送交者: omnipotent 于 2005-4-11, 18:52:19:
Japan Glosses, China Distorts
April 11, 2005
Tiananmen Square's 1989 peaceful demonstrations were a violent uprising; Tibet had no claim to independence when China invaded in 1951; millions of Chinese did not die during the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward; the United States started the Korean War by invading the peninsula; special FBI agents repress American workers.
China's recent indignation at Japan for approving textbooks that allegedly mispresent history exploded over the weekend in riots in some Chinese cities. Japan could do more to own up to its past. But the quick and cursory glance above at how China itself treats history shows that its own distortions are of a far greater magnitude than Japan's.
The most recent paroxysms of self-righteousness in China, and in South Korea too, were touched off last week by the Japanese government's approval of a history textbook which Beijing says glosses over Japan's colonial rule over parts of China and the Korean peninsula in the earlier part of the 20th century. Particularly galling is the light treatment accorded in this book to the Japanese troops' sacking of Nanjing, often referred to as "the Nanjing massacre" or "the rape of Nanjing." Japan's use of sex slaves, some of whom are still alive and seek compensation, is also not mentioned.
The result was the anti-Japanese riots that broke out in some Chinese cities -- to the point that the Japanese government yesterday had to demand protection for its citizens and interests in the mainland, as well as an apology. An Internet campaign seeking to block Japan from joining the U.N. Security Council has meanwhile gathered 30 million signatures almost overnight. A boycott of Japanese products is also underway.
It would indeed be a sign of maturity for Japan to admit to its sins -- its cruel occupation of not only China and Korea but also of the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, etc., and also the vivisections, the carnage and the treatment of fellow Asians as sub-humans. Teaching Japanese students to what depths a creative nation is capable of plunging when under the spell of totalitarian indoctrination, as Japan was in the 1930s, would be a good antidote to a repetition of history. The Japanese plea that only a few textbooks are at fault and that the government doesn't practice censorship is not entirely persuasive, but should not be totally disregarded.
But, frankly speaking, China's constant drumbeat about Japan's brutalities more than 60 years ago is also indoctrination. It is a cynical policy aimed at deflecting anger away from the Chinese government's failings. By continuing to nurse grievances, Beijing has fostered a pathology of victimology that creates problems today and stores up even more for the future. This weekend's events did not happen in a vacuum.
All Japan did after the end of the war in 1945, after all, was turn pacifist, give millions of dollars in aid to its former victims and create wealth and products that the entire region benefited from. If post-war leaders have not apologized for their predecessors' transgressions to the satisfaction of China's authorities, their actions have spoken louder than words.
What China's leaders did after what its textbooks describe as "Liberation" -- that is, the communist takeover in 1949 -- is not as pretty a story. Dissent was crushed, ill-conceived economic policies led to the death of some 30 million people during the famine caused by the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward, and people's lives were wrecked during the fanatical Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
Not that you'd get much of an understanding of this from China's textbooks. Though there has been some mention of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution since Deng Xiaoping came to power, history books have very little on the 1959-1961 famine. The Tiananmen Square massacre, meanwhile, is given only terse treatment and is described in textbooks as "the restoration of calm."
The Sino-Japanese war in the 1930s receives far more attention in Chinese textbooks than any of these events, though (or, rather, because) these are far more recent and Chinese society would benefit far more from an in-depth look at past misrule.
But the Japanese aren't the only people with cause for complaint. Koreans last year saw fit to lodge a protest when Chinese textbooks began to describe a part of North Korea as having been "an administrative region" of China in the Middle Ages. North Korea's invasion of the South in 1950, which sparked the three-year Korean War, is also ignored. Instead, the war was caused by "an invasion of Korea by the imperialist United States," according to a Chinese textbook.
The misrepresentations of America are in fact so egregious that no less a figure than U.S. President George W. Bush decided to speak out about them when he was last in China in 2002. In a talk to students at Tsinghua University, Mr. Bush said, "as America learns more about China, I am concerned that the Chinese people do not always see a clear picture of my country. My friend the Ambassador to China tells me some Chinese textbooks talk of Americans bullying the weak and repressing the poor.
"Another Chinese textbook, published just last year, teaches that special agents of the FBI are used to repress the working people. Now, neither of these is true," the president added.
China is no longer the chaotic state of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. But especially because it is gaining in global importance, its government has a special responsibility to make sure that its citizens understand the world as it is, and are not motivated by feelings of resentment. Before harping on about Japan, Chinese leaders should look at their own interpretations of history.