FOCUS: Chinese feelings toward Japan show signs of evolving

Asian Political News, August 14, 2006

BEIJING, Aug. 10 Kyodo

Yin Minhong was one of ''seven heroes'' who slipped away from Japan Coast Guard surveillance two years ago and landed on the disputed Senkaku Island that Japan says is its territory but which is also claimed by China, where it is known as Diaoyu.

The landing by the 28-year-old on the uninhabited island in the East China Sea about 400 kilometers west of the main island of Okinawa triggered a diplomatic problem between Japan and China.

Yin stayed there for 10 hours, singing the Chinese national anthem and planting a Chinese flag in the ground before he was arrested by Okinawa police on March 24, 2004.

Born and reared in Changsha, Hunan Province, he became acquainted with anti-Japanese activists in Beijing and researchers on Sino-Japanese history after serving three years in the Chinese People's Liberation Army. He then joined a campaign to land on the island.

He said Changsha was the site of a battle in the early years of the Sino-Japanese war in 1943, adding that a number of Chinese patriots are buried in the city and that as a schoolboy he often studied the war.

Speaking of his impression of Japan following his arrest, Yin said, ''The streets were clean, the police were not violent and I didn't harbor feelings of ill will.''

Apparently reflecting changes beginning to emerge in Chinese attitudes toward Japan, he is thinking about learning more about Japan. He has already read The Chrysanthemum and the Sword written by the late Columbia University professor Ruth Benedict in 1946.

Former Japanese citizens in Manchuria -- northeastern China -- who were repatriated to Nagano Prefecture after the end of World War II wondered ''what wind blew them in'' as they watched high-ranking Chinese government officials attend a ceremony on June 25 marking the 60th anniversary of the repatriation.

Among Chinese dignitaries present at Huludao city in Liaoning Province were State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan and Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who said Sino-Japanese relations will improve. He said to one of Japanese attendants to the ceremony, ''Please tell me if you have something to say.''

The ceremony was the first event to place importance on Japan ties since Chinese President Hu Jintao launched a policy of promoting interchanges between the two countries at the end of March.

Since then, the head office and branches of the Japan-China Friendship Association have been receiving invitations from China to participate in exchange programs. Top leader Kyubei Muraoka said the number of invitations is more than the association's can handle.

Wu Jinan, chief of the Japan research office of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, said, ''Hu took issue with the hard-line attitude toward Japan found in some parts of (society.) He judged that (China) will actively carry on with interchanges even if Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi continues to visit Yasukuni Shrine.''

The reason for this new development appears to have resulted from violent anti-Japanese demonstrations that occurred in Shanghai, Beijing and other places in China in April last year.

A senior Chinese government official, who wants not to be identified, said Hu reached the conclusion that the anti-Japanese campaign was a movement against the Chinese government.

A prominent Chinese government official reportedly said to the Japanese side that a thorough investigation into activists who allegedly instigated the demonstrations against Japan revealed that many of them were front-line antiestablishment activists.

Japanese diplomatic sources said that the Chinese leadership would never condone anti-Japanese demonstration even if Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II.

''Unlike other diplomacy, (China's) diplomacy toward Japan is itself domestic politics,'' said a Chinese official dealing with Japan policy at the Foreign Ministry. ''It's a problem connected directly to domestic stability.''

The curators of anti-Japanese memorial museums in eight places in China gathered in June this year at the Jian Chuan Museum, the first private memorial facility in China that opened last summer, on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

In a heated debate, Jian Chuan Museum curator Fan Jianchuan, 48, said museums should change the items they display to make the museums commercially viable. Zhu Chengshan, custodian of the Memorial Hall for Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese military troops was among those who interrupted Fan saying, ''That's no good!''

''How many young people know Sept. 3 is the victorious anniversary day for China in the war against Japan?'' one of them said. ''We must reinforce our patriotic education.''

The Chinese Communist Party, which controls all the memorial museums except for the Jian Chuan Museum, strengthened patriotic education following the government suppression of the Tiananmen democracy movement in Beijing in 1989.