China tensions with Japan sell fireworks?
| Beijing
Nothing defines Chinese New Year like fireworks. On the stroke of midnight, Beijing erupts in a riotous, deafening barrage of explosions that out-bangs any war zone.
This year鈥檚 celebration, though, will carry ugly undertones of real war in the midst of rising tensions with neighboring Japan. On sale on the city鈥檚 streets in advance of Saturday night鈥檚 festivities is a box of pyrotechnics called 鈥�Tokyo 贰虫辫濒辞蝉颈辞苍.鈥澛�
Most fireworks here bear more benign names. 鈥淕olden Snakes Dancing Crazily鈥� is expected to be popular, as Chinese welcome in the Year of the Snake. 鈥淲ish You Get Rich鈥� and 鈥淏illionaire鈥� play to traditional desires.
But some manufacturers are seeking to profit from a seething undercurrent of anti-Japanese sentiment that has bubbled to the surface as a dispute with Japan over ownership of a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea grows increasingly bitter.
鈥淚 Love the Diaoyu Islands鈥� is one such product, referring to the Chinese name for the islands. In Japan they are known as the Senkakus.
鈥淎ircraft Carrier Shows China鈥檚 Might鈥� is another, celebrating the October 2012 launch of the Liaoning, China鈥檚 first carrier, which has become a symbol of Beijing鈥檚 growing military strength.
Tensions around the islands edged up another notch this week, when the Japanese government revealed that a Chinese naval frigate had 鈥渓ocked on鈥� to a Japanese vessel with its missile-guidance radar system.
On Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the incident a 鈥渄angerous鈥� and 鈥減rovocative鈥� act 鈥渢hat could have led to an unpredictable situation.鈥�
On the Chinese Internet, however, angry micro-bloggers hailed the Chinese action.
鈥淲e should shoot at Japanese vessels before we warn them,鈥� advocated Li Xu on Sina.com鈥檚 popular Twitter-like Weibo platform. 鈥淭he only way to punish Japan is to annihilate all Japanese,鈥� added another commentator calling himself Truelove Leo.
The aggressively named fireworks reflect an anti-Japanese mood that the Chinese authorities sometimes seem eager to feed. Government and ruling Communist Party officials orchestrated anti-Japanese demonstrations last year when the island dispute broke out, and Chinese TV is flooded with drama series 鈥� one much like another 鈥� set during the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), featuring inhuman 鈥淛apanese devils鈥� as the popular Chinese phrase has it.
There is even a theme park in Shanxi Province where tourists can dress up as soldiers in the Eighth Route Army, the Communist Party鈥檚 main military force during the war, sing anti-Japanese war songs, and join in mock guerrilla battles against the Japanese invaders.
A public opinion poll released at the end of last year found that 87 percent of Chinese had a negative opinion of Japan, up from 66 percent a year earlier. And the feeling is mutual. A Japanese government survey in December found sympathy for China at a record low, with less than 20 percent of respondents reporting an affinity for their giant neighbor.
Not everybody buys into the prevailing atmosphere, however. When one Chinese blogger posted a screenshot from a recent TV drama capturing a particularly gory and ludicrous scene of a Chinese man tearing a 鈥淛apanese devil鈥� in half with his bare hands, most of the comments were scathing.
鈥淎nother brainwashing drama,鈥� scoffed one. 鈥淭he Communist Party is unparalleled in this field.鈥�
