China-Japan.docVIP

Protests, real and fake Of useful idiots and true believers Sep 18th 2012, 5:04 by T.P. | BEIJING YEAR in, year out, the anniversary of the Mukden incident always arrives on September 18th. Anniversaries are like that, and yet the memory of September 18th, 1931 is subject to change within China, flaring up and settling down in an unpredictable pattern. It is the true story of a false bombing, plotted by the Japanese against a Japanese-owned railway near the north-eastern city of Shenyang as a pretext for the invasion of much of China. In Western press accounts it is barely remembered at all, and so tends to be potted and repotted with a numbing regularity. This year, with anti-Japan sentiment already at a high for what seem like unrelated reasons, the timing looks almost malevolent. Can such things be planned? Anyone with much of a memory who has been watching the past few days of raucous anti-Japan demonstrations in Beijing and other Chinese cities might be feeling more than a touch of déjà vu. During China’s last big outbreak of anti-Japan protests, in 2005, and during the violent anti-American and anti-NATO protests that broke out after the deadly bombing in 1999 of China’s embassy in Belgrade, the scene was not dissimilar. Angry crowds of Chinese demonstrators marching and shouting as row after row of riot police watched passively—protecting embassies and consulates from hostile breach, and sometimes bearing the brunt when bottles, fruit or slashes of paint were sent flying. Then as now, the protesters’ slogans, whether chanted or waved on signs and banners, ranged from assertions of simple patriotism and the “bullying” and “shame” China has endured over the course of its modern history, to harsh and racist messages urging violence. The protesters are not the only ones repeating themselves. There is a whiff of déjà vu too when one turns to the reaction of onlookers. Especially with regard to the question of whether the demonstrations are genuine, passionate o