Japanese factories, supermarkets, and even cars are being attacked and destroyed in China. I’m pretty sure this is partially government sanctioned, otherwise there would have been a serious crackdown by the police. A mess out there over a rock that [in my opinion] Taiwan has greater claim to over China anyways.
Well, Taiwan is just a “rennegade province” of China anyway. So if they belong to Taiwan, they belong to China too. At least according to mainlander thought.
These do feel government sanctioned. With the economy contracting, it may be convenient to drum up an external enemy for people to focus their frustrations upon. China certainly has historical reasons to hate the Japanese, but these islands do seem very much a moutains-out-of-molehills kind of thing. But it wouldn’t be the first time a country sanctioned a “get mad at foreigners” attitude when things got tough internally, and it fits China’s history well.
lets hope this doesn’t get out of hand…
So a leading indicator of Chinese slowdown? China may well start stirring up trouble in other places like Xinjiang or Kashmir…
This reminds of the whole Dokdo debacle that has been going on for decades.
what can the japanese do though?
MCalamari,
Excuse me, I don’t think you have any privilege or neutral pointview to make such comment. Please, do read a little bit of history and try to understand various perspectives by more than one language, your later thought may be more compelling.
Btw, as we are in a study forum for CFA, to discuss exam related ideas would be more appropriate.
Thanks.
Catherine
Well, this is the Water Cooler section, where topics don’t absolutely have to be exam related. We don’t tolerate hate speech here nor gross obscenities, but the topics in this particular part of the forum are more open. There are exam and level-specific forums elsewhere on the site.
And if factories are being closed, boycotts being contemplated, trade contractions possible, these are at least investment-related topics that merit discussion. And conflict between major powers is always a major systemic investment risk.
I don’t think anyone is saying that there aren’t historical reasons for China to be sensitive to how Chinese-Japanese relations work, or that there aren’t legitimate grievances left over from the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s, or the Japanese’s continuing refusal to apologize officially for them, so I’m not sure what the bristling is all about by just noting that these things are happening and may have investment or security implications.
Of course, perhaps this discussion might get our forum banned in the PRC, so there is that to consider.
Hi bchadwick,
Good to see your follow-up. I really appreciate. Actually I happened to see this topic because of you, when I was tracking your points, as you are ranking the top1 point leader in the forum. I mainly agree with what you said previously, besides the parts of government sanction and websites-banning.
MCalamri is currently living in HK(known by whose ID), who might be a guest or even a permanent resident in the terriory of China, I want to ask whether Chinese people were like “getting mad at him/her” or not. If his/her response is yes, why staying, if not, why not going away to get rid of the potential troubles. The current fact is, MCalamari lives in China and simply critizes his/her boarding country in comparison with Taiwan - a rennegade province of China, by no sufficient proofs.
China’s anger to Japanese is not blind. As you mentione that the most unacceptable thing is, indeed, some of the Japanese’s refusal to apologize for the particular period of history and continuiously hurt Chinese feeling by making new events (not only to Chinese but to most of Southeast Asians as well).
Let’s get back to the points of government sanction and websites-banning. To the former, would you please name any of the country which doesn’t do any political/diplomaic sanction? U.S. never did? Japan didn’t? To your latter doubt, you might be a bit of biased, as your spontaneously thought that China may block this forum just because of such an unsiginificant topic in a finance forum,. Unfortunately, you might be really underestimate the country and its people if so. Even sometimes a government makes stupid decision (which government never did?), the people of its will always be very clear in their minds.
By most of your ideas, I consider you are experienced and indepent thinking kind of person who could neutrally understand the past and the future. I am very sure that foreign guests like you would be always very welcomed by Chinese people. For those CFAs or CFA candidates who have similar thoughts, China capital market might be your best choice due to the current world economy environment, as China is still a bit too laid back in finance industry in comparison with the other big powers, but the nation’s sound economy and its open-minded people will support the best nutrient for the nation’s boom in financial market. It might aslo be the reason, MCalamari is staying there in stead of being in Taiwan.
Sincerely yours,
Catherine
This topic certainly does have relevance to what you’re studying in the CFA program.
I just read this article on ZH which I found interesting, basically explores a previously unseen kind of warfare (as far as I know at least…has it ever happened?).
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bond-wars-chinese-advisor-calls-japanese-bond-dump
With all the muscle flexing happening between China and the US, it does make you wonder how a conflict would play out between China and the US.
Don’t blush bchad.
I think there might be a misunderstanding about how people used the word “sanctions.”
It is true that there are things like “diplomatic sanctions” which refer to official state-to-state displays of disapproval, such as witholding foreign aid, refusing the provision or allowance of foreign direct investment, or economic sanctions, embargoes, withdrawing of ambassadors or diplomatic relations, etc… And countries including the US use these kinds of sanctions not infrequently to show displeasure. I don’t think anyone is saying that China can’t do this if it sees fit to pursue its own foreign policy. We might disagree about whether that is effective or not, but certainly not on the right to employ these kinds of sanctions to pursue foreign policy.
What the original poster meant by “sanctions” (and I subsequently said feels plausible), is the kind of “sanctioning” where the State says - either explicitly or tacitly - “hey people in China, if you want to go loot a Japanese store or deface a Japanese car, go ahead, we’re not going to do anything to stop you.” The theory that makes this seem plausible is that if these kinds of attacks were attacks by Chinese citizens on clearly domestic Chinese businesses, Chinese cars, looting, etc., the CCP and government of China would be cracking down on it in no time as a clear threat to public order. Just the appearence of Falun Gong in Tienanmen square a little over a decade ago has prompted a far more involved campaign, and all they actually did there was meditate. That’s a different kind of sanctioning that results in the highly selective application of rule of law, and that - aside from any objections based on principles of equal treatment under the law - is an investment issue. If your business recieves favorable or unfavorable treatment from the authorities, that may be a source of enduring profitability. It may also be an additional risk factor that needs to be considered in valuation.
cate0802, I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say except that you’re trying to discredit my one lined opinion. Here’s a super brief summary of the origins of the conflict from what I’ve seen:
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Japan during WW2 takes lots of territory from China and the South China Sea area
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Upon eventual loss, Japan signs a peace treaty [of San Francisco] that returns lands they had taken over (including Taiwan). China was in a civil war at this time between the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
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Later, Japan signs a similar peace treaty [of Taipei] with the ROC. By this point, the ROC was already losing/lost and had retreated to Taiwan. PRC takes pretty much takes everything else by right of conquest.
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The disputed islands at the time were so small and insignificant that they weren’t mentioned in the treaties or anywhere else for another 20 years.
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Modern day chaos ensues
I criticize what’s happening in China right now because it’s destructive. There are protests in other areas including Hong Kong and Taiwan, but none which involve destroying random cars and supermarkets simply because it’s a Japanese brand. I find it suspicious because the government has a reputation of quickly snuffing out all riots/protests, but somehow missed it when a factory (which are usually located farther away from cities) gets damaged.
If anyone needs an independent source of the islands claims, please refer to the link from BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139
If this is true, China should deserve them. Enough said.
This thread is creepy.
Yeah, I don’t know… based on that BBC article, China didn’t have any problem when the US handed the islands over to Japan in the 1950s. But later, China was like “wait a minute!!”. Seems like both claims are debatable at best.
I’m pretty surprised that the Chinese are rioting over this actually. Imagine if the US and Russia were arguing about some random 7 km^2 of uninhabited islands. Somehow, I can’t imagine that widespread protests would result.
Dal, I’m not sure how you gather from the article that China deserves them.
Seems if anything they belong to Taiwan, which really only China considers is part of China.
But per the 1971 revision, I would say Japan has the strongest argument.
My understanding of the article is the same as yours. Japan>Taiwan>China
you guys don’t know shyt about asian relations…the chinese have deep resentment towards the japanese due to WW2 atrocities. Its similar to why a black guy always gets a kick out of beating up a white guy.
I’m just a bit surprised that so many Chinese people still have resentment over WW2. My grandfather fled China at some point during the Japanese occupation. He would tell us about all sorts of war atrocities - many probably were true, but some probably were not. Basically, he hated Japanese people until he died more than 50 years later.
The thing is, after a couple of generations, this resentment should have dissipated. My generation is completely neutral towards the Japanese. Similarly, most European people don’t hate the Germans for what the Nazis did in the 1940s. In fact, most probably have favorable opinions of Germany. The government and people of Japan are completely different from what they were 65 years ago. I mean literally - almost all 1940s Japanese people are dead by now.
So I guess this current anti-Japanese sentiment might be some kind of nationalist thing? Is the Chinese government using propaganda to foster “national unity” or something?