As everyone knows, China insists on reminding its people about the evils the Japanese committed against it in a brutal war of aggression 60 years ago. At the same time however, the Chinese regime refuses to acknowledge its own aggression but instead omits or distorts history to justify its claims and ambitions.
In my class, I deal with the Manchurian invasion and the issue of Japanese textbooks ignoring, excusing, or even justifying atrocities committed over 60-70 years ago. However, I always seek to put such incidents in context, such as how the concern about the massacre at Nanjing being labelled an 'incident' mirrors this country's army committing an 'incident' 15 years ago against its own people. Indeed, this is a country that, without an ideology that commands the respect of its people, seeks to control its people through nationalism, which it at the same time condemns. It is this hypocrisy that last week blocked ALL foreign websites from my school so that students (nearly all from abroad and require such sites as hotmail to keep in touch with their families) would be kept ignorant of the atrocities the CCP has committed against its own people since 1949 (my geography students register disbelief when I inform them of the 30 million dead with 3 years of the 'Great Leap Forward') while regurgitating the history it selectively uses.
India At Its Best
India
With Premier of the State Council of the People’...This is becoming all the more the case here as nationalism replaces communism as the glue that binds its subjects. Consider the scripted anti-Japanese mob protests earlier this year. Many of my students are Chinese and Korean where they have been brought up to have an anti-Japanese perspective (much as many of my countrymen were raised to have an anti-German prejudice) and consider it just that the Chinese show the world their opposition to...
Is this comparison JUSTIFIED?
After reading this I feel that the comparison of Sino-Indian relations with Sino-Japenese relationship is not balanced one. Why? the reason is very obvious - history saw Japan as a major power, whereas India is still an under developed country. Then in Sino-Japenese case Japan is considered an aggressor, whereas in Sino-Indian case China is considered as an aggressor. In reality the scale of conflict, shift in policies, inclination towards economy and globalization factors, entail that disputes be resolved politically while (if possible) forgetting the past. I am not trying to favor China, but will someone clarify what message Japanese Premier is sending to the world by regularly visiting Yasukuni Shrine?...Well one has to keep his perceptions neutral to look at bilateral relations between two countries. Anyways a good effort on the part of the author to highlight certain aspects about China.
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