Anti-Japanese Sentiment at the Asia Cup Soccer Tournament
Chinese fans subjected the Japanese team to intense booing at the Asia Cup Games held in China in August. They also made their disgust evident when Kimigayo, the Japanese anthem, was sung. Chinese fans vandalized Japanese Embassy cars in Beijing after the final match. These events sent shockwaves through Japan and the incidents were taken up by the foreign media.
The impact was not limited to the attention given to the radical actions of the Chinese fans by the Japanese media. Japan‘s China experts also categorized the violent behavior of the Chinese fans as a product of the nationalistic anti-Japanese education that young Chinese receive. Some like Professor Kojima Tomoyuki of Keio University harshly criticized China. “The anti-Japanese bias in their education has gone too far,” he wrote in The Asahi Shimbun of August 31, 2004. Television news and variety “Wideshow” Programs went as far as to assert that if China continues to drag politics into sports, it is not qualified to host the 2008 Olympics. An August 8 editorial of the Asahi Shimbun states, “[The actions of Chinese fans] at the final match between China and Japan gave us an opportunity to see the mindset of the Chinese who will be welcoming us at the Olympics in four years.”
Before analyzing the political circumstances, let us consider the criticism that such actions stem from excessive anti-Japanese content in Chinese education, and the suggestion that if such incidents occur, China is not qualified to host the 2008 Olympics.
The strengthening of nationalistic education in China can be traced back to the Japan‘s history textbook controversy of 1982. The importance of resistance to Japanese aggression in China‘s nationalistic education is clearly demonstrated by the construction of the Nanjing Massacre Museum in Nanjing and the Memorial Hall to the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese War immediately adjacent to the Marco Polo Bridge, site of the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. Both museums, their names written in glittering gold characters, were constructed under Deng Xiaoping’s instructions. Japan‘s history textbook controversy stirs Chinese memories of Japan‘s war of aggression against China which unfolded after the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The May Fourth movement was not only directed against Japan‘s Twenty-One Demands, it is the very embodiment of China‘s nationalist movement . The fact that Japan has shown not the slightest sincerity toward learning from the past has fostered deep Chinese suspicion.
To Chinese patriotic education as simply anti-Japanese education is a serious error. I happened to read the Chugoku Shimbun when I visited Hiroshima on August 3, 2004. The paper featured an interview with Professor Wang Xiaoqiu of Peking University and Chairman of the Association for the Study of the History of China-Japan Relations. Professor Wang said, “There are two aspects of an accurate awareness of history. First, one must determine exactly what happened and observe objectively. Second, one must grasp its contemporary significance. There is no way to return to the past. We must fix our eyes on history so that we can build a bright future.”
When asked, “Will exhibitions at the War of Resistance Memorial Hall stoke anti-Japanese feelings among the youth?” Professor Wang responded, “The purpose of the hall is not to put forth anti-Japanese propaganda. We want Chinese youth to be conscious of how the Chinese nation, with its five thousand years of history, stood up and confronted the suffering and humiliation resulting from the Japanese invasion. When our youth know about that humiliation, they will be inspired to make great progress.”
Inevitably much nationalistic education is related to Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 40s as that was the greatest humiliation that modern China suffered. Nonetheless, as Professor Wang suggests, the intention of that education is not to fan the flames of anti-Japanese emotion, but rather to inspire Chinese with the feats of the past so they can move forward. Having repeatedly visited both the Nanjing Massacre Museum and War of Resistance Memorial Hall repeatedly, I find myself nodding in agreement with those words.
As for the suggestion that if such an event can occur in China then China is not qualified to host the Olympic games, it is simply indicative of the shallowness of Japanese refusal to confront the serious problem we face.
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