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People are all talking about Al Qeda, insurgents, Chechens, Scott Petersons, etc... because they don't see the big picture. The biggest threat to world security is America, that's a given, but the second biggest is not Osama Bin Laden. It's not Fidel Castro. It's not even Milton Freidman, though he's close.

The answer is someone we don't know. But guaranteed, he's from China.
You see china has been going through some violent changes over the last century.
Recent events include the Tiananmen Square massacere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianan...rotests_of_1989
The privatisation of China's health Services
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cg...t/full/23/6/222
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabriel/health.htm
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/199...s/09.23.health/

And other issues related to the conversion to a market economy which have left "Critics of the economic reforms, who tend to be poorer workers and peasants in China and left-leaning Western observers, point out that the reforms have introduced wealth disparity, environmental pollution, rampant corruption, widespread unemployment associated with layoffs at inefficient state-owned enterprises, and has introduced often unwelcome cultural influences. Consequently they believe that China's culture has been corrupted, her poor have been reduced to a hopeless adject underclass, and her social stability is threatened."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People...public_of_China

So you see, China is very strong economically, but fragile domestically. The people have been allowed to taste power economically but faced incredible violence when they demanded power politically.

Therefore, people avoid the government and politics. They seek the power they can use, they seek to make money. Corruption is rife in China partly because the guideing ethic is material aquisition.

However, people by nature want a cause. They want to participate in something, believe in something, especially when the wages aren't that good, the environment is going to crap, and everything and it's daughter has a user fee.

What are you going to do? You've already made the point clear that participation in the political process is not a viable option. Speech itself is rather restricted and people need an outlet.

Give them Nationalism! (It worked for the Germans)

quote:

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http://www.members.tripod.com/~jour...ded_people.html
"China-Japan relations show no signs of maturing. I'm worried that they could fall into a bottomless pit," said a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official, "China went too far in promoting patriotic education during the 1990s. We should have taught the people to be more internationally-minded."

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quote:

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http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=quote
"Chinese authorities have made an imaginary enemy out of Japan in a bid to divert public resentment of the government over growing social inequality."
Tokyo Gov Shintaro Ishihara (AFP-Jiji)

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quote:

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The “Patriotic Education Propaganda Poster Set”, designed by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League, was published in 1994 in “commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's Struggle against Japan and the victory of the international struggle against fascism”.

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If they point their angst outwards, the people won't revolt inwards. "Patriotic Education" about the Japanese invasion 50 years ago, has made young Chinese direct their anger at the Japanese of today.


Japan is a bit to blame for this. There have always been militant voices against article nine in the constitution, and more so than ever since the stupid "war on terror", plus Koizumi loves to visit the Yasukuni Shrine where the famous militants and war dead are enshrined, but for the most part the Chinese are projecting their domestic victimization on an external perp.
Added to this are disputes about the Senkaku Islands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senkaku_Islands
Claims over crabbing areas
Problems with Taiwan
incursions of Chinese subs into Japanese territorial waters
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin...o20041130a1.htm
This is all pretty trivial stuff provided it stays under control.
But the problem is, when dealing with a billion people it's hard to keep control. Anyways, links to come:

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What if things go wrong in China?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12...on/edpfaff.html
William Pfaff

Saturday, December 11, 2004

While the flutter of a butterfly's wing might not be quite enough to disrupt the international economy, it does not take more than a few flutters to spook traders, bankers and governments into interlinked financial crises. The vulnerability of advanced national economies to international disruption was demonstrated first in 1914, and again in 1929. It could find a new demonstration in the case of China today - or the near future.

Before 1914, people had been told that international economic interdependence made major war impossible. They discovered this was untrue. They found that "globalized" economies don't prevent war. Typically, when the time comes, they spread chaos, not peace.

Consider China.

Today the world economy is more integrated than ever before. The promotion of international financial deregulation started out in the 1990s as an American strategy for expanding investment and profits for Wall Street. Few thought through the consequences that globalization could have for unsophisticated economies and financial systems. These have included much social and political destruction, as well as the deployment of new energy for growth in many of these nations. The dangers of interdependence were ignored at the start. This proved a mistake.

We may have seen nothing yet. China is now a huge and inexperienced player in the globalized game. Sheer scale now gives it immense, intricate and largely unregulated - or at least uncontrolled - involvement in the world economy and leverage over it. This is because all has been connected up.

The elements of a possible multiple crisis are well known. The first is American dependence upon Asia's - particularly Japan's and China's - purchase of American state and private debt. A halt to this investment in U.S. debt could devastate the American economy.

The halt seems unlikely, since Asian investors are caught in a dilemma. Withdrawal from dollar investments will speed the fall of the dollar, devaluing their investments quickly rather than slowly.

A few days ago, a rumor that China might reduce its dollar holdings gave the market a bad few hours. Nonetheless, it is reported that while China's foreign currency holdings have been increasing, its dollar exposure is not increasing.

Next, China's economy depends on continuing Western, and especially American, outsourcing of production and import of manufacturing sourced in China, although in this respect it is probably the least vulnerable of the new Asian industrial countries. Its foreign investment is largely from overseas Chinese, who will not shift out of China.

The third source of potential international disruption is China's globalization of its raw-materials purchases and sources. Recent large Chinese trade missions to Latin America and Africa, and the virtual takeover by China of the industrial raw-materials exports of certain countries, like Australia, mean that disruption of the Chinese economy in the future could disrupt a large segment of the world economy.

Is a crisis likely? There are signs of a bubble mentality in the outside world's attitude toward China. Its economy and soaring trade importance inspire analysts to wonderment and superlatives, despite the well-known fact that much of China's statistical growth is a result of speculative real estate development.

However, the possibility of political ruin is what means the most. Counting from the Tiananmen demonstrations, China has been politically stable, and under close police surveillance, for 15 years. Counting from the death of Mao Zedong, the defeat of the Gang of Four and the rise of the reformers led by Deng Xiaoping, China has been stable for somewhat less than 30 years.

To those economic analysts, stock traders, investment bankers and think-tank experts who know no history, China is therefore stable.

However, counting from China's forced opening to foreign trade in 1834 to Mao's death, modern China knew virtually nothing but instability and disruption for a century and a half, as well as the decline and fall of two dynasties, the Manchu and the Maoist.

This regime awaits its political crisis. The Communist Party lacks ideological legitimacy and survives by bureaucratic presence and power - and fragile economic growth. Political and economic ferment is everywhere.

One of these days, something is going to happen. The world, and its economy, will take notice.

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Patriot Games
Stoked by nationalism, a new generation of Chinese feels growing hostility toward Japan
http://www.time.com/time/asia/cover...apan_china.html

Respect and Resentment
Japan is becoming impatient with demands that it should constantly apologize for what happened more than 60 years ago
http://www.time.com/time/asia/cover...apan_japan.html

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I would submit that the biggest game is hiding behind your posts. They offer the greatest degree of cover.

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Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1217-25.htm
by Ray McGovern

While President George W. Bush, his “neo-conservative” advisers, and centrist Democrats bask in the glow of America’s status as “the one remaining superpower in the world,” signs are mounting that other major powers do not intend to hunker down and suspend their own efforts to shape history.

The most striking result of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's four-day visit to China this week was the agreement announced Monday to hold "substantial military exercises on Chinese territory in 2005" (quote from Russia's Interfax news agency). This was Ivanov's second trip to Beijing this year, and Chinese President Hu Jintao used the occasion to assert, "Sino-Russian strategic coordination has attained an unprecedentedly high level."

The agreement to hold joint exercises is, in fact, unprecedented, and Hu went on to express satisfaction at the growth in relations between the two armies. Not that you would know any of this from our lethargic press.

The Chinese and Russian news services played up the story, and AP and Reuters correspondents promptly filed detailed reports from Beijing. But most U.S. print media—The Washington Post, for example—ignored the story. The New York Times Tuesday cut it down to two sentences tacked onto the end of a roundup titled "World Briefing" on page A6.

Nevertheless, it is a highly significant development, pointing out how major regional powers are reacting to the policy and actions of what they perceive to be the world's big bully.

Unparalleled Heights

The announcement of the military exercises planned for next year comes not long after Soviet President Vladimir Putin, while visiting Beijing in October, said bilateral relations had reached "unparalleled heights." During his visit, Putin signed an agreement that settled the last of the disputes along the 7,500-kilometer border between the two countries.

Those disputes had led to armed clashes in the '60s and '70s, particularly in areas where the frontier is defined by the main channel of border rivers, which meander. Islands ended up being claimed by both sides. The overall political backdrop, though, was China's claim to 1.5 million square kilometers taken from China under what it called "unequal treaties" dating back to the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689. These irredentist claims, a staple of Chinese anti-Soviet rhetoric, have been muted.

Putin's October visit also produced an agreement to jointly develop Russian energy reserves, an agreement by which China hopes to help ensure the supply of fuel for its burgeoning economy. Over the past decade Sino-Russian bilateral trade has grown by leaps and bounds. Most important, China has become Russia's arms industry's premier customer. This year, the Chinese are buying about $2 billion in weapons, many of them top of the line. For Russia, these sales are an important source of export earnings and keep key segments of its defense industry afloat. Cut off from arms sales from the West, Beijing has come to rely on Russia more and more for sophisticated arms and technology.

Fears Foreseen

For those familiar with the acerbic nature of Russian-Chinese relations over the years, the announcement of joint military exercises should be a wake-up call. The switch from extreme hostility to rapprochement is, in my view, a sea change in the broader strategic equation. The fact that the improvement in ties has been incremental, at least up until now, makes it no less real—or less of a potential threat to U.S. interests.

NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999 had already heightened the need felt by China and Russia to buttress mutual security ties. The experience eroded the confidence each had in its ability to advance and protect its interests by using its veto at the United Nations Security Council. That confidence suffered a far more serious blow when the United States and UK decided to attack Iraq without explicit Security Council approval. This created even stronger incentive for Russia and China to quicken their rapprochement.

Pre-9/11 progress in political, economic and military relations reached a highpoint with the conclusion of a Sino-Russian treaty signed by Presidents Putin and Jiang Zemin in Moscow in July 2001. That treaty reflected a mutual understanding that the two countries need to collaborate closely if they are to dilute what each sees as U.S. efforts to dominate the post-Cold War international order. The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 greatly increased the incentive for such collaboration, which has now been rendered more tangible by the scheduling of joint military exercises next year.

Fears Confirmed

The Russians and Chinese look on the quicksand in which U.S. forces are trying to stay afloat in Iraq with mixed feelings: alarm at what they see as unconstrained, unpredictable U.S. behavior, and Schadenfreude at the fiasco brought about by ineptitude on the part of senior civilian defense officials and careerism among the generals, many of whom know better but have not the spine to tell their superiors that the war in Iraq cannot be won.

What seems clear is that because of the U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq, China and Russia intend to give each other meaningful political support if Washington embarks on a new military adventure—against Iran, for example. That same assurance of mutual support and cooperation could also serve to embolden the Russians or Chinese for adventurism of their own—vis-à-vis Taiwan, for example, or Ukraine—taking advantage of the fact that the United States is pinned down in and preoccupied with Iraq.

Pandora's World

The lid is now off Pandora's preventive box. Just before leaving for Beijing, Defense Minister Ivanov made it clear that Russia "reserves the right to carry out preventive strikes with conventional weaponry on terror bases anywhere they are found in the world." Indeed, it may be a short step to applying the "terrorist" label to those wearing orange in Kiev.

Like subterranean geological plates that shift imperceptibly, changes with immense political repercussions can occur so gradually as to be imperceptible—until the earthquake. Over the past several years, there has been rather broad consensus among specialists that, despite the gradual rapprochement between Russia and China, both remain more interested in developing good relations with the United States than with each other.

This may no longer be the case. If it is not, our leaders ought to be given this bad news. Those who work on these questions would, I believe, be well advised to get together, give the issues fresh scrutiny and spell out what their findings imply for U.S. policy.

There has always been a mix of challenge and opportunity in U.S.-Russian-Chinese triangular diplomacy. But with Condoleezza Rice in the role Henry Kissinger once played so deftly, it is possible that the dangers will escape notice and the opportunities will be squandered.

Ray McGovern began his 27-year career with the CIA as the analyst for Soviet relations with China and Southeast Asia. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

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All very interesting, Thimbles.

But I do have one question.
In the first post you said "Give them Nationalism!" It implies to my mind that in order to maintain some kind of order and get people focused, someone is giving them this Nationalist outlet (kind of how people claim the neocons keep us all terrified in order to control us). So, who is giving them nationalism? Who are the ideologues who are promoting this stuff, and have we got a tiger-by-the-tail situation (wherein eventually it's going to boil over and they'll be forced to invade Taiwan or Japan just to keep the bloodthirsty mob satisfied), or is it more of a balancing-on-a-greased-beachball situation, where the ideologues can maintain the state indefinately so long as they have the stamina and stomach for it?

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quote:

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I do have one question.
In the first post you said "Give them Nationalism!" It implies to my mind that in order to maintain some kind of order and get people focused, someone is giving them this Nationalist outlet (kind of how people claim the neocons keep us all terrified in order to control us). So, who is giving them nationalism? Who are the ideologues who are promoting this stuff, and have we got a tiger-by-the-tail situation (wherein eventually it's going to boil over and they'll be forced to invade Taiwan or Japan just to keep the bloodthirsty mob satisfied), or is it more of a balancing-on-a-greased-beachball situation, where the ideologues can maintain the state indefinately so long as they have the stamina and stomach for it?

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Oh! Hi Trenchant Troll! Almost didn't see you there! Sneaky bugger.

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For the Chinese masses, an increasingly short fuse
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/30/news/china.html
By Joseph Kahn The New York Times
WANZHOU, China
The encounter, at first, seemed purely pedestrian. A man carrying a bag passed a husband and wife on a sidewalk. The man's bag brushed the woman's pant leg, leaving a trace of mud. Words were exchanged. A scuffle ensued.
Easily forgettable, except that one of the men, Yu Jikui, was a lowly porter. The other, Hu Quanzong, boasted that he was a ranking government official. Hu beat Yu using the porter's own carrying stick, then threatened to have him killed.

For this Yangtze River port city, the script was incendiary. Onlookers spread word that a senior official had abused a helpless porter. By nightfall, tens of thousands of people had swarmed Wanzhou's central square, where they toppled official vehicles, pummeled police officers and torched City Hall.
Minor street quarrel provokes mass riot. China's Communist Party, obsessed with enforcing social stability, has few worse fears. Yet the Wanzhou uprising, which occurred on Oct. 18, is one of nearly a dozen major incidents of spontaneous social unrest in the past three months, many sparked by government corruption, police abuse and the unequal riches accruing to the powerful and well-connected.
"People can see how corrupt the government is while they barely have enough to eat," said Yu, reflecting on the uprising that made him an instant proletarian hero and later forced him into seclusion. "Our society has a short fuse, just waiting for a spark."
Though it is experiencing one of the most spectacular economic expansions in history, China is having more trouble than at any time since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989 maintaining social order.Police statistics show the number of public protests reached nearly 60,000 in 2003.
That is an average of 160 per day. That marks an increase of nearly 15 percent over 2002 and was eight times as high as the number recorded a decade ago. Martial law and paramilitary troops are commonly needed to restore order when the police lose control.

China does not have a Polish-style Solidarity movement. Protests may be so numerous in part because they are small, localized expressions of discontent over layoffs, land seizures, use of natural resources, ethnic tensions, misspent state funds, forced immigration, unpaid wages or police killings. They rarely last longer than a day or two.
Yet several mass protests, like the one in Wanzhou, show how people with different causes can seize an opportunity to press their grievances together.
The police recently arrested several advocates of peasant rights suspected of helping to coordinate protest activities nationally. Those are worrying signs for the one-party state, reflexively wary of even the hint of organized opposition.
Wang Jian, a researcher at the Communist Party's training academy in Changchun, in northeast China, says the number and scale of protests hasbeen rising because of "frictions and even violent conflicts between different interest groups" in China's quasi-market economy.
"These mass incidents have seriously harmed the country's social order and weakened government authority, with destructive consequences domestically and abroad," Wang wrote in a recent study.

China's top leaders said after their annual planning session in September that the "life and death of the party" rests on "improving governance."
They define that as making party officials less corrupt and more responsive to public concerns.
But the only accessible outlet for farmers and workers to complain is the network of petition and appeals offices, a legacy of imperial rule. A new survey by Yu Jianrong, a leading sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, found that petitions to the central government had increased 46 percent in 2003 over the year before, but that only two-hundredths of a percent of those who used the system said it worked.
In November, up to 100,000 farmers in Sichuan Province, frustrated by months of fruitless appeals against a dam project that claimed their land, seized Hanyuan County government offices and barred work on the dam site for days. It took 10,000 paramilitary troops to quell the unrest.
Also in November, in Wanrong County, Shanxi Province, in central China, two police officers were killed when enraged construction workers attacked a police station after a traffic dispute. Days later, in Guangdong Province in the far south, riots erupted and a toll booth was burned down after a woman claimed she had been overcharged to use a bridge.

A week ago, a village filled with migrant workers in Guangdong erupted into a frenzy of violence after the police caught a 15-year-old migrant stealing a bicycle and beat him to death. Up to 50,000 migrants rioted there, Hong Kong newspapers reported.
Wanzhou officials initially treated their riot in October as a fluke. They ordered Hu to declare on television that he was a fruit vendor, not a public official, and that his confrontation with Yu had been a mistake. The police arrested a dozen people for instigating unrest and declared social order restored.
But the uprising alarmed Beijing, which told local officials that they would be fired if they failed to prevent recurrences, according to Chinese journalists briefed on the matter. Luo Gan, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of law and order, issued new national guidelines warning that "sudden mass incidents" were increasing during China's economic transition and calling for tighter police measures to prevent unrest.
More than a dozen people interviewed in Wanzhou, part of Chongqing Municipality, described the city as tense. All said that they still believe Hu is indeed an official and that the government concocted a cover story to calm things down. They say the anger excited by the riot awaits a fresh cause.
A chance encounter

Like many farmers in the steeply graded hills along the Yangtze, Yu, 57, supplements his income hauling loads up and down city roads: grain, fertilizer, air conditioners, anything that he can balance on a bamboo pole and hoist on his slender shoulders. Sweaty and dirty, porters put their low-paying profession on parade. They are often referred to simply as bian dan, or pole men.
Yu's lot is better than some others. He has another sideline collecting hair cuttings off the floors of beauty salons and barber shops, packing them in big burlap bags and selling them to wig makers down south.
On Oct. 18, he spent several hours collecting hair from upscale salons along Baiyan Road, a busy shopping street that runs near the government square downtown. His load was light, two bags of loose locks, and he scurried down the sidewalk to lunch.
"Hey pole man, you got dirt all over my pants!" he heard a woman shout. When he turned to face her, the man by her side, Hu, was glaring at him.
"What are you looking at, bumpkin?" Yu recalls Hu saying.

Yu said he should have let the moment pass. He did not.
"I work like this so that my daughter and son can dress better than I do, so don't look down on me," he recalled saying. Then he added, "I sell my strength just as a prostitute sells her body."
Yu said he was drawing a general comparison. Hu and his wife, Zeng Qingrong, apparently thought he insinuated something else. She jerked Yu'sshirt collar and slapped his ear. Hu picked up Yu's fallen pole and struck him in the legs and back repeatedly until he crumpled to the ground.
Perhaps for the benefit of the gathering crowd, Hu then shouted that it was Yu, sprawled on the pavement, who was in big trouble.
"I'm a public official," Hu said, according to Yu and otherwitnesses. "If this guy causes me more problems, I'll pay 20,000 kuai and have him knocked off."

It is difficult today to find anyone in Wanzhou who has not heard some version of Hu's bluster, even though those words never appeared in the state-controlled media. As the rumor mill had it, the deputy chief of the local land bureau had boasted that he could have a porter killed for $2,500. It was a call to arms.
The supposed threat, spread by mobile phones, text messages and the swelling crowd on Baiyan Road, encapsulated a thousand bitter grievances.
"I heard him say those exact words," said Wen Jiabao, another porter who says he was among those who witnessed the confrontation. "It proves that it's better to be rich than poor, but that being an official is even better than being rich."
Xiang Lin, an 18-year-old auto mechanic, had seen China's rising wealth when he worked near Shanghai. But when he returned home to Wanzhou he felt frustrated that his plan to open a repair shop foundered. He was drawn to the city center by the excitement.
"Don't officials realize that we would not have any economic development in Wanzhou without the porters?" Xiang asked.

Cai Shizhong, a taxi driver, was angered when the authorities created a company to control taxi licenses, which he says cost him thousands of dollars but brought no benefits. The police also fine taxi drivers left and right, he says.
"If you drive a private car, they leave you alone because you might be important," Cai said. "If you drive a taxi, they find any excuse to take your money."
Peng Daosheng's home was flooded by the rising reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam. He was supposed to receive $4,000 in compensation as well as a new home. But his new apartment is smaller and less well located, and the cash never arrived.
"The officials take all the money for themselves," said Peng, who spent eight hours protesting that night. "I guess that's why that guy had $2,500 to kill someone."
It took the police more than four hours to remove Hu and Yu from the scene. The crowd surrounded police cars and refused to budge, afraid that the police would cover up the beating, and even punish Yu.

Even after the police formed a cordon around two cars - one for Hu and his wife, another for Yu - the crowd smashed the windows of the car carrying the couple. It was nearly 5 p.m. before the vehicles crawled through the assembled masses.
Loss of control
The police may have hoped that removing the main actors from the scene would reduce the tension. Instead, the crowd rampaged. At 6 p.m., a police van was surrounded, the officer inside beaten with bricks. Seven or eight people tipped the van over, stuffed toilet paper into the gas tank and set it ablaze, according to witnesses and a police report.
When a fire truck arrived to extinguish the blaze, the firefighters were forced out and the truck commandeered. A driver smashed it into brick wall, then backed up and repeated the move to render the truck immobile.
"The loss of control happened instantly," recalled Cai, the taxi driver, who wandered through the crowd that day. "Suddenly the police were nobody and the people were in charge."

The local government never published an estimate of how many people took part in the protest. But unofficial estimates by Chinese journalists on the scene ranged from 30,000 to 70,000, enough to stop all traffic in the city center and fill the government square.
By 8 p.m., the rally focused on the 20-story headquarters of the Wanzhou District Government, with its blue-tinted windows and imposing terrace. The crowd chanted, "Hand over the assassin!" Riot police in full protective gear - but carrying no guns - held the terrace. Officials with loudspeakers urged the crowd to disperse, promising the incident would be handed according to law.
But the mob now followed its own law. An assembly line formed from a nearby construction site. Concrete building slabs were ferried along the line, then shattered with sledgehammers to make projectiles. Front-line rioters hurled the rocks at the police - tentatively at first, then in volleys.
Under the barrage, the police retreated. Protesters charged the terrace. Official documents were scattered. Protesters dumped computers and office furniture. Soon, a raging fire illuminated the square.



By midnight, the crowd had dwindled. When paramilitary troops finally arrived on the scene after 3 a.m., there were only a few thousand protesters left.
"Most people went home," said Peng, who had not. "But the armed police were fierce. They beat you even if you kneeled down before them."
Lingering tensions
The local government lauded its own handling of the riot. An assessment published three days after the event in The Three Gorges City News, the daily paper of the Wanzhou Communist Party, also declared that the uprising had no lasting ramifications.

"The district government displayed its strong governing ability at a crucial moment," the report said. "This incident was caused by a handful of agitators with ulterior motives who whipped up a street-side dispute into a mass riot."
The uprising did dissipate as quickly as it emerged, but the underlying tensions did not disappear.
When the Wan Min Cotton Textile Factory declared bankruptcy in mid-December, scores of policemen occupied the factory grounds to prevent a riot. The next day, a handful of workers from the factor went to City Hall to protest. Several hundred uniformed police surrounded them.
Xiang, the auto mechanic, was arrested for throwing stones and spent 25 days in custody. One day, as he returned from the cold showers inmates were required to take in the unheated jail, guards told him to kneel. One elbowed him in the back and several others kicked him in the gut.
As he lay prostrate, a prison supervisor said: "Nothing happened to you here, did it? You're a smart kid." He could not eat for two days.

"We were all brothers inside," he said of his fellow detainees. "The officials despise the ordinary people and are not afraid to bully them."
Then there's Yu. He missed the riot that occurred in his name, but has been under pressure ever since. The government kept him isolated in a hospital for nearly two weeks, even though bruises on his legs and the stitches he needed above his eye had healed.
His daughter and son were told to take a vacation, paid for by the government, to avoid contact with the news media. "They told us not to talk or it would hurt the city," Yu said in his first interview.Yet he said what really shook him was the reaction to the statement he made to Wanzhou television on Oct. 20, two days after the riot. The government told him to appear - he was still under guard - and had prepared questions in advance.
"Let this be handled by law," Yu told viewers. "Everyone should stay at home." So he was unprepared for the backlash.
Relatives of those arrested criticized him for propagandizing for the government, saying their kin felt betrayed. Neighbors warned him not to plant rice this year because his enemies would just rip it out. His wife says she wants to move because she has heard too many threats.

Yu is understandably confused.
"First an official tries to break my legs because I am a dirty porter," he said. "Now the common people want to break my legs because I speak for the government."

Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Wanzhou.

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Japan's East Asia Problem:
A Sixtieth Anniversary Perspective on the Postwar
http://www.zmag.org/content/showart...=17&ItemID=6967
by Yoichi Funabashi January 06, 2005

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Three-quarters of Japan's population was born after the war.

Despite the passage of time, Japan's postwar problems continue. Public opinion is split over Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro 's visits to Yasukuni Shrine. China and South Korea are also unhappy about the visits.

To remember the tragedy of the war and the importance of peace, events are being planned across the world this year to mourn the war dead.

At the Japan-China summit on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in November, Chinese President Hu Jintao said: "We cannot avoid history. I want (Japan) to deal with the problem properly. In particular, 2005 is a sensitive year that marks the 60th anniversary of anti-fascist victory."

The "sensitive" part mainly has to do with Japan.

The Memorial Museum of Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War in Beijing's Lugouqiao (Marco Polo Bridge) is currently under renovation.

According to the November 21 Beijing Daily, the renovation is aimed at "fully reflecting the great process of the anti-Japanese war; exposing crimes of Japanese imperialism such as the massacre of the Chinese people and colonial rule; and creating space to fully exhibit the important role China played and the great sacrifice it made in the anti-fascist war."

To display China's "role and sacrifice," some officials of the Chinese Communist Party and the government are proposing to host an international ceremony this year.

"Up to now, such commemorative events have been held only domestically," a senior official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. "But from now on, there is talk of holding them internationally. The plan is part of such an idea but it hasn't been decided yet."

Perhaps the proposed event was also inspired by Russia's plans to host a May celebration to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the victory against Nazi Germany.

Russia is planning the occasion to coincide with celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations. And in November, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution to declare May 8 and 9 in 2005, "Remembrance and Reconciliation Days."

However, a number of Central and Eastern European countries that suffered under Soviet aggression have opposed Russia's plan, saying, "The message is good but the messenger is not."

Meanwhile the United States, Britain and France have agreed to attend. Russia also invited Germany. It has agreed to send its chancellor to the celebration.

The Putin administration wants to use the historical symbol of having won World War II as a member of the Allied Forces along with the United States to elevate itself. To Russia, which lost its status as a superpower, the victory is both an important psychological compensation and a diplomatic asset.

Invaluable diplomatic asset

China's case is similar in this regard. It sees the 60th anniversary of the end of the war as an invaluable "diplomatic asset" for maintaining the legitimacy of its position as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council for having defeated Japan, maintaining U.S.-China relations and applying pressure to Japan.

Opportunities to make good use of it "come around several times a year on July 7, Aug. 15, Sept. 2, Sept. 18 and Dec. 13," a researcher of a Chinese think tank said. The dates refer to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), Japan's defeat (1945), Japan's signing of the official instrument of surrender on board the USS Missouri (1945), the Mukden (Manchurian) Incident (1931) and the Nanking massacre (1937).

"Each time Prime Minister Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine, China can use them to retaliate," the researcher said. If Japan and China enter such diplomatic psychological warfare, 2005 could turn into a gloomy year.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties. The two governments designated 2005 as Japan-South Korea Friendship Year and are planning various events.

The two countries signed the Japan-South Korea Basic Treaty in 1965. In lieu of reparations, Japan provided economic assistance to South Korea. While Japanese aid contributed to South Korea's economic advancement, many problems were left unsettled, including apology and compensation to former "comfort women" who were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers.

Recently, the South Korean parliament adopted a resolution to seek "the establishment of a history museum to recover the honor and human rights of comfort women."

At the same time, voices calling for the disclosure of diplomatic documents to clarify the policy-making process for the signing of the basic treaty are growing stronger in South Korea.

This is part of the movement to "settle" history against "pro-Japanese elements" under the initiative of the Roh Moo Hyun administration.

In a 2004 speech to mark Independence Day, Roh said: "Even now, pro-Japanese vestiges have not been cleared, nor has the truth of history been clarified. We must correct distorted history." For that, South Korea established a law to examine history closely.

The "pro-Japanese school" is said to have emerged on the Korean peninsula in the five years from the signing of the Second Japan-Korea Agreement in 1905, by which Japan made Korea a protectorate following the Russo-Japanese War before finally annexing it.

This year also happens to be the 110th anniversary of the assassination of Queen Min and the centennial of the signing of the Second Japan-Korea Agreement.

"After liberation, the Rhee Syngman administration tried to investigate the pro-Japanese school but couldn't. Soon the Cold War began and the Korean War broke out. Eventually, an anti-Communist authoritarian regime took root," said Kang Chang Il, a lawmaker of the ruling Open Uri Party.

It cannot be denied that the Cold War distorted history. However, even after the Cold War, the world is not free from attempts to distort history.

Anti-Japanese nationalism

While China is a communist dictatorship, its economy and media are rapidly becoming market-oriented. With the end of the Cold War, socialism collapsed and China needed a new ideology to justify the maintenance of communist leadership. Patriotism and "anti-Japanese" nationalism form the core of the ensuing ideology.

Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin ordered diplomatic authorities not to needlessly bow to Japan but to deal with it with fortitude. During the Jiang era, anti-Japanese monuments called "patriotism educational bases" were built across China.

Furthermore, with the advancement of the market economy, the inclination to view history in class terms waned. The premise that "Japanese advocates of militarism are the aggressor and the Japanese people are their victims" became vague.

Instead, an attitude to lump all Japanese as one emerged, as can be seen in Jiang Zemin's comment to South Korean President Kim Dae Jung that "Japan is not trustworthy."

Meanwhile, the Korean Peninsula remains divided. North Korea is in a critical condition and appears ready to play a dangerous game by using its nuclear weapons program as a card to maintain its regime.

In South Korea, a pro-North nationalistic sentiment backed by a sort of social revolutionary grudge is on the rise.

As for criticism of "pro-Japanese elements," in order to soften the impression that it is aimed at labeling them as "the bad guys," a move is afoot to replace the term "pro-Japanese" with "subordination to Japan," according to Kang.

Lawmaker Park Jin of the opposition Hannara Party said: "The Roh administration says condemning the pro-Japanese school is a domestic problem and has no impact on Japan-South Korea relations. But that's not true. The movement will spread to attacks on pro-American elements after the war and eventually affect U.S. relations," he warned.

As Japan suffered an economic recession during the 1990s -- also known as "the lost decade" -- China emerged as a regional power while North Korea test-fired a Taepodong missile over Japan. The abduction problem also encouraged the Japanese to turn to nationalism to vent their bottled-up feelings.

The trauma of the Persian Gulf War and Japan's desire to become "a normal country" intermingled. As Japan seeks to achieve this status, China is standing in the way. Japan wants to express its gratitude to the people who gave their lives for the country, but China is preventing it from doing so, provoking feelings of resentment and frustration.

It appears that history, which used to play a supporting role, has become the leading player on the East Asian international political scene where the past is more unpredictable than the future.

War reflection can lead to the formation of a new identity

What should we do to overcome the history problem, even if by a little, on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II? As far as Japan is concerned, it should formulate policies and take concrete measures to advance the following initiatives:

* Re-establish the statement made by the prime minister on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war as Japan's fundamental recognition of the past.

In 1995, the government released Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi 's statement. It may still be inadequate, but it admitted Japan's war responsibility and expressed the feeling of remorse more frankly than any other official statement that had been made public up to that time. However, the statement is not well-known throughout Asia and the rest of the world.

Last summer, when then Foreign Minister Kawaguchi Yoriko met with her Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, Kawaguchi referred to the "Murayama statement." In response to Li's request, Kawaguchi showed him the statement written in kanji.

However, a senior Japanese government official who was present stated, "It did not seem to ring a bell (with Li). It is my guess that he didn't know about it."

Li is not the only one. In fact, it is questionable how many Japanese actually know about it. Why? One reason is that it is more commonly known as the "Murayama statement" and not "the prime minister's statement." The appellation almost suggests that it was an "irregular" comment made during the coalition government led by Murayama.

* Formulate East Asian regionalism and regional cooperation.

Never before have relations among East Asian countries, including economic integration, been as close as now. For Japan, this is an ideal opportunity to build a relationship of trust and reconciliation with Asia. Regional cooperation must not be stalled because of the history problem. When we think about the past, Japan's responsibility is grave in this regard.

As a U.S. ally, can Japan make an East Asian community compatible with the Japan-U.S. alliance and have it play the role of a ballast for peace and stability to take root in the region? This is none other than a 100-year national plan for Japan.

* Share Japan's postwar experiences as well as the assets and resources it built in the process as a major civilian power for world peace and stability and economic advancement.

The Japan-South Korea reconciliation process that Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung started in 1998 was made possible only because the president commended Japan's peace Constitution and postwar experiences such as its provision of aid to developing countries.

For Japan, "looking to the future" means passing down the essence of its postwar experience of living together with international society to posterity and advancing it.

Incidentally, Indonesia will host a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bandung Conference this year. Leaders of nearly 100 Asian and African nations are expected to come together.

Prime Minister Koizumi is also expected to attend. He should take advantage of the occasion to show Japan's reflection on the war and the lessons it learned from it. He should also present Japan's new role and responsibility in the United Nations and show what it can do to help developing nations in nation building and personnel training, conflict prevention and maintenance of peace. He should also propose a notion to promote new solidarity for Asia and Africa.

* Contemplate the history problem while considering long-term national interests.

After the Chinese president requested the prime minister to refrain from visiting Yasukuni Shrine, some people felt, "So long as China tells him not to go, there is no option but to go." But such a reaction is too passive and controlled by the situation.

Lessons from history should help us to become more astute.

Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone made an official visi