12.00 – 2.00pm: King & Wood Mallesons, Level 61, Governor Philip Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney NSW 2000
6.00 – 7.30pm: Law School LT 104, Eastern Avenue, the University of Sydney
5.00 – 7.30pm: 31 Blight Street, Sydney NSW 2000
3.00 – 5.00pm: Law G06, Law Building (# 5), Fellows Road
The historic enmity between the two countries – now resurfacing in a dispute over sovereignty – threatens stability in East Asia
The large-scale demonstrations that erupted across China on Sunday, in response to activists from Japan landing on disputed islands in the East China Sea, were a fierce reminder that it takes little for the deeply rooted animosity between the two countries to rise to the surface. The islands lie near to Taiwan and not far from the Chinese coastline; they are a long way from the main Japanese islands, but not so far from Okinawa, one of Japan’s southernmost islands. How can such small, uninhabited islands – known by the Japanese as the Senkaku and by the Chinese as the Diaoyu – arouse such anger and passion?
The reason lies deep in history. The islands were for a long time regarded as Chinese, but they were taken by the Japanese – along with Taiwan and much else – following China’s humiliating defeat in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5. It marked the beginning of Japanese expansionism in East Asia, with the subsequent colonisation of Korea as well as Taiwan. This reached its zenith after 1931 with the Japanese occupation of north-east China, and from 1937 with the Japanese conquest of further swathes of the country. This expansion was carried out with particular brutality – the Japanese looked down upon other East Asians as their inferior – the most famous example being the barbarity that was displayed in the taking of Nanking. There the Chinese claim more than 300,000 were killed.
The explanation as to what happened, the verdict and now the sentence has commanded a degree of credence
When the Bo Xilai issue first erupted in March and the details of Neil Heywood‘s murder began to emerge, it was commonly accepted that this posed a huge challenge to the Chinese leadership at a most sensitive time – the imminent change in the composition of the party and government leadership, an event which is surely of greater significance for the world than the forthcoming US presidential election.
There was understandable speculation that Bo Xilai’s detention could lead to wider rifts in the party leadership that might prove very difficult to manage and which might even lead to the postponement of the forthcoming party congress until the early months of next year.
As Britain basks in the glow of its successful Olympics, the thought that comes to this China specialist’s mind is, what a difference four years makes. There is a striking contrast indeed, where China is concerned, between the largely positive international chatter about that country in mid-2008, as the Beijing Games concluded, and the largely negative buzz about it now.
The change in China’s fortunes has little to do with medal counts or world records. Still, a look back to the Beijing Games helps place then-and-now contrasts into sharp relief.
Plenty of criticisms were leveled at China’s leaders just before the 2008 Olympics over issues such as repression in Tibet, and the Games were hardly free of controversy either, thanks to complaints about everything from parts of the opening ceremonies being faked (for example, the fireworks that looked like footprints in the sky being doctored digital effects) to underage gymnasts competing on the Chinese team. And yet, overall, a lot of things went right for the Party four years ago. As a result, a good number of international observers came away from China’s first Olympics seeing the country much as its leaders desperately want it to be seen: as a country that is respectful of its past yet surging toward a prosperous future; that is no longer poor, chaotic, isolated, with leaders prone to ideological extremism, personality cult rule, and factional infighting.