Eshin Direct

This article was pointed out to me by my friend and former colleague, who seems to be a loyal reader of my site (one of the few, no doubt).

It should go some way in explaining why the Chinese, along with most of Asia, are still angry at Japan.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

ASIAN CUP
Why Japan shouldn’t criticise Chinese fans

PHILIP YEUNG

That the Asian Cup final between China and Japan was more than just a game of football is self-evident. To those quick to condemn the Chinese fans’ behaviour, however, I say, look not at the symptoms, but at the cause – the unfinished historical agenda that overshadows and underlines it.

Ideally, sport should be divorced from politics. But sportsmanship presupposes the existence of a moral equilibrium. Where it is absent, it has led to boycotts in the past. For millions of unindemnified Chinese war victims, how do you applaud the Japanese team when, in their eyes, the blood on Japan’s hands – while it has dried – is still unwashed?

Germany, similarly guilty of war crimes, has apologised humbly, profusely and repeatedly – augmenting its apologies with generous compensation for its victims. In its latest act of contrition, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder attended the Warsaw memorial service to deliver a heartfelt apology to the Polish people. These acts of penance help close the final chapter on a tragic past.

Japan, in stark contrast, has refused to help the healing process. To date, all Chinese victims remain uncompensated. Forced to seek expensive individual redress through the Japanese courts, nearly every one of the lawsuits has been slapped down. None of the “comfort women” forced into sexual slavery or human guinea pigs in Japan’s wartime biological experiments have received a single dollar in compensation. Japan underlines its contempt for its neighbours through Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine to honour convicted war criminals.

Last week, the controversial Tokyo mayor, Shintaro Ishihara, implored the emperor to visit the shrine to spite its Asian neighbours on August 15, the day of surrender. Guilty of sins of commission during the war, Japan is guilty of sins of omission after it.

As if the shrine visits were not enough, it has tried to alter the facts of history by deleting all textbook references to the Rape of Nanking, the scene of more than 300,000 murders and indiscriminate rape. Some even proclaim that it was a hoax. A nation incapable of admitting its past misdeeds is doomed to repeat them.

As long as Japan lives in denial, there can be no closure. The game may have ended, but its bitter aftermath – anger and mutual mistrust – remains. Unresolved resentment sows the seeds of future conflicts. Against the enormity of crimes against humanity, unsporting behaviour is a trifling matter.

For its own reasons, the Chinese government does not otherwise permit anti-Japanese demonstrations. Stifled at home and thwarted in Japan, the sports stadium becomes the Chinese people’s only safe court of international appeal.

Sportsmanship is an ideal of gentility, not a moral absolute. Morality trumps decorum, any day. As long as the war wounds remain untreated, they will continue to fester. Lecturing China on sporting behaviour is, thus, an inversion of logic. Defusing the issue is not a matter of diplomatic arm-wrestling, but of righting past wrongs.

If Japanese officials need a reminder of what their nation did to China, I recommend Iris Chang’s sorrowful book, The Rape of Nanking. It is an easy way to realign your logic – and come to grips with reality.

Philip Yeung is director of the Hong Kong Society for the Promotion of English.

For my part, I do not dispute the political and historical points that are made within this article. Of the Japanese atrocities, I am appalled by the acts that were committed and disgusted by the perpetrators of such acts. To deny that it ever took place, to perpetuate the grief, to rewrite history omitting the details that shame you is wrong.

Incidentally, does anyone remember the RAF bombing of civilian targets in Hamburg during WW2? Or that the Allies used incendiary bombs during their bombing of Japan simply because they knew that the civilian houses were constructed of wood while they knew that the government and military installations were made of stone? Japanese-American internment camps in the States? No, I didn’t think so.

Philip Yeung simplifies the German situation overly. Yes, it is laudable that they have been apologetic in their behaviour and their very mindset. Look how humbly we make them bow now. There are still some German companies, well-known to you and I, that profited from the six million lives that were exterminated methodically and still have yet to pay proper restitutions.

The point is that the Asian Cup represents an international sporting event which is not only a celebration of human sporting achievement but also the ability to unite through friendly competition. If these events are used as an opportunity to vent old wounds and hatred, then the very real opportunity to see people in a different light has been missed. It is not a question of historical and political right or wrong, but it is a matter of whether China is ready to host an international sporting event that should promote this unity. If China and its public cannot appreciate this concept then they have no business holding the Olympics or the Asian World Cup. If it becomes impossible to do so, then they should either not be held in that country or be cancelled; as the Olympics and World Cup were during World War 2.

Inviting someone into your own house and to treat them badly is bad form, even by Chinese cultural standards.

While Japan has done very little to apologize for its actions in World War 2, it has likewise done very little to harm since. Perhaps South Korean fans should have jeered and heckled the China Team during World Cup 2002? The contribution of China’s support during the Korean War is partly responsible for leaving a nation and a people divided.

Why not consider what was done to you by your own in much more recent years, and potentially in the long run much more damaging?

Yeung’s apologist tone for what amounts to Chinese hooliganism is, however, inexcusable. Jeering, booing and even the silent treatment is perhaps unsporty and unpleasant but harms no-one. The decorum and moral argument can rage forever on this. But the fact remains that the scenes of violence post-match are inexcusable. Images of a lone Japanese reporter being set upon by a mob of Chinese supporters demonstrates the typical cowardly behaviour of hooligans.

Doing violence at a sporting event or even to to exact mob justice is wrong. I always find it amusing that many Chinese think I look Chinese and even when they find out I’m not (and I’m not Japanese), they still think I ought to be. For them, I presume it’s a mark of elevated status. To be Chinese is to be better. Civility might be decorum for Yeung but it’s what Chinese do pride themselves on and does distinguish them from their more barbaric counterparts in the rest of the world.

There are writers around the world that could apologize away fan violence at sporting events like Yeung does. Poverty, racial tension, extremism, and club political affiliations are all equally valid reasons then that fan violence could be tolerated. Sure, it has been part of the sporting world for as far back as anyone can remember. Hey, even Roman gladiators had their own hooligan groupies. But whether it makes it right is a different matter. By today’s international standards, and I believe that China does wish to aspire to them, hooliganism is unacceptable.

I doubt very much that Phillip Yeung has had any real experience growing up with hooliganism. Otherwise, he would not find it acceptable at any form.

One wonders if the Chinese supporters had gotten their hands on the Japanese national team or broken through to the Japanese supporters what would have transpired. Would the natural conclusion of the threat of violence have been justified at this sporting event? I know, perhaps the Chinese should have had an impromptu purge of the kind that they were so fond of doing to their own citizens for the last 50 years. Sure, you might have your reasons, legitimate as they are, then to do violence on these few representatives of a nation you hate. But when you sign up to host an international sporting event, this is not acceptable behaviour.

My mind goes to that nugget of wisdom that all mothers should tell their kids, and my mother certainly did, is that two wrongs don’t make a right. In my own recommendation to Phillip Yeung I’d like to suggest that he should go and address the continuing decline of the English language in Hong Kong rather than going around apologising for football fan violence.

Tags: Political Thoughts