YELLOW STAR, RED SUN
Asian giants search for common ground.

Viewpoint by Nicole Santa Maria

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked whether I was Chinese or Japanese, as though these were the only two countries in Asia, I would have enough money to fund my college education. I exaggerate, but at the same time I think these two countries generate enough political debate to eclipse all other Asian nations. A friend’s comment gave me my first hint that the two neighbors have deep-rooted grudges:

Illustration by Miguel Jiron.

“Historically, the Chinese have no reason to like the Japanese.” I saw this statement in action on Japanese television, when anti-Japanese demonstrations hit a feverous pitch in China this past April.

Safe in Kyoto at the time, I watched footage of mobs hurling chairs through the glass windows of Japanese restaurants. Whenever I asked about the news, my host parents, both of whom had lived through the hard times of the immediate postwar period, offered solemn observations about the need for mutual understanding. The Chinese were protesting against “whitewashed” postwar Japanese history textbooks and against Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Protest leaders had organized the marches by sending e-mails and text messages.

While the Chinese were marching in the streets, the World Exposition in Japan was reassessing the relationship between humanity and technology. Exhibits revolved around the theme “Nature’s Wisdom,” an appeal for harmony between human beings, our inventions, and the environment. Japanese reporters interviewed some Chinese who attended the Expo, and they expressed goodwill toward their neighbor.

Watching these events unfold, I had not realized the irony of Japan advocating responsible technological advances while China used communication technology to assemble anti-Japanese crowds. I did recognize that Japan and China’s conflicting perceptions about each other had led to the riots. The Japanese could not fathom the depths of Chinese resentment, and the Chinese could not accept official apologies from Japanese prime ministers without skepticism. Another irony emerges: government control of information in China limits the knowledge of ordinary citizens. Chinese youths declaimed Japanese distortions of truth, on the basis of “facts” provided by their own government. Meanwhile, the Japanese cannot rely on their own textbooks to instruct them about their recent past with China. Which side was right? Who was telling the truth?

The newspapers had answers. During that same month, Japan’s Asahi Shinbun had published the results of a survey taken simultaneously in China, South Korea, and Japan. The topics ranged from lifestyle satisfaction to international conflicts, and one of the first questions posed was, “Do you like Japan?” Sixty-three percent of the polled South Koreans answered “no,” trailing only one percent behind China in disapproval. By contrast, more than half the Japanese polled expressed neutrality when asked whether or not they liked their two neighbors.

Similarly, questions about how to resolve historical conflicts produced disparate responses. China and South Korea wanted apologies and appropriate compensation for wartime sufferings. Japan thought it had apologized enough and argued that no legal framework existed for such reparations. The results suggested that friction between all three nations will remain, so long as each clings stubbornly to its own views. By telling the “truth” only from their own perspectives, all sides were wrong.

The protests had simmered down by the time I left Kyoto, but resentments lingered. In October, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro visited Yasukuni, the national shrine for wartime heroes, and China reacted by canceling a meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers. The Yasukuni Shrine honors dead soldiers, including men who committed atrocities during the war, and some interpret visits by Japanese leaders as condoning Japan’s wartime past. But during my final weeks in Japan, a news report survey surprised me: almost half of the polled Japanese believed that the prime minister should visit the shrine. Japan has its own ideas about what the shrine means: it is a symbol of the dutiful sacrifice of the fallen.

The rifts created by profound differences of opinion between the two Asian countries become wider whenever Japan experiences lapses in memory about its wartime past. China responds with violent eruptions. Then international pressure and pecuniary compensations nudge the needle out of the red zone, at least until the next episode. Until the two prominent nations reconcile their differences, the “Chinese or Japanese?” question will remain, and it might not even involve identity.

Nicole Santa Maria was born in Manila, Philippines. She was a senior East Asian Studies major at Middlebury College when this article was written. She spent a semester studying abroad in Kyoto, Japan, where she observed the political and social conflict between the Chinese and Japanese, and where she developed a love of Japanese food.