May, 2005

Beyond Nationalism - Overcoming the Violence in Ourselves

Rose Wu

Sino-Japanese relations have deteriorated in recent years largely because of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine that honours Japan's war dead, including several convicted war criminals.

The relationship between China and Japan, however, has taken a sharp turn for the worse in the past few months as people in China have taken to the streets to protest Tokyo's attempts to gloss over the killing of hundreds of thousands of Chinese people by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War, the quest for energy resources in disputed territories and Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The latter issue prompted a campaign launched by several overseas web sites at the end of March that collected more than 22 million Chinese signatures on a petition against Japan's attempt to secure a permanent seat on the Security Council. Moreover, at the beginning of April, a number of supermarkets and bars in China's major cities began boycotting Japanese products. About 30 chain stores in Shenyang in Liaoning Province, for instance, pulled Japanese products from their shelves, including shampoo, noodles and the popular Asahi beer.

On April 9, Beijing witnessed its largest public demonstration since 1989 when more than 20,000 people took part in a 12-hour protest. According to the media in Hong Kong, the rally was not organised by one particular group but was initiated by activists through the internet. It began when several hundred demonstrators gathered outside the Hailong Plaza electronics market in Zhongguancun District early in the morning. The crowd then swelled to thousands of people, and many onlookers joined the march as it proceeded through Beijing. The protesters carried national flags and banners with such slogans as "Down with Japanese," Boycott Japanese goods" and "Japan cannot become a permanent U.N. Security Council member." The protest was generally peaceful, but there were moments when dozens of protesters threw stones at the Japanese embassy and attacked Japanese shops, banks and restaurants.

The following weekend more than 10,000 people marched in anti-Japan protests in Shenzhen and at least 3,000 in Guangzhou. On April 16, as many as 20,000 people also marched through the streets of Shanghai, the mainland's commercial capital. Some protesters hurled stones at the Japanese consulate and smashed the signs and windows of Japanese restaurants and other businesses. In addition, two Japanese students were injured in a beating at a Shanghai restaurant the previous weekend.

As a sign of solidarity with mainland China against Japan, the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands called on the people of Hong Kong to join a protest on April 17 that attracted more than 12,000 people. Unlike anti-Japanese rallies on the mainland, however, which sparked some form of violence, Hong Kong protesters stayed calm as they marched past Japanese businesses and restaurants. Among the protesters were World War II survivors, parents with children and a large group of young people.

However, there were moments of resentment by other protesters when veteran activist Szeto Wah referred to the Chinese government's own amnesia of history regarding the1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, and a few young people at the march were harassed when they put up signs and shouted slogans against the Beijing authorities' denial of the Tiananmen massacre. Those harassing them insisted that the march was against Japan, not the Chinese government, and thus, every Chinese person should stand in unity to protest against Japan.

Reflecting on the above incidents, I would like to highlight three points to share with activists of justice and peace in China, Hong Kong, Japan and elsewhere in Asia.

1. In reading history, we can understand the deep wounds that Japan's brutal 15-year invasion and occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s has created among the Chinese people. Therefore, it is very appropriate for Chinese people to oppose the official attempts of Japan to distort its wartime history in its school textbooks and evade responsibility towards those victims who were forced to be sex slaves for Japan's Imperial Army and labourers for its war machine.
   
   However, we must be careful that the protest is not about Chinese against Japanese. It is about the violent history that was created by the Japanese government in the past. We should not arouse anti-Japanese sentiment and target the Japanese people as our enemies. Therefore, our protest is to demand that the Japanese government admit what they did was wrong and pay compensation to Chinese, Korean and other women forced into sexual slavery during the war and others victimised by Japan at this time. Unless we are honest about what we have done in history, history will repeat itself.
   
   
2. While people in Hong Kong and China eagerly protested against the Japanese government's distortion of history, they were reluctant to challenge the Chinese government's accountability for the killing of hundreds, or even thousands, of its own innocent people in Tiananmen Square in 1989. For China to become a respected nation, we must learn to respect and be truthful to history ourselves.
   
   
3. Although we are encouraged that the Chinese people were permitted to organise large demonstrations on the mainland and enjoy their freedom of expression and assembly, which we hope will continue to be allowed by the Chinese government, we lamented the many acts of violence by the protesters. This behaviour again reminds us that when we oppose violence done by others we must apply the same principle of non-violence to ourselves. The movement is not about provoking hatred; it is about striving for justice and peace. We must also be aware that violence is a human tendency. Thus, as peace activists and Christians, we must move beyond the boundary of nationalism and develop a wider peace movement among the people of both nations so that we can work together to overcome all forms of violence from either within or from outside of our nations.

While the Japanese government has distorted history to engender nationalism in its schools, a move to brainwash Japanese students to support the government's ambitions for military power, there are teachers and activists in Japan working together with Chinese, Hong Kong and Korean teachers to produce alternative curriculums and textbooks to educate students about the true history of the war. Unless people are able to move beyond nationalism and seek justice and peace for the people of all nations, there will not be peace in the world.