In anger over a school book and various other 'problems', demonstrators in Beijing broke windows at the Japanese embassy and burned the Japanese flag.

Japanese foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura travelled to Beijing and demanded an apology but which the Chinese have refused on the grounds that the Chinese people have nothing to apologize to the Japanese for.

Amongst the issue's being raised are oil and gas rights in the East China Sea, Taiwan, Japan's 'attitude' towards its own actions in the second world war and Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN security council.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4453055.stm

Possible questions for debate:

Given China's record on human rights, do the Chinese have the right to point the finger at the Japanese?

Is Beijing using 'popular anger' as a pretext for its own political reasons or are the Chinese demonstrators genuine in the anger?

Is Japan out of line with regards to its past or has enough time passed and should Japan be allowed back into the political warmth?

Is there more to all this than meets the eye? For example, is China trying to curb international interference in the question of Taiwan?

Given China's record on human rights, do the Chinese have the right to point the finger at the Japanese?

I am always against comparing cruelty and crimes against humanity by one nation with another one. One might explain the other, yet I refuse to accept that such massacres provide a "legal" reason to point the finger at someone else or - even worse - play down own wrong-doing. I don't think any nation has a clean history, therefore it is important to look at the way of how a nation deals with it's past.

Japan does not recognize it's involvement in the mass murder of thousands of Chinese, and that makes them in my mind an accomplice to those murderers. The Chinese government can address that. So can the Japanese address Chinas human rights violation. Yet due to their recent actions both countries do not have the moral integrity to judge the other. Therefore they should start at their own backyard instead of flaming the neighbor by apologizing to the other, despite all differences. Without that, there can be no forgiveness.

Is Beijing using 'popular anger' as a pretext for its own political reasons or are the Chinese demonstrators genuine in the anger?

Maybe some demonstrators have genuine feelings about Japan's way of covering the truth, but the Chinese government is backing and fueling those protests.

Is Japan out of line with regards to its past or has enough time passed and should Japan be allowed back into the political warmth?

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, the refusal to take up the responsibility to those massacres is equal to covering up those crimes. The past shall not be forgotten, especially those horrible crimes. Both sides have to do their part if this bitterness shall die down.

Is there more to all this than meets the eye? For example, is China trying to curb international interference in the question of Taiwan?

It's probably a maneuver to divert the focus of the Chinese themselves by providing a valve for pent up emotions. Yet the timing seems good for an international diversion as well, with the Taiwan problem and the embargo question in the EU. Though I doubt that China will gain much sympathy with such actions.

Confucius says: do not complain about the snow on your neighbors roof when your own doorstep is still unclean. I agree that finger pointing gets us all nowhere.

Is Beijing using 'popular anger' as a pretext for its own political reasons or are the Chinese demonstrators genuine in the anger?

The Chinese are genuine in their anger. The text books for the past decade in both Japan and China have left the younger generations in those countries as biased against each other as their grandparents.

Is Japan out of line with regards to its past or has enough time passed and should Japan be allowed back into the political warmth?

Japan already is back into the political warmth. Japan and China are trading like never before. Economically, they should be allies. Japan exports only 22% of the same things that China does. Most of Asia are direct competitors with the Chinese on 2/3 of their exports.

Japan has publicly apologized 17 times for the atrocities of WWII. So no, they are not out of line. And yes, they should be allowed to honor their fallen soldiers. Japan recognizes that they murdered Chinese in the past. They disagree on the numbers killed though. China and Japan both need to come together and agree on a history like Germany and France did. Spreading propaganda and burning things are not going to solve anything.

Is there more to all this than meets the eye? For example, is China trying to curb international interference in the question of Taiwan?

Absolutely. Japan has recently stated that they will help the US defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack. China is drilling for oil in ocean space that Japan considers their own. These two countries understand that they are in direct competition for regional dominance. Keeping the populations angry at each other is the best way to allow the governments to resort to any means of winning that competition.

Given China's record on human rights, do the Chinese have the right to point the finger at the Japanese?

Well, althought the Japanese have expressed regret for WW2, they're refusal to acknowledge the existence of sex slaves etc does give China the right to point the finger at the Japanese on that particular issue. Human Rights are one thing, accepting a country's misdeeds during WW2 is another.
On the subject, how keen would other Europeans have been for Germany to be in the EU had it only expressed regret at its actions in WW2? Not very keen at all. Given that the Japanese are arguing for a permanent seat on the UNSC, they really should think about apologising.

Is Beijing using 'popular anger' as a pretext for its own political reasons or are the Chinese demonstrators genuine in the anger?

The Chinese people are genuinely angry, however Beijing is using these riots as a tool to prevent Japan ascending to the UN Security Council. The more pemananet, veto-wielding members the UNSC has, the more power is diluted between them, so it is not in China's interest that Japan gets a seat.

Is Japan out of line with regards to its past or has enough time passed and should Japan be allowed back into the political warmth?

Again, how long would it have taken to accept Germany in Europe had they never apologised?

Is there more to all this than meets the eye? For example, is China trying to curb international interference in the question of Taiwan?

I don't think its Taiwan, I think it is because the UN (may) be undergoing reform and Japan (and others) are arguing for permanent seats. China does not want its power diluted by adding more permanent members to the security council.

JLMA
No, the Japanese have expressed regret 17 times. Expressing regret is not apologising. I can regret that 9/11 occurred. Doesn't mean that I in any way accept blame for it.

Prime Minister Murayama in 1995. "In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology." What more do you want Ptarmigan?

It's like when a wife cheats on her husband. It's bad. It's wrong. It's not cool. She's admitted it though. And she's sorry. What more can she do? She can't take it back. It can't be undone. The husband has two options if the relationship is ever going to salvaged. Get even or get over it. The healing cannot begin if the husband keeps throwing the indiscretion back in the wife's face for the rest of her life. China needs to give it a rest IMO.

Japan has never admitted legal responsibility for its actions during the war it has only admitted moral responsibility. There is a huge difference between those two types of admissions. Whilst Japan has set up numerous unofficial compensation funds for comfort women (for example) it has never set up an official (i.e. governmentally recognised) compensation scheme.

The feeling held by the Chinese (and Koreans) is that the Japanese are willing to apologise, but are not willing to actually offer compensation or accept legal responsibility for their actions. There is also a great deal of fear that the Japanese have not really accepted the idea that they 'should' be apologising at all (although this is probably more to do with the history of conflict between the two).

In terms of your analogy, it is like the wife admitting she cheated and saying she was sorry, but then carries on flirting with the guy she cheated with.

IMO China has not asked Japan to do anything more than Germany has already done. The Japanese are avoiding this out of pride. The Chinese government is exploiting the situation.

In terms of my analogy, it is like the wife admitting she cheated and saying she was sorry, but then refusing to give the husband oral on demand. Sure it might help things, but it's not a requirement. Forced compensation did not work with Germany after WWI. Continual demand for compensation willl not work with Japan after WWII.

We are in agreement that Japan has not handled the situation as well as the Germans did. We are also in agreement that the Chinese are exploiting this situation.

The Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China was signed in Beijing in 1972. That treaty established diplomatic relations between the two countries and renounced any claim for war reparations (at the intergovernmental level) from WWII. In the Joint Communique:



Certainly, whatever hard feelings between the two countries, there must be a statute of limitations on how long Japan should have to continue apologizing to China for its past behavior. Most of the victims are dead or dying by now. I think this is simply a diversion tactic.

What a lot of people don't understand about Japan is that what happened back during the Nanjing massacre was done by Japanese armed forces.

Or maybe people understand that, but they don't understand that there is little to no connection between what the armed forces do, and what the Japanese people do. Blaming the Japanese people for that would be like blaming Nissan for Toyota's mistakes.

As another example of how stupid the Chinese demonstrators are being, let's say that African-Americans wanted to start blaming white people for slavery. Not only did that happen before my time, but I didn't have anything to do with it, so don't expect any apologies from me.

Given China's record on human rights, do the Chinese have the right to point the finger at the Japanese? No, China does not have that right. The reason why not is simple: China's human rights abuses (Tibet anyone?) are ongoing. Japan's abuses are past. China does have a right to a raised eyebrow at the less than accurate history, but even the hoisting of an eyebrow is hypocritical given China's less than stellar commitment to disseminating the truth.

Is Beijing using 'popular anger' as a pretext for its own political reasons or are the Chinese demonstrators genuine in the anger? I don't know whether the Chinese demonstrators are genuine in their anger, but I'll grant that some are. Given Beijing's final response in Tinianamen (sp?), I have no doubt that the demonstrations are allowed to occur because they serve the gov'ts purposes.

Is Japan out of line with regards to its past or has enough time passed and should Japan be allowed back into the political warmth? Wilful historical ignorance is out of line, period. It is a minor matter in the context of "allowing Japan back into the political warmth", given that Japan has apologized.

Is there more to all this than meets the eye? For example, is China trying to curb international interference in the question of Taiwan? Yes, there is more than meets the eye, but I think it has more to do with the Chinese gov't preparing to weather a coming economic storm in the good ship Nationalism.

Given the fact the in China the infamous 'Great Leap forward' of Mao, and its resulting 15 million-odd deaths, as well as the annihilation of history and culture on a planitarily unprecidented scale in the 'Cultural revolution' (both of which happened more recently then WWII) are completely ignored and hidden in every book, text and government literature in China, I find the complaints of the Chinese in this case more than a little hypocritical.

Frankly, the Chinese could teach Japan a LOT about historical revisionism.