Posted: October 17, 2011 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: China-ASEAN, China-Japan, China-Vietnam, CNS, Comment threads | Tags: China-Japan, Chinese media, Chinese nationalism, Dongguo, Genba Koichiro, Ichikawa Yasuo, Japan-ASEAN, Japan-Indonesia, Japanese media, Kyodo, nationalism, Sino-Japanese relations, Sino-Vietnamese War, south china sea |
Following his visit to Tokyo late last month, Philippines President Aquino appears to have passed the baton of responsibility for keeping the cauldron of Chinese resentment bubbling to Japan.
Late last month, Japanese Vice Minister of Defence Kimito Nakae made the provocative comment that the relationship between Japan and ASEAN had “matured from dialogues to one where Japan plays a more specific cooperative role” regarding regional security issues.
Last week the Japanese Foreign Minister attempted to demonstrate that this was no mere empty talk. As the official China News Service reported on October 9 under the headline, “Japanese media say Japan is planning to comprehensively intervene in the SCS sovereignty issue”:
From Japanese media reports: The Japanese government is currently preparing, together with Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, to establish a coordination mechanism for sovereignty issues in the South China Sea and guaranteeing maritime security and freedom of navigation.
From October 11, Japan Foreign Minister Genba Koichiro will visit Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Japanese Foreign Ministry revealed that Genba would consult several Southeast Asian countries regarding the above-mentioned problems. Japanese media have taken this to imply that the country is preparing to comprehensively intervene in the South China Sea sovereignty issue.
The Kyodo news agency reported that Japan would do all it could to build a multilateral framework for negotiating the international disputes to deepen maritime security cooperation ahead of November’s East Asia Forum.
Discussion of this story was bound to be inflammatory, and Phoenix and NetEase appear to have hidden the story away and/or limited the discussion threads associated with it. Among the major websites the most populous discussion seems to have been on Sina, with 20,579 participants and 916 comments:
China should propose to the UN Security Council that the vanquished Japanese be investigated under suspicion of violating international law, wantonly expanding military armaments and reviving militarism from the ashes. China should demand that Japan-the-vanquished be made to respect the protocol of the defeated, truly and properly reform and start anew, and have international observers permanently dispatched to Japan to supervise. [516 supports]
Clearly state that if Japan dares to intervene in the South China Sea, we will decisively cut off all access for Japanese ships from the Taiwan Straits. If Japan dares to retaliate, decisively sink them. If Japan declares war, we should call in the debt of the 35 million lives sacrificed in WWII, have the debt of blood repaid in blood, and take revenge. [402]
Have you seen! Japan’s ambitions have once again started to be laid bare. The “mere narrow strip of water” [separating us – yi yi dai shui 一衣带水], the “enduring friendship” [shidai youhao], it’s all just wishful thinking by China. [400]
Repulsive Little Japan, so arrogant. But even more lamentable is that many Chinese people buy loads of Japanese goods, and jump at the chance to go there and spend up, helping the Japanese economy and allowing Little Japan to support ASEAN countries opposing China, even as Little Japan discriminates against Chinese (making special demands that Chinese people have however-much money in the bank before they can go to Japan). It’s really tragic, alas! [374]
Japan’s strategy of comprehensively opposing China’s “peaceful rise” has been completely exposed. The country’s decision-makers should lose their delusions, abandon Mr Dongguo-type thinking.* It’s time take some active steps to deal with this. [296]
Japan, this country, history shows that if you don’t strike it you’re finished. [241]
Japan is the evil wolf by our side, from the Japanese pirates [wokou 倭寇] along China’s coast in ancient times, to the early-modern invasion of China, this evil wolf has constantly been disturbing our Chinese nation’s peaceful life, we can never treat this evil wolf lightly. [199]
Until Japan is exterminated, China will never have a peaceful day. [194]
The comments in this discussion, especially the first three, are a timely reminder that China’s strong antipathy towards Japan is often not simply the result of aggressive and bellicose “Chinese nationalist” longings for international recognition, but rather of visceral and historically-grounded fear of what Japan might do if it regained significant military power.
The visit to Beijing last Tuesday (October 11) by Vietnam’s paramount Nguyen Phu Trong, and the signing of an “agreement on the basic principles” on the South China Sea dispute, including a commitment to a bilateral rather than multilateral solution as per China’s preference, was probably a timely piece of good news from the CCP’s perspective. Certainly this caught the attention of readers at NetEase, with more than 82,000 participating in the comments-thread discussion there, though the top comments of course were hardly to the Party’s liking:
[We] sign it, [they] violate it, sit and wait for the next one. [14,256 recommends]
On territorial issues there is no negotiation, only war. [8889]
The South Sea can be renamed the Sea of Cooperation. [8406]
[Deng] Xiaoping said, we don’t negotiate on territorial issues. [7318]
“What do we do if the negotiations fail?” – Carry on negotiating. Successful negotiations aren’t the aim, playing for time is the aim. [5667]
That last comment is perhaps the most encouraging, both for the immediate prospects for peace and for the Chinese government itself. It is notable for actually showing some understanding of the Chinese government’s overall strategy in the South China Sea. But of course, public opinion (online or otherwise) is much more likely to become a factor in a time of crisis in the wake of some incident, not during happy little interludes like this one.
And sure enough, the happy interlude was quickly cut short. According to the Beijing News, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Genba Koichiro specifically raised the issue of the South China Sea when he met with his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa in Jakarta last Friday, October 14. The report relayed the Japanese Kyodo story that said both sides had agreed on the need to develop a multilateral framework.
In an ominous sign for the recently-inked Sino-Vietnamese bilateral agreement, the article concluded:
Besides “tightening relations” with Indonesia, ASEAN’s great power, Japan is also strengthening exchanges with Vietnam. Japanese Defence Minister Ichikawa Yasuo announced on October 14 that Vietnamese Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh would visit Japan from the 23rd to the 28th of October and that the two sides would discuss how to respond to “China’s expansion in the South China Sea”.
On Sina the story about Genba’s visit to Indonesia “Japan’s forced entry into the South China Sea issue, claims to be constructing multilateral framework solution”, and another recent South Sea story, “Philippine President protests China and Vietnam’s agreement on the South China Sea” both provoked well below–average levels of discussion – partially due to the timing, being reported on a Sunday, partially due to the horrific Foshan toddler case, but also quite possibly because of some instruction that it be downplayed. Equally likely to have been a factor is readers simply being tired of hearing about other countries intervening in the South China Sea. The last word must go to a couple of commenters who stood out for their ironical dreams of Chinese intervention in other countries disputes:
Resolutely intervene in the Russia-Japan dispute over the Kuril Islands, and construct a framework for resolving it!
And:
We shouldn’t negotiate with the Philippines over the South China Sea. The Philippines should be negotiating with Japan and the US over the Hawaiian Islands issue, and the Chinese government should pay close attention to the trilateral discussion, insisting that Chinese interests be upheld, while not ruling out the possibility of intervention, including military intervention.
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* Mr Dongguo was a Ming-era character who invited calamity with his do-goody-goody kindness to a wolf.
Posted: July 5, 2011 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: China-Vietnam, Comment threads, PRC News Portals, TV | Tags: fifty cent party, online opinion, phoenix, Sino-Vietnamese War, south china sea, Vietnam |
Phoenix TV has brought together a highly interesting array of short video clips of South China Sea commentary from both their own satellite channel, and CCTV.
The “brief introduction reads”:
China has three strategic countermeasures [available to it]: the America card, the economics card, and the Taiwan card. ‘To capture the bandits, first go after the king’ (qin zei xian qin wang) – countering America is the most important. The economic card applies mainly to Vietnam and the Philippines. The Taiwan card could initiate cross-strait collaborative defence of the South China Sea.
The video line-up has received 23,930 ‘likes’, and 15,969 ‘dislikes’ (actually ‘tramples’), suggesting many viewers strongly disagree with the overall assessment presented in the videos, which plays down the urgency and strength of action required, with several commentators pointing out that China should try to ensure that its actions do not push neighbours like Vietnam into an alliance with the US (something which has to some extent happened already). The comments section provides some clue as to what so many viewers are objecting to:
wangdashan5658 (Hebei): [Quoting llciven (Suzhou)]: “Previous generations have told us, dignity must be fought for, merely talking is useless!!! [12 recommends]” – Looking at the domestic and overseas [situations], what dignity do we common Chinese people currently have? [0]
qq987645 (Yunnan): Don’t talk about cards this and cards that, other people are actually controlling [these islands]. [2]
wo7133998 (Liaoning Huludao): Why am I sensing the final years of the Qing Dynasty? [2]
ssssssssd (Anhui Chaohu): Nothing at all has happened in the South China Sea, only big-talking. It’s tragic. [2]
lbds (Shenzhen): It’s time to retake the South China Sea islands. [0]
Leader Li [Li Lingdao] (Guangzhou Panyu District): Truth comes from the barrel of a gun, let’s attack. Give the nation a bit of blood. [2]
Li Lü (Hebei Hedan): I miss the Great Mao very much. It was him who made the Chinese people feel proud and stand tall [yang mei tu qi, ang shou ting xiong] in the world’s orient. In those years we defeated America twice, taught India a lesson, and did not give up an inch of sovereign soil or territorial water – even for just one square kilometre, he dared to take back Zhenbao Island from the big-brother superpower the Soviet Union. [33]
Li Lü (Hebei Hedan): It now looks like the “shelve differences, develop jointly” approach was completely wrong. Who is going to take responsibility? [8]
Yi剑 (Jiangxi Shangrao): Corrupt officials running amok, unable to fight, let’s just give the South China Sea away. Others will say good things about us. [30]
Once again we see the CCP’s foreign-policy status quo, especially the “shelve differences” approach, under attack from the Maoist left, whose viewpoints attract strong agreement from readers. How many of these readers, or even the commenters themselves, are ‘fifty-centers’ is unclear (and even if they were it would be impossible to tell whose fifty-centers, since many agencies are known to deploy them), but we can clearly see that this kind of criticism is not being censored out by any central decree at this stage.
Perhaps more significant is that comments linking official corruption with weak foreign policy are also okay with the censors. The third comment, by wo7133998, and the last comment by Yi剑, have strong overtones of “waihuan neiluan” (“external aggression + internal chaos”), the most widely-accepted formula answering the original Chinese nationalist question: what happened to China’s greatness? Seeing China today as afflicted by waihuan neiluan appears to be a refutation of the Chinese Communist Party’s achievements, and a damning indictment of its present rule.
We have to remember though (and one of the talking heads on the Phoenix video reel actually points this out), internet opinion always tends to be more extreme than public opinion in general. As argued elsewhere, a ‘netizen’ (wangmin) is very different to a citizen.
In a side note, He Liangliang, the talking head who puts forward the ‘playing cards’ analogy in the most detail, also puts forward a theory that Vietnam’s internal problems – namely inflation, slow economic growth and corruption – mean that it might be trying to provoke conflict with China to divert the Vietnamese people’s attention. This exact line of reasoning often gets applied by outside analysts to explain China’s actions, and its possible motivations into the future.
southseaconversations 讨论南海 
“Repulsive Little Japan” enters South China Sea dispute
Posted: October 17, 2011 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: China-ASEAN, China-Japan, China-Vietnam, CNS, Comment threads | Tags: China-Japan, Chinese media, Chinese nationalism, Dongguo, Genba Koichiro, Ichikawa Yasuo, Japan-ASEAN, Japan-Indonesia, Japanese media, Kyodo, nationalism, Sino-Japanese relations, Sino-Vietnamese War, south china sea | Leave a commentFollowing his visit to Tokyo late last month, Philippines President Aquino appears to have passed the baton of responsibility for keeping the cauldron of Chinese resentment bubbling to Japan.
Late last month, Japanese Vice Minister of Defence Kimito Nakae made the provocative comment that the relationship between Japan and ASEAN had “matured from dialogues to one where Japan plays a more specific cooperative role” regarding regional security issues.
Last week the Japanese Foreign Minister attempted to demonstrate that this was no mere empty talk. As the official China News Service reported on October 9 under the headline, “Japanese media say Japan is planning to comprehensively intervene in the SCS sovereignty issue”:
Discussion of this story was bound to be inflammatory, and Phoenix and NetEase appear to have hidden the story away and/or limited the discussion threads associated with it. Among the major websites the most populous discussion seems to have been on Sina, with 20,579 participants and 916 comments:
The comments in this discussion, especially the first three, are a timely reminder that China’s strong antipathy towards Japan is often not simply the result of aggressive and bellicose “Chinese nationalist” longings for international recognition, but rather of visceral and historically-grounded fear of what Japan might do if it regained significant military power.
The visit to Beijing last Tuesday (October 11) by Vietnam’s paramount Nguyen Phu Trong, and the signing of an “agreement on the basic principles” on the South China Sea dispute, including a commitment to a bilateral rather than multilateral solution as per China’s preference, was probably a timely piece of good news from the CCP’s perspective. Certainly this caught the attention of readers at NetEase, with more than 82,000 participating in the comments-thread discussion there, though the top comments of course were hardly to the Party’s liking:
That last comment is perhaps the most encouraging, both for the immediate prospects for peace and for the Chinese government itself. It is notable for actually showing some understanding of the Chinese government’s overall strategy in the South China Sea. But of course, public opinion (online or otherwise) is much more likely to become a factor in a time of crisis in the wake of some incident, not during happy little interludes like this one.
And sure enough, the happy interlude was quickly cut short. According to the Beijing News, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Genba Koichiro specifically raised the issue of the South China Sea when he met with his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa in Jakarta last Friday, October 14. The report relayed the Japanese Kyodo story that said both sides had agreed on the need to develop a multilateral framework.
In an ominous sign for the recently-inked Sino-Vietnamese bilateral agreement, the article concluded:
On Sina the story about Genba’s visit to Indonesia “Japan’s forced entry into the South China Sea issue, claims to be constructing multilateral framework solution”, and another recent South Sea story, “Philippine President protests China and Vietnam’s agreement on the South China Sea” both provoked well below–average levels of discussion – partially due to the timing, being reported on a Sunday, partially due to the horrific Foshan toddler case, but also quite possibly because of some instruction that it be downplayed. Equally likely to have been a factor is readers simply being tired of hearing about other countries intervening in the South China Sea. The last word must go to a couple of commenters who stood out for their ironical dreams of Chinese intervention in other countries disputes:
And:
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* Mr Dongguo was a Ming-era character who invited calamity with his do-goody-goody kindness to a wolf.