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Walk in each other's shoes to enhance trust
By Cheng Yunjie and Liang Saiyu |
August 11, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
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EDITOR'S note: This is the second and final part of an article on Sino-Japanese relationship.
A monument erected in July in Fangzheng County, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has provoked anger and indignation.
During Japan's invasion of China, Japanese military authorities dispatched 330,000 settlers to claim parts of China. When Japan surrendered in 1945, there were still about 15,000 Japanese settlers living in Fangzheng, said Wang Weixin, director of the foreign affairs office of the Fangzheng County government.
"Due to the long journey (back to Japan) and the spread of disease, more than 5,000 Japanese settlers died in the county," Wang said.
Hong Zhenguo, the county's vice head, denied that the monument was erected to attract Japanese investment. "It was erected to help both Japanese and Chinese youth to better understand history and to encourage future generations to cherish peace," he said. Many Chinese, however, are not buying his explanation, especially those who have taken a hard line against Japan over bilateral disputes.
Five Chinese from the United Baodiao Association, a non-government organization dedicated to protecting China's sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, poured red paint on the monument last Wednesday. The vandals were briefly detained before they boarded a train for Beijing.
"Building cemeteries or erecting monuments for the Japanese is acceptable. But opponents cannot accept having the word 'settlers' inscribed onto the monument, because even the most tolerant Chinese cannot deny that the armed Japanese settlers were actually invaders," a netizen using the screenname "li mu" posted on his sina.com microblog.
Guo Dingping, director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University, said the distrust between Chinese and Japanese people has historical reasons. "It's not easy to change the sentiment, especially when Japan's ultranationalists keep instigating hostility toward China," said Guo.
Distorted history
Last Thursday, the education board of Japan's second largest city, Yokohama, adopted history and civics textbooks compiled by controversial publishing house Ikuhosha to be used at 147 public junior high and other schools starting next spring, Japan's Kyodo News reported.
The textbooks refer to the Pacific War as the Greater East Asian War or as a war for Japan's survival and self-defense. Opponents accused the textbooks' authors of "justifying wars," Kyodo said.
Fan Yuntao, a professor with the Tokyo-based Asia University of Japan, feels that relations between the two countries remain clouded by a collision that took place between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese patrol vessels in waters near the Diaoyu Islands on September 7, 2010.
However, Guo says it's unnecessary to be pessimistic about the two countries' friendship. "When we sit down face-to-face at the table, whatever problems and disputes we have may be much easier to overcome."
Fan said that the best way to break down mutual distrust and misunderstanding will be for both sides to walk in each other's shoes and make efforts to understand each other.
One hundred schoolchildren from 23 schools in Japan's earthquake- and tsunami-hit prefectures of Fukushima, Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Ibaraki were vacationing in south China's resort island of Hainan as the guests of Premier Wen Jiabao last week.
In Tokyo, a series of memorial activities kicked off last Wednesday to mark the centenary anniversary of the 1911 Revolution in China, which, led by Dr Sun Yat-sen, ended the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), China's last feudal empire. Sun lived in Japan for about 10 years.
"Mutual trust between media organizations can play a pivotal role when disputes and misunderstandings arise," said Fan.
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
A monument erected in July in Fangzheng County, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has provoked anger and indignation.
During Japan's invasion of China, Japanese military authorities dispatched 330,000 settlers to claim parts of China. When Japan surrendered in 1945, there were still about 15,000 Japanese settlers living in Fangzheng, said Wang Weixin, director of the foreign affairs office of the Fangzheng County government.
"Due to the long journey (back to Japan) and the spread of disease, more than 5,000 Japanese settlers died in the county," Wang said.
Hong Zhenguo, the county's vice head, denied that the monument was erected to attract Japanese investment. "It was erected to help both Japanese and Chinese youth to better understand history and to encourage future generations to cherish peace," he said. Many Chinese, however, are not buying his explanation, especially those who have taken a hard line against Japan over bilateral disputes.
Five Chinese from the United Baodiao Association, a non-government organization dedicated to protecting China's sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, poured red paint on the monument last Wednesday. The vandals were briefly detained before they boarded a train for Beijing.
"Building cemeteries or erecting monuments for the Japanese is acceptable. But opponents cannot accept having the word 'settlers' inscribed onto the monument, because even the most tolerant Chinese cannot deny that the armed Japanese settlers were actually invaders," a netizen using the screenname "li mu" posted on his sina.com microblog.
Guo Dingping, director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University, said the distrust between Chinese and Japanese people has historical reasons. "It's not easy to change the sentiment, especially when Japan's ultranationalists keep instigating hostility toward China," said Guo.
Distorted history
Last Thursday, the education board of Japan's second largest city, Yokohama, adopted history and civics textbooks compiled by controversial publishing house Ikuhosha to be used at 147 public junior high and other schools starting next spring, Japan's Kyodo News reported.
The textbooks refer to the Pacific War as the Greater East Asian War or as a war for Japan's survival and self-defense. Opponents accused the textbooks' authors of "justifying wars," Kyodo said.
Fan Yuntao, a professor with the Tokyo-based Asia University of Japan, feels that relations between the two countries remain clouded by a collision that took place between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese patrol vessels in waters near the Diaoyu Islands on September 7, 2010.
However, Guo says it's unnecessary to be pessimistic about the two countries' friendship. "When we sit down face-to-face at the table, whatever problems and disputes we have may be much easier to overcome."
Fan said that the best way to break down mutual distrust and misunderstanding will be for both sides to walk in each other's shoes and make efforts to understand each other.
One hundred schoolchildren from 23 schools in Japan's earthquake- and tsunami-hit prefectures of Fukushima, Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Ibaraki were vacationing in south China's resort island of Hainan as the guests of Premier Wen Jiabao last week.
In Tokyo, a series of memorial activities kicked off last Wednesday to mark the centenary anniversary of the 1911 Revolution in China, which, led by Dr Sun Yat-sen, ended the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), China's last feudal empire. Sun lived in Japan for about 10 years.
"Mutual trust between media organizations can play a pivotal role when disputes and misunderstandings arise," said Fan.
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
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