do to China what China has basically successfully done to Tibet- conquered the country, plundered its resources, raped its women, and exterminted its culture. And while this goes on, Chinese protesters demand "justice" for acts that have completely run their course, from an entity that has since been obliterated (Japan's WWII gov't). Might their energies be better put to protesting contemporary injustices that might conceivably have some resolution that could actually improve people's lives?

Thank You Akiralove for the link to the casualty statistics. All of the numers I cited from memory are vindicated there. Let that be a lesson to Mr. Angrypants about doubting the veracity of my statements. Ice-9, I'd appreciate it if you adressed me as Professor Ramrod from now on.

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."
-Albert Einstein

 

Re: Relevance

Hey there,

I have a couple of things to write and I hope you read with an open mind.

1. Don't discourage posting in this or any other charged thread especially if you think it is incorrectly informed. If the opinions are based on assumptions or cultural ignorance then why would you want them forming and being repeated in a forum where you can't help out by offering correction and insight. Ideally, you want them to be expressed here because you can see, evaluate and help out where necessary.

Honestly, if you think the opinions are ignorant/offensive/non-informed then you are perpetuating the condition by making sure it is out of reach and continuing. Don't let that happen.

2. Please continue posting for all of the reasons I hope I made clear above. The thread needs it.

3. you should be happy that a video game forum is capable of varied discourse instead of wanting it to only be about a single, shallow entertainment.

GE
<font color="green">babel fish</font>

 

Re: Nationalism

I guess I'm still not getting my point across.....

Why do you guys equate the level of atrocity to the level of body count? It's common sense that the Holocaust claimed millions of lives, more people died in one concentration camp than most wars. My statement about the scope of the Holocaust versus the Nanjing Incident was not about the body count.

Can there ever be an accurate body count? Please look up histories of the stuff the Japanese did to their Chinese (and others) prisoners and then give a comparison. I'm not trying to demean what the Germans did, but the brutalities are on a different level than the Germans. I've looked at alot of the parallels between the two atrocities, I also visited the Holocaust museum. I'm not trying to qualify myself in anyway, but from what kind of crimes the Jewish people emphasizes on, personally, it seems worse, and once you have seen the kinds of things the Japanese people had done, maybe you will agree with me, maybe not. Both are horrible events, but I guess I have a stronger impression against the Japanese because of my ethnic background. Everyone kills people, it's just funny how some of you guys look only at the body count, even though when you live in a country where the death penalty still exists, but cruel and unusual punishment is outlawed.

To Ice-9: I'm not excusing the cultural revolution either, I often express my negative sentiments about the event among other academics in my college, but it's undeniable some of the positive effects that it had. I'm just trying to show that these two events are mutually exclusive, like what you have said.

To address the outsider issue, I just feel that giving assumptions about the feelings of people in other countries, one that is foreign, is unnecessary and rather disrespectful. This is like if I went on and said that the Native Americans should be thankful cause of the amends the government is giving to them right now. At least to me, this is what it feels like. Expressing views and opinions on such a delicate issue is fine, but when they are based completely upon covered up facts and incomplete data, it's utterly insulting.

Go ahead and go to the link posted by Akiralove, and check out the description given about the event. Look at the pictures, whatever, and it only begins to describe all the things that happened. Keep in mind this is only one single incident. It doesn't begin to describe things like human experimentation, using prisoners as bayonet target practice, etc. Well, have fun.

 

Re: Nationalism

[ QUOTE ]
Tensions might be defused, though, if both governments agreed to seek ways to make history, and thus nationalism, less of a flashpoint. On the Japanese side, that really means a willingness to address two issues: the status of the Yasukuni shrine, and the question of compensation for the victims of war. On the Chinese side, it would require a willingness to sanction a joint textbook commission in which historians would be genuinely free to examine the two countries' history; a readiness to give up anti-Japanese propaganda; and a willingness to engage in serious negotiations about sea-bed rights.

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From the economist link that I posted above. It came out March 23rd and it also mentions the Tokyo war-crime trials where 14 class A war criminals were executed. It did not even know about this Tokyo war crime trials!

Interesting article that speaks of the history of the tension b/w the two nations and their very strong economic ties. If you have not looked at it then check it out now!

 

LOL, for those too lazy to check out Bryan's link, note the narrow ranges! These are what I call consensus estimates!

[ QUOTE ]
1,000,000–43,000,000 - Great Leap Forward (China, 1958 - 1961) (most estimates are between 25 and 35 million)

250,000–20,000,000 - Cultural Revolution (China, 1966 - 1976 most estimates are around 1 to 2 million)

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Also check out this funny shit from PROFESSOR RAMROD:

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I think that here you and Ice-9 are falling victim to some ethnic nationalism in your upbringings.

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A smart man once told me that if a person doesn't get it after you try three times, just forget it and move on. I'm out!

 

fuck off, cunt.

 

[ QUOTE ]
Mr. Bungle said:

fuck off, cunt.

[/ QUOTE ]

oh god not you again.. ..


Going BACK on subject, i cant remember if japan has apologized to the chinese people for anything, however if they did, the chinese probably wouldnt take it seriously and shrug it off as a joke made by the japanese to further ridicule them. I know alot of chinese people who will never trust whatever a japanese person sez, but only if its a jap girl and usually he just wants to hit it.

 

[ QUOTE ]
i cant remember if japan has apologized to the chinese people for anything

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[ QUOTE ]

JAPAN’S prime ministers and its emperor have apologised to China for the brutal conduct of the occupying Japanese army in the 1930s-1940s on 17 occasions since the two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1972. Seven years ago, Japan also made a written apology for its harsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, in 1910-45. But its expressions of regret have never been seen as quite sufficient, especially by China.

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This as close of an answer I can get to my question: what was wrong with the 17 previous apologies? So this is what China means when they say they want "action" from the Japanese. Probably in the form of compensation or something.

I got that from another economist article : here

The article also speaks of South Korea's anger on the Japanese text situation.

Taiwan-China update: [ QUOTE ]
Lien arrived in China on Tuesday on a history-making trip aimed at easing tensions with Beijing which has an estimated 700 missiles aimed at Taiwan making the Taiwan Strait one of Asia's most dangerous hot spots.

[/ QUOTE ]

From here

 

Re: Nationalism

(sigh)

Srider wrote:

"go ahead and go to the link posted by Akiralove, and check out the description given about the event. Look at the pictures, whatever, and it only begins to describe all the things that happened. Keep in mind this is only one single incident. It doesn't begin to describe things like human experimentation, using prisoners as bayonet target practice, etc."

this is from the article that I posted a link to, which is a BRIEF overview of the Rape of Nanking:

"Others were used for live bayonet practice. It is believed that decapitation was a popular method of killing for the Japanese troops. Reports of soldiers being over-exhausted from decapitating prisoners were common. According to other reports, some Chinese were burned, nailed to trees, or hung by their tongues, and some women had their breasts cut off. Witnesses recall Japanese soldiers throwing babies into the air and catching them with their bayonets. Pregnant women were often the target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the belly."

Srider, you should try reading things before you start going off on what they do and don't "begin to describe". Of course what I linked to is brief, that's kind of the point, it provides a synopsis of many of the events people discussed here in a few thousand words so people can get some understanding of things being talked about. Even so, it touches on some very disturbing and brutal war crimes, some of which you mentioned, as I pointed out.

And my comments on YOUR COMPARISON of the horrors of this event compared to those of the Holocaust had nothing to do with body count. They had to do with why you think you have the right to quantify these things.

To say Rape of Nanking is worse than the Holocaust, you're saying that the Holocaust isn't as bad as something else. Like I said before, this is the EXACT same attitude that allowed right wing assholes in Japan to decide that the Rape of Nanking "wasn't as bad" as the Chinese had made it out to be, and that new history books should reflect so.

Bryan

PS
With regards to the death tolls on the site, it says at the top that they're based on the most common estimates. Obviously, these figures are debated by governments and historians world wide, so it makes sense that an encyclopedia on the internet would present the full range, and in some cases a narrower range that represents the most common estimates. I guess you could look at NO figures, or scoff at these if that suits you.

 

hi, twinkletoes. much earlier, with my original reply, i pulled a yuwono: i fucked up in a comical way and lost my reply, and couldn't be bothered to re-do it. but originally it was something along the lines of how ass-9 pulled himself out of this thread, and came back in with something even more pointless and worthless than "fuck off, cunt" ever could be.

and btw, king, apparently getting "back on subject" didn't matter to you until you edited your post and added some bullshit filler with some pejorative terms and comically bad grammar, thrown in for effect.

 

becoming god

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not trying to demean what the Germans did, but the brutalities are on a different level than the Germans.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm still trying to figure out if bayoneting an airborne infant is better or worse than turning someone into a lampshade. I suppose it depends upon the color of the lampshade.

And yeah, an apology seems in order. "Sorry about the gas, old chap." or "Dude, we didn't mean to kill you and everyone who looked like you."

Then I notice "demean" and all the talk about numbers and I try to figure out exactly what is being argued.

We're geeking on this shit. Like somewhere we secretly wish to someday be atop the tallest stack of bodies.. There are mutherfuckers living out our dream in Darfur right now. Of course they probably won't even get as high as the tsunami. God sure can stack 'em, the bastard.

 

From http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/opinion/28pu.html

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Before China decides it is superior to Japan, it must address its own double standards.

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OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
China's Selective Memory
By PU ZHIQIANG

Published: April 28, 2005


READERS' OPINIONS


New Haven

EVER since June 4, 1989, when the world's cameras
embarrassed the Chinese government by recording the
slaughter of unarmed protesters in Beijing, spring has
been a sensitive period in Chinese politics. Public
demonstrations of all kinds have been repressed as if
they were vicious cancers. It is indeed news, then,
that people have been protesting in the streets of
Chinese cities about Japan's wartime past, its
textbooks' reluctance to face history squarely, and
its proposed accession to the United Nations Security
Council.

Of course, the fundamental nature of these protests is
different from that of the demonstrations of 1989,
because they so far have had the tacit approval of the
authorities. The protesters have incurred essentially
zero risk, and suspense over the outcome has also been
near zero. But even when protests are
government-sanctioned, they still offer the Chinese
people a rare chance to let off some steam.

If truth be told, however, China and Japan have much
in common. China shares many of Japan's flaws and has
yet to master some of its important strengths.

We Chinese are outraged by Japan's World War II crimes
- the forcing of Chinese into sexual slavery as
"comfort women," the 1937 massacre of unarmed
civilians in Nanking, and the experiments in
biological warfare. Our indignation redoubles when the
Japanese distort or paper over this record in their
museums and their textbooks. But if we look honestly
at ourselves - at the massacres and invasions strewn
through Chinese history, or just at the suppression of
protesters in recent times - and if we compare the
behavior of the Japanese military with that of our own
soldiers, there is not much to distinguish China from
Japan.

This comparison haunts me. When I think of the forced
labor in Japanese prison camps, I am reminded of
forced labor camps in China, and also of the Chinese
miners who lose their lives when forced to re-enter
mines that everyone knows are unsafe. Are the rights
of China's poor today really so much better protected
than those of the wretched "colonized slaves" during
the Japanese occupation? There was the Nanking
massacre, but was not the murder of unarmed citizens
in Beijing 16 years ago also a massacre? Is Japan's
clumsy effort to cover up history in its textbooks any
worse than the gaping omissions and biased blather in
Chinese textbooks?

China's textbooks omit the story of how the Great Leap
Forward of the late 1950's was actually the disastrous
failure of a harebrained economic scheme by Mao that
led to the starvation of 20 million to 50 million
rural Chinese. No one really knows the numbers. Nor do
we know how many were killed in the campaigns to
suppress "counterrevolutionaries" during the 1950's,
in the Cultural Revolution during the 1960's, or even
in the Beijing massacre of 1989. Yet we hold Japan
firmly responsible for 300,000 deaths at Nanking. Does
our confidence with numbers depend on who did the
killing?

China and Japan both have blood on their hands, but
they have important differences as well. Comfort women
and others whom Japan has injured or insulted can sue
either Japan's government or its big companies, and
they can do this in either Japanese or Chinese courts.
Japanese who want to can demonstrate in Tokyo shouting
"Down with Japanese militarism!"

These things are very different in China. The Chinese
government decides on its own whether to give modest
compensation to the widows of dead miners. Ordinary
workers and farmers are often in the position of
issuing appeals to the very people who are oppressing
them. Families of Beijing massacre victims to this day
have police stationed at their doorways, lest they
misbehave. And demonstrators may shout only about
approved topics. Before we in China decide we are
superior to Japan, we must address our own double
standards.

Pu Zhiqiang is a Chinese lawyer. This article was
translated by Perry Link from the Chinese.

 

Times Editorial

Wow. That editorial makes the same argument I've been making, only more thoughtfully (but hey it's for the NY Times and not vfdc). Funny, but Tienanmen Square had slipped my mind until I read that.

Now... Ice-9, please stop being such a baby. You keep crying about the numbers that I used in my posts, but they have turned out to be accurate. Yes, the precise numbers are debatable, but even the estimated ranges are such that they in no way undermine my argument. You are acting, dare I say, a little spoiled and petulant here.

Also, you bring shame to the name Ice-9. I am from Kurt Vonnegut's home state and long ago read most of his books. If you are going to steal "Ice-9" from Cat's Cradle then you need to stop practicing the knee-jerk nationalism that Vonnegut crusaded against.

 

Great article. Reflective, nuanced, and well balanced. Clearly the writer knows what he's talking about. The article focused on China's own internal standards, not whether Japan should apologize which IS the point of this thread and which most of the content I found objectionable talked to.

Also...

[ QUOTE ]
China's textbooks omit the story of how the Great Leap
Forward of the late 1950's was actually the disastrous
failure of a harebrained economic scheme by Mao that
led to the starvation of 20 million to 50 million
rural Chinese. No one really knows the numbers. Nor do
we know how many were killed in the campaigns to
suppress "counterrevolutionaries" during the 1950's,
in the Cultural Revolution during the 1960's, or even
in the Beijing massacre of 1989. Yet we hold Japan
firmly responsible for 300,000 deaths at Nanking. Does
our confidence with numbers depend on who did the
killing?

[/ QUOTE ]