Patriotic Fires

Patriotic Fires

This week marks the 81st anniversary of an incident in Manchuria that Japan used to launch its occupation of China. The anniversary has helped intensify the Chinese protests against the latest Japanese moves to purchase small islands that are claimed by both.

The Japanese call them Senkaku and the Chinese, Diaoyu. These uninhabited islands lie along critical sea lines of communication in the Western Pacific. The contested waters around the islands are rich in fisheries and the seabed is believed to have significant energy resources.

While Beijing has encouraged popular protests against Japan, it has also sought to carefully regulate them. The Chinese Communist Party is acutely conscious of the danger of the anti-Japanese rallies turning against the government in Beijing.

Official Chinese media is calling for restraint. "Wisdom is needed in the expression of patriotism", the Xinhua news agency said in an editorial this week. "When our territorial sovereignty is challenged", Xinhua said, "Chinese people should and must show our clear-cut attitude. At the same time", it insists, "the expression of patriotic feelings should not come at the cost of disrupting domestic social order."

Beijing is not the only one having trouble controlling the rising nationalist sentiment at home. Tokyo, which has been defensive in dealing with China all these decades, is now under pressure from the nationalists to stand up against Beijing's assertiveness.

Asia Burning

The nationalist resurgence in China and Japan has set the stage for what could be the first serious great power conflict since the end of the Cold War.

The talk of a war in east Asia seemed laughable until recently, for good reasons. East Asia had enjoyed a prolonged peace that facilitated the rapid economic integration of the region and generated unprecedented levels of prosperity. Economic interdependence, it was widely held, would help dampen nationalism and move east Asia away from its many historic animosities.

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