China Japan Relation 101

Why is China so hostile to Japan?

Ms. Sakurai Yoshiko neatly explains the situation of China on online Genron TV.

Let’s take a look at key points and analysis she puts forward.

First, here is the economic disparity data:

Japan            the top (richest) 1% owns 9% of the national wealth (GNI)

US                  the top 1% owns 23% of the national wealth

China            the top 0.4% owns 70% of the national wealth

Wow. That’s too much of a disparity in China – the richest is really stinking rich!

And who are the rich?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders who control all: the economy, the military and the justice. Indeed, the judges are appointed by the CCP; meaning, the CCP is above the rule of law.  

In fact, you may remember that in late 2012, New York Times put up a big article on China’s former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s (温家宝) family assets – totaling US$ 2.7 billion. All of this is “legal” assets, they say. Just to remind you, China’s GDP per capita is US$5,400 (in 2011).

The leaders of the CCP normally send their kids overseas for education. The remittance from China for kids and relatives who live abroad amounts to about US$11 billion every year (what’s known). Ms. Sakurai analyzes that the CCP is afraid of people getting to know about the fact of the stinking rich, and thus, carries out strict censorship of the internet.

But people do sense these things. There are 300,000 cases of riots every year in China – that’s like 600 – 1,000 riots per day. People are fed up with the unfair and corrupt system of the society, namely the CCP rule.

China’s military expenditure has been growing at 2 digits every year for the past 24 years. The country is now the second largest military superpower. Yet, the CCP spends much more money on controlling the people inside the country: police, armed police, security police, wiretapping, monitoring of the internet…

Despite all these efforts, 300,000 case of riots every year…

How can the CCP control the dissatisfaction of the people while keeping their too-good-to-be-true privileges?  

Deviate the dissatisfaction outside, i.e. to a foreign country Japan.

Thus China has been taking the hardline tactics by force, targeting Japan and making it “evil”. The Democratic Party of Japan who took power for 3 years up to 2012, for example, succumbed to this tactics. But then why has not Japan been able to stand up against such threats by China? Ms. Sakurai sharply points out: It’s because Japanese people have closed eyes on the modern history.

Because Japanese don’t know the history, when Chinese say “You committed such atrocities!”, they can’t say anything. Many Japanese politicians also have not studied the history properly, and when confronted with the “historical problems”, they retreat. However, Ms. Sakurai strongly emphasizes that in order to keep a good relationship with China, and to be able to speak up in dignity, Japanese must first learn the modern history.

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You can watch this talk by Ms. Sakurai on youtube (unfortunately, only in Japanese). I feel this is a very good introduction on the topic, and for sure a must-see for Japanese!

And yes, we need to learn: once we learn, we would know in fact how much lies and incorrect things are spoken loudly, and believed, today.