Chinese leaders orchestrate anti-Japanese protests over islands

There is a prospect of worsening relations between China and Japan as both governments move to control and direct nationalist antagonisms over the disputed ownership of a group of islands.

The moves are most evident in China where authorities took firm control, but also encouraged anti-Japanese protests by tens of thousands of people in 85 cities (hint: no Tiananmen Square massacre this time) during the past few days.

The situation in China has added intrigue because of evidence that factions in the contest for leadership positions in the ruling Communist party and government to be announced in the next few months are using swelling anti-Japanese nationalism to their own advantage.

There is speculation among well-placed Chinese commentators that designated incoming party leader and president Xi Jinping, who is seen as being close to the military, is trying to prevent the man he is set to replace, Hu Jintao, from keeping control of the powerful Communist party Military Commission.

The Chinese protests were set off by the Japanese government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, which a few days ago “nationalized” the uninhabited islands by buying them from their private owner.

The purchase was an attempt by the Japanese government to head off a campaign by the ultranationalist governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, for his municipality to buy the islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan and, since 1970, the Diaoyutai in China.

There are broader implications prompting the two governments to take control of the issue, which until now has generated intense emotional commitment among only a tiny minorities of nationalists in China and Japan, and also in Taiwan.

China’s regional political and military muscle, which have grown alongside its economic blossoming, have rekindled old territorial disputes with several of its neighbours, as well as raising anxieties about Beijing’s desire to project power in the Far East and Southeast Asia.

For some time, prominent Chinese military men such as generals Liu Yazhou and Liu Yuan have been publicly critical of what they see as a supine attitude by the government of President Hu toward Japan over the Senkakus, and toward Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia over disputed islands in the South China Sea.

But this past weekend, some of the bellicose language of the generals was adopted for the first time by the Beijing government.

Far more threatening in tone was the vice-minister of foreign affairs, Le Yucheng, who in a speech talked of “sinister” developments in Japan.

He characterized the Noda government as weak and therefore giving in to ultra-right-wing nationalist forces in Japan.

Tension over the Senkakus is being “stirred up single-handedly” by the Noda government with the aim of “rewriting Japan’s inglorious history of illegally stealing Chinese territory,” Le said.

The Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea have been under Japanese control since 1895.

They did not become a bone of contention between Tokyo and Beijing until 1970 when a United Nations report produced evidence of submarine reserves of oil and natural gas in the region.

Since then, there have been increasingly frequent attempts by Chinese nationalists to land on the islands, and by Chinese fishermen to work in the waters around the islands.

The Japanese Coast Guard has usually intercepted the intruders, but on occasion there have been violent clashes.

In the last few days, China has heightened the prospects of more clashes and perhaps worse by sending maritime surveillance ships to the waters around the islands.

Since it came to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has fostered strong anti-Japanese prejudice among its people by putting great emphasis in school and college teaching on the worst excesses of the Japanese military regime in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

The purposes of this is in part to divert attention from the even worse excesses of the Chinese Communist Party, especially during the rule of dynasty founder Mao Zedong, and to entrenched nationalist sympathies to be called on in time of need.

But generations of Beijing’s leaders have been acutely aware that nationalism and extreme patriotism are dangerous sentiments that can easily turn on those in power.

And, indeed, it has been noticeable in anti-Japanese demonstrations in recent years, including in those of the last few days, that some demonstrators accuse the Beijing government of failing to be strong enough in its dealings with Japan because of corruption or incompetence.

Partly for this reason the authorities both encourage and take control of the anti-Japanese demonstrations.

Protesters in Beijing over the weekend were herded into groups of 100.

Those without banners were given Chinese flags and were then guided to the Japanese embassy for five minutes of chanting before being replaced by the next group.

In the southern city of Shenzhen, the authorities used text messaging to get their instructions out to would-be demonstrators.

“In order to ensure your own and others’ safety and maintain normal social order, everyone please express their patriotic fervour rationally, and abstain from illegal or criminal behaviour,” said the message.

Jonathan Manthorpe