China: A Monster on the Loose(protest veered off the script; politburo nervous)

Newsweek ^ | 04/25/05 issue | Melinda Liu

[TigerLikesRooster]

A Monster on the Loose

Beijing wanted to shake up Tokyo?but not like this.

China Photos-Getty Images Unrest: Did protests start with the leadership's silent backing?

By Melinda Liu

Newsweek

April 25 issue - If there was a script, this wasn't in it. China's president, Hu Jintao, convened an emergency session of the Politburo's powerful Standing Committee two weekends ago, just hours after anti-Japanese protests in the capital first turned violent. Thousands of marchers had converged on the Japanese Embassy, breaking windows and chanting "Kill the Japanese!" and "Come out, Japanese pigs!" Diplomacy aside, Hu's big worry was the threat of a new Tiananmen-style showdown. A well-informed Chinese source tells NEWSWEEK that in a jittery scene reminiscent of the leadership's 1989 war room, Hu warned against allowing the turmoil to spread. That, he said, would only give dissidents "a pretext to vent their dissatisfaction."

His concern came too late. Unrest erupted in Guangzhou, Shanghai and other cities while police fought to maintain order.

The public outcry was supposedly set off by advance reviews of a revisionist history textbook to be released in Japan this May. (Even Japan's leading teachers' association has denounced the book for its skimpy treatment of Japan's wartime atrocities in Asia.) But in those early stages, at least, it also may have been quietly fanned by the Chinese government. The real conflict is about the future, not the past. It's about two economic giants competing for vital energy reserves.

[TigerLikesRooster]

According to new reports I came across, organizers of protest used cellphones, and Internet to spread words. Especially, text messages sent via cellphone played a vital role. Using these communication devices, they were able to stay one step ahead of Chinese authorities.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Bonaparte]

"Last week Tokyo announced it would grant commercial offshore drilling rights in a disputed area of the East China Sea, not far from the scene of the sub incident. China, which surpassed Japan two years ago as the world's No. 2 oil consumer, has already begun drilling at the edge of the same undersea field. The formation could hold as much as 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas."

Offshore drilling? Why aren't the environmentalists over here staging huge protests at the Chinese and Japanese embassies and consulates? Oh, that's right -- I forgot they use all their energies trying to stop America from using its energy resources.

[bobjam]

Is it possible that less than a hundred years after defending China from Japan we could end up defending Japan from China?

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #4

Things change.

[oldironsides]

China is reaching out and moving in on the Spratley Islands that are also claimed by the Philippines. China built "fishing villages" and set up house on the islands. China is also in Panama. There is no change in what China
plans to do. Tibet was annexed. Nobody cared. They are spreading out. I do not think they can be stopped by anyone.

[PigRigger]

"Is it possible that less than a hundred years after defending China from Japan we could end up defending Japan from China?"

You may very well be right; although a military confrontation may not be the protection they need.

Although Japan is not the same country it was 70 or so years ago; the brutality of its occupation in the far east has not been forgotten.

I was not alive during those times; but when I read accounts of the atrocities they committed I can fully understand the terror and hate they cultivated.

Of course this does not excuse any violence against them but it puts into context the passionate protests we are currently witnessing.

[Tom Bombadil]

but it puts into context the passionate protests we are currently witnessing.

Only partially so.

The Chinese are also adept at inflicting violence on themselves. The so-called "cultural revolution" fed on some of the same dark energies. What the Chinese leadership fears most is mobs that they do not control.

[prairiebreeze]

bump! ping

[Peach]

Bill Gertz wrote a book about China that is worth a read.

And after an entire generation of a one child policy, and most families chosing to keep their boys, there is now an entirely too large group of young men with no prospects for girlfriends or wives and they are angry. The government has put a lot of them in the military and now they need to do something with them.

[bert]

I once lived in Manila and worked in a Makati hi rise.

When the Japaneese office manager for Mitsubishi got on the elevator, no one else got on, they took another. Those already on the elevator practically squeezed themselves into the elevator wall to get as far away as possible.

[fso301]

Tibet was annexed. Nobody cared. They are spreading out. I do not think they can be stopped by anyone.

Only if nobody wants to stop them.

[tom paine 2]

Was that out of fear or hate?

[prairiebreeze]

Oh, wonderful..

[Strategerist]

The government has put a lot of them in the military and now they need to do something with them

The troop strength of the Chinese military has been shrinking VERY rapidly over the last few years, actually.

[Strategerist]

Is it possible that less than a hundred years after defending China from Japan we could end up defending Japan from China?

Other than nukes Japan doesn't need any help to defend itself from China. And Japan could have its own nukes within 6 months any time it chose to.

[Peach]

I read Gertz's book several years ago, so perhaps things have changed, but I don't remember that was his take on it.

Now whether the government is letting more people leave the military and replacing them with these angry young men, I don't know.

[katana]

Well, we did defend the western half of Germany from our erstwhile Soviet allies for 45 years and are still there to this day. Nations do not have friends, only interests.

[Strategerist]

The reductions are an attempt to model the PRC military more after the US military.

Untrained cannon fodder is worthless in modern warfare; much of the PRC military budget is wasted on masses of poorly trained infantry that would be worthless in all conflicts other than someone invading China on land, which isn't going to happen.

Hence the big cuts in the overall troop strength of the PRC military.

[expatguy]

We have only ourselves to blame.

Napoleon, surveying a map in 1803 pointed to China and said "There lies a sleeping giant. Let him sleep. For when he wakes he will move the world."