dipsydoodle

PRC and Japan is two country who always have had issues about many things - it goes all the way back to when Kublai Khan wanted to get control over Japan, because they was not paying tributes to Imperial China (as most kingdoms did back then) and in the mid 1280s they even mustered one of the biggest navies in then known time to invade Japan and to take control over the Imperial Japan once and for all.. initially it worked well, but the chinese navy, and the soldiers ended rather nasty, as the chinese fleet was crashed in a storm.. In Japanese history, it was the holly kamikaze, or holly wind who did that - and the Chinese was never to repeat that again..

And then we always comes back to the years between the World wars - where Japan was doing their best to invade and to plunder China as best they could.. Specially as China was seen as a easy target- after 1911, China had been a republic, and then also being fighting between unruly groups, who was fighting for supremacy.. the two biggest blocks, was the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the communist, under Mao.. who had an unruly "peace settlement" between them in the years 1938-45, but who also was shooting at each others also under the settlements... In 1945-49 a civil war ended in the communist won the mainland China - Chaing Kai Shek had to leave for Formosa, or Taiwan...

But, PRC and Japan have not really settled their disputes from the years between the wars - and specially after the Imperial Japanese army more or less on their own invaded China - and conquered a large space of China - and dominated and used cruel and violent methods to have control over the population.. Bombing of "open city's" was often the norm, and China have never really regretted the fact that Japan have never said publicly that they are sorry about it.... And the few times politicians in Japan have told they regretted what happened over 70 year ago - the officials from PRC have always stated it is not enough - and demanded more..

But more important - this demonstrations against Japanese interest in PRC are More a symbol about how the government use anger to control their own population - and to use the anger who is simmering under the floors, to direct it against something else than their own faults - PRC is in a pickle, with a economy not as healthy as it should - and a large population who want better life for them self - and also a political transforming, from one generation, to another.. It all ad up to an explosive blend of internal and external troubles - who they tend to try to divert to the outside the trouble they have inside...

But it might blow back in the end, and I suspect that the fight over Japanese interest - and also over the fact, that PRC is trying to bully their way to more power in the south china sea.. is also something to recognize when it comes to why Japanese interest in the PRC is being attaced...

And another important point - demonstrations this large, never happened just on the fly in PRC, for the most part it often happened after they Ok from government officials - not since Tiamen Square, have the government allowed this to happened.. And over the last 25-30 years since 1989, it have been numerous times for the population of PRC to demonstrate against the Chinese government...

Diclotican

the demonstrations have been orchestrated by the government? Or are large numbers of Chinese so angry at Japan that spontaneous combustion happened?

pscot

PRC, or mainland China seldom accept demonstrations, who is not in one way or another accepted, or orchestrated by the government - or at least local leaders who have been given Okay from higher up.. Last time a spontaneous group of chinese deiced to demonstrate they stopped it in cold blood.. (The Tiamen Square massacre of 1989 ) . And even though it is known that spontaneous demonstrations have happened the last couple of years, against corrupt local leaders, it have always been stopped, when the government have cracked down on local unrest.. Chinese government officials is very keen on maintaining peace and "social harmony" and if social unrest happened, to crush it hard enough to silence whatever the reason was...

If we had been able to follow the lines, or the "Money" in this case - I suspect we had discovered that it was orchestrated by chinese officials, with the okay from higher up, from groups who wanted to deflect internal conflicts to Japan - or US, or whatever nation who for the time is in the targets of the official China... Even Norway have being targeted that way - and we just gave a dissent a prize... We have not, to my knowledge occupied and bombed chinese City's like Japan did...

Diclotican

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/2012/09/16/china-aims-japan-economy-island-protests/kxXr6C8FOPb5eQ8HfPJgMK/story.html

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese are trying to hurt Japan economically for leverage in a bitter dispute over contested islands, turning to angry protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese businesses, abetted in part by China’s government.

Sporadic protests in China over the past week became larger and at times violent and spread to at least two dozen cities over the weekend. Protesters torched a Panasonic factory and Toyota dealership in the eastern port of Qingdao, looted a Heiwado Co. department store in the southern city of Changsha and ransacked Japanese supermarkets in several cities. Though larger numbers of police imposed more order on demonstrations Sunday, they fired tear gas to subdue rowdy protesters in the southern city of Shenzhen. In nearby Guangzhou city, protesters broke into a hotel that was next to the Japanese Consulate and damaged a Japanese restaurant inside...

While it urged protesters not to resort to violence, China’s government has also encouraged the use of economic pressure in the dispute over Japan’s control over the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. China’s National Tourism Administration ordered travel companies last week to cancel tours to Japan over the weeklong National Day holiday in early October and promised to compensate any businesses for costs they could not recover, said a lawyer who saw the written order and asked not to be identified because the document is not for public use...

State media, which answer to the ruling Communist Party, joined ordinary Chinese in calling for boycotts of Japanese goods. One regional newspaper ran a list of well-known Japanese brands along with calls for a boycott. China Central Television halted advertisements for Japanese products on two of its main channels over the weekend, according to China National Radio. ...

Pretty sure we have some "American interests" there somewhere. Best to let the locals deal with it. Not some tiny country with brown people or that we can split in half.

Peace.