China should forgive Japan like it has forgiven the Manchus?

In an article in the ST on 14 Feb, ‘China can take a leaf out of Manchu issue by ST journalist Jason Ou, the writer implied that there is no difference between the Manchus and the Japanese in their atrocities committed against the Chinese people. And China is not letting it go and continuously berating against the Japanese and even went ballistic when Shinzo Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine to show respect to the war criminals that invaded China and murdering so many Chinese.

Jason Ou claimed that Chinese leaders needed the Japanese bogeyman for their legitimacy and to remain in power. Really, after 60 years of communist rule and a people rising from the ashes of extreme poverty to be the next superpower, economically and militarily to challenge the American’s position as the Number One super power, China needs a perennial threat like Japan to stay in power? Does he know that China could even risk the charges of betraying its communist root in adopting capitalist economic models of development with no threats to the party’s creditability? Does he know that apart from a small minority, it happens in all countries, the Chinese people have never been prouder and more confident of themselves as a people and nation? It is all about a nation and people become rich and prosperous than the quibbling over ideologies and petty and unproductive issues.

His second point that China could not relent in the face of repeated Japanese provocation and revisionism to erase their brutal past and claiming that Diaoyu Islands belong to Japan is valid. This is one of the major differences between forgiving the Manchus and not the Japanese.

The Manchus were brutal in the suppression of Han resistance after conquering China. The fact that they ruled China for more than 300 years gave them a chance to integrate their tribe into the Chinese civilisation. The Manchus were assimilated culturally into the main stream Chinese culture. Their land became a part of China and they became Chinese.

Perhaps if Japan had been successful in conquering China and ruled China for as long as the Manchus, and be assimilated as part of a bigger Chinese culture, things could be different. The fact that Japan remained a distinct culture, race and nation, it could not be seen as one of them by the Chinese. And the insistence of claiming a piece of Chinese territory as theirs only adds to the distrust and animosity between the two nations. Japan is not a part of China but a different state with hostile intent, historical aggression and still hanging on to a piece of Chinese territory.

Could China forgive the Japanese like they have forgiven the Manchus? The very least the Japanese must do is to return the islands of Diaoyu to China if a lasting relationship of peace and stability in the region is to evolve. The ball is in the Japanese court. The red herring of a powerful and confident China needing to create a Japanese enemy for the vested interest of its leaders is bull. Japan is a different animal altogether and a very unrepentant and obnoxious country.

Kopi level - Yellow