HOME	Where the World's Views of America Come into Focus

Apr. 20, 2005

By Alexandre Adler

Original Article (French)

It is something quite unusual for China: we have now witnessed two weeks of continuous demonstrations against not only Japanese diplomatic offices, but also department stores and factories owned by Japanese nationals. One often tends to compare the present situation to the great anti-American demonstrations of the spring 1999, which, as Bismarck would have said, finally ended in song. But such a comparison is not fitting.

After all, in the previous case, China had been provoked by the destruction of its embassy in Belgrade by a precision American missile, and those demonstrations lasted only three days and had been concentrated in Beijing’s embassy district. In the present case, anti-Japan demonstrations are taking place across the whole of Chinese territory, from Shenyang in the northeast to Zhuhai in the south, with a focal point in Shanghai, and it is a movement that doesn’t seem to have weakened after fifteen days of agitation.

The official declaration of the [Chinese] Foreign Minister, who refuses, in spite of a visit from his Japanese counterpart to issue any form of apology, is seen as a provocation by China’s highest authorities. In a country where any form of public demonstration typically lands its participants in prison, the continuing coordinated protesting, while not reported in the official media, implies government support, or in other words, the participation of the Ministry of State Security. This, despite the fact that Japan has expressed no real hostility toward China.

At the G8 meeting just held in Washington, the Japanese finance minister even distanced himself from his American and European colleagues as they pressured Chinese monetary authorities to revalue their currency.

This is the first explanation that gets close to the truth: the violent anti-Japanese protests in China are a warning to Beijing’s American adversary-partner. As a more and more irritated U.S. Congress pushes the Bush Administration to rebuild protectionist barriers against an invasion of Chinese products, Beijing fears the boomerang effect of conducting a similar anti-American campaign, and sees Japan as a far more convenient scapegoat.

The Japanese arrogance of the past made plausible the eruption of xenophobia, as the verbal brutalities of Khrushchev had at one time made it possible for Mao to oversee a break with the Soviet Union. But today, anti-Japanese protests can only be the means of something of more dangerous. And this is why, despite the legitimate sympathy one can hold for the Chinese people and their marvelous culture, the international community cannot for a moment weaken in its support for the legitimacy of Japan’s position in the current crisis.

If one digs just beneath the surface of the problem, one will realize that popular reprisals and rioting against Japan began after Tokyo signed with Washington an official statement reaffirming the solidarity of the two nations in countering any Asian-Pacific threat, specifically mentioning for the first time that such a threat could relate to Taiwan. This was without doubt extremely embarrassing and difficult for Beijing to accept. But who is at fault?

With great pomp and circumstance just fifteen days ago, China held a meeting if its vast consultative organization, The National People’s Congress, to vote for a grave resolution authorizing the use of force against Taiwan. In spite of the explanations attempted to alleviate the concerns of diplomats frightened by what many assume the Taiwan resolution to mean - it is true that Beijing’s proposals for talks [with Taiwan] are rather broad and that ultimately, the threat of war is just slightly greater than before -- it is also obvious that, in the context of a conflict where symbolism is everything, this resolution sounds like a challenge to the international community.

The resolution over Taiwan is all the more significant, because far from improving Beijing’s position, it has made the situation far more difficult from the point of view of China’s central government.

The world knows that Taiwan’s independence party [the Democratic Progressive Party, now its ruling party], is having a hard time giving up its program [of remaining separate from the Mainland], as the former-ruling Kuomintang Party paradoxically but logically, in order to maintain the island’s Chinese identity, leads a coalition that is as careful not to upset the sensitivities of Beijing.

Like unpeeling layer upon layer of complexity, it's here that we get to the sinister heart of the matter, which presents the alarming prospect of a rupture between China and rest of the world. It is not Japan which is being targeted, but the American-Japanese alliance; and it is not the American-Japanese alliance in itself that is the target, but the support, tacit and otherwise, that the alliance lavishes on Taiwan; it is not even Taiwan which itself that is being targeted, since the majority of social forces on the island are more accommodating than they ever have been. But then what is China’s purpose?

Mao Zedong, a man that I hardly carry close to my heart, invented the expression, "To agitate the red flag against the red flag." He denounced Communists that were hostile toward his policies, and who were trying to portray themselves as the best defenders of his ideas. Are there not today a group of [Chinese] leaders who would agitate the flag of reunification to bring about the present crisis? Because the result of China’s present campaign [over Taiwan] is likely to lead to increasing tension between Beijing and its three largest trading partners, respectively Taiwan, China’s largest direct investor; Japan, the largest exporter of technology to China, and the United States, the largest importer of Chinese manufactured goods.

Without subscribing to conspiracy theories, it must be admitted that if the aim is to cause the collapse of the neoliberal alliance of President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, this would be the best way to go about it.