http://www.ftchinese.com/sc/story_english.jsp?id=001019232&loc=story
By David Pilling and Mure Dickie
Friday, May 09, 2008
If diplomacy were built on goodwill gestures alone, there would be few worries about the state of Sino- Japanese relations.
In aid of fostering better ties between Asia's two economic giants, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, played table tennis yesterday with a Japanese star, met Japanese ballet dancers and gave a rosy speech to students at Tokyo's Waseda University as part of his five-day state visit to Japan.
The day before, he had offered to lend Japan two pandas and praised his neighbour's postwar record of peace in a speech that touched only fleetingly on the wartime history that had bedevilled relations until a thaw 18 months ago.
Mr Hu said: “To remember history is not to nurse hatred but to use it as a mirror to look forward. Cherish peace and let the Chinese and Japanese people be friends for generations.”
He said Japan had nothing to fear from China and that it would never use its growing military strength. Instead, they should treat each other as “partners, not rivals” and “an opportunity, not a threat”.
However, demonstrations at Waseda University, one of the most liberal in Japan, showed there is much work to be done at a popular level, where sentiment has, if anything, grown more bitter in recent years.
Outside the university gates a small crowd of rightwing protesters shouted through megaphones: “Why is Waseda allowing this assassin to talk? Get Hu out of Japan.” Inside, a few hundred pro-Tibet demonstrators shouted slogans and waved Tibetan flags. Others held up placards alluding to a recent scare over Chinese-made gyoza dumplings, an incident that shook the Japanese public's wavering faith in Chinese safety standards.
In China, the constructive approach at a leadership level has been underscored by media coverage of Mr Hu's trip.
Sina.com, the country's leading news portal, produced a montage of a smiling Mr Hu standing against a backdrop of Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms, carefully ignoring the fact he had arrived several weeks after this year's flowering had disappeared from most of Japan.
An article in the overseas edition of the Communist party's People's Daily newspaper used mixed-metaphors to lavish praise on the trip, describing it as “a milestone, a new start and an engine for the development of Sino-Japanese relations”.
China's International Herald Leader ran a series of articles calling for a better understanding of a nation that has often been lambasted in the official Chinese press. “Leaders of the two countries have resumed meetings and the smoke of the war beacons and cannon is gradually clearing,” the newspaper said. “Now what is most needed is to open a window again, to dis- cover Japan, to understand Japan.”
But the warmth of Chinese media coverage has not dispelled lingering animosity in the population, particularly among young people reared on a “patriotic education” stressing the brutality of the Japanese occupation.
Chinese internet users were barred from posting comments on most online coverage of Mr Hu's visit. But on the few websites where they could, some criticised his failure to win concessions on territorial and other issues. “This was a trip that sold out the interests of the people of the whole nation,” wrote one commentator on the popular Netease portal.
Tong Zeng, a veteran of Chinese anti-Japan demonstrations who believes Tokyo has not done enough to compensate war victims, said fellow activists believed that improvement in ties was a good thing but were disappointed that historical issues were unresolved. “If Chinese people don't believe those issues will be settled,” he said, “the tendency of strong hatred against Japan will remain and could explode again.”
By David Pilling and Mure Dickie
Friday, May 09, 2008
If diplomacy were built on goodwill gestures alone, there would be few worries about the state of Sino- Japanese relations.
In aid of fostering better ties between Asia's two economic giants, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, played table tennis yesterday with a Japanese star, met Japanese ballet dancers and gave a rosy speech to students at Tokyo's Waseda University as part of his five-day state visit to Japan.
The day before, he had offered to lend Japan two pandas and praised his neighbour's postwar record of peace in a speech that touched only fleetingly on the wartime history that had bedevilled relations until a thaw 18 months ago.
Mr Hu said: “To remember history is not to nurse hatred but to use it as a mirror to look forward. Cherish peace and let the Chinese and Japanese people be friends for generations.”
He said Japan had nothing to fear from China and that it would never use its growing military strength. Instead, they should treat each other as “partners, not rivals” and “an opportunity, not a threat”.
However, demonstrations at Waseda University, one of the most liberal in Japan, showed there is much work to be done at a popular level, where sentiment has, if anything, grown more bitter in recent years.
Outside the university gates a small crowd of rightwing protesters shouted through megaphones: “Why is Waseda allowing this assassin to talk? Get Hu out of Japan.” Inside, a few hundred pro-Tibet demonstrators shouted slogans and waved Tibetan flags. Others held up placards alluding to a recent scare over Chinese-made gyoza dumplings, an incident that shook the Japanese public's wavering faith in Chinese safety standards.
In China, the constructive approach at a leadership level has been underscored by media coverage of Mr Hu's trip.
Sina.com, the country's leading news portal, produced a montage of a smiling Mr Hu standing against a backdrop of Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms, carefully ignoring the fact he had arrived several weeks after this year's flowering had disappeared from most of Japan.
An article in the overseas edition of the Communist party's People's Daily newspaper used mixed-metaphors to lavish praise on the trip, describing it as “a milestone, a new start and an engine for the development of Sino-Japanese relations”.
China's International Herald Leader ran a series of articles calling for a better understanding of a nation that has often been lambasted in the official Chinese press. “Leaders of the two countries have resumed meetings and the smoke of the war beacons and cannon is gradually clearing,” the newspaper said. “Now what is most needed is to open a window again, to dis- cover Japan, to understand Japan.”
But the warmth of Chinese media coverage has not dispelled lingering animosity in the population, particularly among young people reared on a “patriotic education” stressing the brutality of the Japanese occupation.
Chinese internet users were barred from posting comments on most online coverage of Mr Hu's visit. But on the few websites where they could, some criticised his failure to win concessions on territorial and other issues. “This was a trip that sold out the interests of the people of the whole nation,” wrote one commentator on the popular Netease portal.
Tong Zeng, a veteran of Chinese anti-Japan demonstrations who believes Tokyo has not done enough to compensate war victims, said fellow activists believed that improvement in ties was a good thing but were disappointed that historical issues were unresolved. “If Chinese people don't believe those issues will be settled,” he said, “the tendency of strong hatred against Japan will remain and could explode again.”
评论