China is Playing a Dangerous Game Stoking Xenophobia....

I saw this in the Ivory coast, when I lived there. A weak government, relies on xenophobia to divert attention away from more pressing issues. It ultimately led to a deadly civil war and a collapsing economy. Even my sensible friends told me not to worry but they proved to be incredibly wrong as the situation deteriorated into uncontrollable bedlam.

China is taking the same path...

In a country where one is not permitted to express dissent, the only way to maintain one's integrity is to pretend that one's patriotism is freely chosen, and based on truth. And so, our patriot-rebels do not want to hear about the various apologies made by Japan over the years, because they have invested so much in the belief that their anger is rational and based on Japan's refusal to apologize.

The nationalist approach is allowing an outlet that would normally focus on a corrupt an inept central government.

The story is here.

The issues claimed by the protesters are that the Japanese government has not apologized for atrocities committed in China during the occupation and invasion prior and during WWII and the subsequent silence in Japanese educational institutions on the subject.

Japanese apologies comprehensive list here. But the comfort women want an apology too. Anti-Japanese sentiment spelled out in a Chinese blogger like this one. and his link to this, a good Chinese headline site.

But of course, we all know that the textbooks in China are completely accurate as covered here. The textbook issue in Japan is covered here in this CNN article April 6th.

Japan's Ministry of Education first approved the book, written by nationalist scholars for junior high schools, in 2001 in the face of strong protests in the region.

But hardly any local school boards adopted the book, which critics lambasted for playing down the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, ignoring the sexual slavery of women for Japanese soldiers, and depicting Japanese actions as aimed at liberating other Asian countries.

So maybe the Tokyo Ministry of Education was short-sighted in its approval of this textbook. But it also leads me to wonder how much influence other nations should have on things such as the education inside of another country. It also does not appear as if this particular textbook was adopted by the schools.

Additionally, I seem to remember numerous occassions where the Chinese government used the phrase that various countries should not "interfere in the internal affairs of China." What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

There is no denying that atrocities dealt by Japanese soldiers happened all over Asia during their brutal conquering and occupation from 1937-1945. But the rape of Nanjing remains one of the flash points in this conflict as outlined in this blog here and here.

Maybe the problem here is that during the Chinese communist era, the nation was so inward looking and Xenophobic, that the nation had no chance for grief surrounding WWII. They just went from one horrific death toll to antoher horrific death toll at the hands of the brutal communists.

World War 2 fatalities by nation both military and civilian here. and let us not forget the 92,000 American lives that were lost in the Battle for the Pacific 1941-1945.