China, Fanning Patriotism, Adds 6 Years to War with Japan in History Books

[SANITY]

Visitors to a museum in Beijing that commemorates the conflict known outside China as the Second Sino-Japanese War.CreditKevin Frayer/Getty Images

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/world/asia/china-japan-textbooks-war.html

BEIJING — For generations, the “Eight-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression” has been ingrained in the minds of Chinese schoolchildren. Revolutionary hymns evoked the bloody years, from 1937 to 1945, of what is known outside China as the Second Sino-Japanese War. Documentaries denounced Japan’s “eight years of belligerence.”

Now the war is getting a new name, and an extended time frame.

In a move aimed at stirring up nationalism and support for the ruling Communist Party, President Xi Jinping’s government has ordered educators to rewrite textbooks to describe the conflict as the “14-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression,” lasting from 1931 to 1945, the authorities said in a statement on Wednesday.

Under the decision, the Second Sino-Japanese War will be described as having started in the fall of 1931, when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Manchuria. Previously, the war’s beginning had been traced to the Marco Polo Bridge incident, a skirmish in 1937 between Japanese forces and Chinese troops along a rail line southwest of Beijing that marked the beginning of full-scale conflict.

The Chinese Ministry of Education said the decision to add six years to the war sought to promote patriotic education and to highlight the Communist Party’s “core role” in resisting Japanese fascism in the prelude to World War II. It also seemed intended to rally support for the party among young people as Mr. Xi vigorously promotes Communist history and thought in schools.

Zhang Lifan, a historian in Beijing, said the decision to revise the length of the war was justified from a historical perspective. But he said it would also have political benefits for the party and would encourage anti-Japanese sentiment.

“Chinese leaders still have a Cold War mentality,” he said. “They’ve tried to conjure up imaginary enemies in the world.”

Mr. Xi has worked in recent years to enhance the image of the Communists and their achievements in World War II, even though many historians believe it was the Chinese Nationalists, not the Communists, who did most of the fighting.

The party had not previously emphasized the fight against the Japanese from 1931 to 1937, when Communist forces were in disarray as they fought a civil war with the Nationalists. During that time, the Nationalists led efforts to resist the Japanese and negotiate truces. It was not until 1937 that the Communists joined forces with the Nationalists to fight an increasingly belligerent Imperial Japanese Army.

Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at King’s College London, called the textbook revision a “tidying up of history.” He said the revised account exaggerated the Communists’ accomplishments.

“It demonstrates this continuing keenness by the party now to seek sources of legitimacy wherever it can,” he said, “and reveals more insecurity than real strength.”

The change will probably ruffle feathers in Japan, China’s longtime rival, as the countries jockey for influence in Asia and struggle to overcome the legacy of World War II, more than 70 years after the global conflict ended.

Japanese officials did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. But Masumi Kawasaki, a Shanghai-based correspondent for Sankei Shimbun, a right-leaning daily, wrote in an article that Mr. Xi’s government was “trying to heighten its anti-Japanese stance through history education.”

Mr. Xi has accused Japan of distorting history, and the Chinese state news media has criticized Tokyo’s efforts to revise textbooks, saying it has played down atrocities by Japanese soldiers.

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan visited Pearl Harbor last month, Chinese internet users brimmed with outrage, saying Mr. Abe had not done enough to apologize to China for Japan’s actions during World War II.

In Beijing, many people applauded the government’s decision to revise the textbooks, which are filled with references to wars against “aggression” by foreign forces. The Korean War, for example, is known as the war to resist United States aggression and aid Korea.”

“The Japanese have also altered their textbooks, why can’t we?” said Wang Yalin, 30, a musician. Still, he said, the change would most likely fuel anti-Japanese sentiment in China.

Zhao Feng, 38, a tailor, acknowledged that the relationship between the countries had deteriorated. But he said it was important to note the earlier date of Japan’s invasion of China. “The occupation started much earlier,” he said.

On social media, some were more skeptical of the government’s motives.

“Don’t use history education for political ends,” one person wrote on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. “The most important thing is to learn the truth.”

 

[SANITY]

In The Name Of Confucius: How China Is Invading Western Universities With Communist Propaganda

Fifteen years ago, I travelled to Qufu, the birthplace of China's most famous philosopher, Confucius, who lived from 551-479 BC. I had lived in and travelled around China, including Hong Kong, for much of the previous decade and wanted to learn more about the source of so much of Chinese culture's ancient wisdom before returning to Britain.



I had been given a copy of The Analects of Confucius, a collection of his thoughts, by a Chinese friend. I smiled when I read that "while his parents are alive, the son should not go abroad to a great distance. If he does go on a long journey, he must tell his parents the definite place he is going to." I was 18 when I first went to China, to spend six months teaching English in Qingdao before going to university. Confucius would be relieved to know that at least my parents knew.



"Neglect of moral culture, disregard for learning, reluctance to stand forward before a just cause, and failure in correcting what is wrong - these are the things which are troubling me," Confucius said. And today, they are troubling me too. In particular, in China and among those in the West who kowtow to China's rulers.

China today is a bully, severely violating the human rights of its own people but also increasingly spreading its corrupt net around the world to silence dissent and extend its influence. It has done this through business, internet trolling, diplomacy and, at its most extreme, by kidnapping critics from other countries. But one of the most sophisticated and dangerous tools it has is the misuse of Confucius' name.

According to an official Chinese government website, there are now 500 "Confucius Institutes" around the world - with the aim of 1,000 by 2020. In 2015, their budget was $310 million, and from 2006-2015 China spent $1.85 billion on Confucius Institutes. On the surface, these institutes exist to teach Chinese language and promote Chinese culture - a Chinese equivalent of the British Council, American Centres or the Alliance Francaise. Unlike their western counterparts, however, Confucius Institutes are directly funded and controlled by the Chinese government, but embedded within universities around the world, giving China influence over the curriculum. Moreover, while the western equivalents, to varying degrees, exist to promote democratic values, concepts of an open society, critical thinking, the rule of law and to strengthen the capacity of civil society, Confucius Institutes are the antithesis, working to spread the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda and silence any dissenting voices.



This has now been exposed in a new documentary film, In the Name of Confucius, written and directed by Chinese-born Canadian film maker Doris Liu. The 52-minute film features a Chinese teacher called Sonia Zhao, who left China to take up a post with a Confucius Institute in Canada. "I thought the Confucius Institute was a cultural organisation," she says. She quickly discovered, however, that as an employee, even in a western democratic country, she felt nervous "all the time", worrying about whether what she might say would cause trouble. "I had to think twice before I said anything."

At the heart of Sonia Zhao's story was the fact that she is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a Buddha-school spiritual belief that emphasises truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. Since 1999 Falun Gong has been very severely persecuted by the Chinese regime, because it became so popular that it was practised by an estimated 70 million people - and for a regime nervous about any large gathering of people, this felt threatening. Even though Falun Gong is a peaceful spiritual movement, it was met with brutal repression, resulting in hundreds of thousands of practitioners jailed and many dying as a result of torture or as victims of China's barbaric practice of forced organ harvesting.

"I had been hiding my belief for many years," says Zhao on camera. "But I didn't expect that going abroad, a place I thought would be free, that I'd still be restricted". In a reconstruction of the moment she went through her employment contract, Zhao - played by Chinese-born Canadian actress and prominent campaigner for human rights, Miss World Canada Anastasia Lin - discovers that the Confucius Institute prohibits teachers from being Falun Gong practitioners - or from associating with them. Topics such as Tibet and Taiwan must also be avoided. "The Confucius Institutes have exported China's persecution against Falun Gong to foreign countries in a hidden way," argues Zhao.

The documentary then exposes the blatant Communist propaganda that exists in Confucius Institute literature used in schools and universities in western democracies. Texts promoting the teachings of Chairman Mao are being taught to children in Toronto, for example. As one parent put it, "something like this should not exist in a democratic country, pretty plain and simple".

Yet the list continues. An American singer studying at the University of Michigan happily performs a Chinese song at a Confucius Institute function, with these words: "They sing about their new life, they sing about the great party. Ah, Chairman Mao! Ah, the Party! You nurture the people on this land".

Officials in Beijing don't make much attempt to hide the real purpose of Confucius Institutes. Largely independent from their host universities, these institutes are controlled from Beijing, with a constitution and bylaws drawn up by the Chinese regime with little transparency. Xu Lin, the Director-General of the Confucius Institute headquarters, known as 'Hanban', says on camera that their work is "an important part of our soft power. We want to expand China's influence". In a crude exertion of power, she adds: "The foreign universities work for us."

Perhaps the most shocking part of Doris Liu's film is the naivity, and outright, unashamed complicity, of some western academics. In a shocking interview, Patricia Gartland, chair of the Coquitlam Confucius Institute, and Melissa Hyndes, chair of the local school district, extol the success of their work and are dismissive of any risks. "We never had any concerns of any kind," Gartland tells Liu. Any controversy, she adds, is simply the result of "xenophobia".

When Liu asks whether western academic organisations should accept funds from governments that disrespect human rights, Gartland simply disagrees with the question's premise. And when a question about religious persecution in China is raised, the two Canadian education officials terminate the interview. The then chair of the Toronto District School Board Chris Bolton is similarly dismissive of concerns about human rights - and when the questioning becomes a bit too uncomfortable, he asks the film maker to leave. If I had closed my eyes and tuned out the accents, I would of thought these three were Chinese government representatives.

The Toronto District School Board, however, was not entirely filled with pro-Beijing stooges. Confronted with the evidence, the board ultimately voted to terminate the district's relationship with the Confucius Institute. Others, such as McMaster University, have done the same. In the United States, the American Association of University Professors have called for a re-think, citing "unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China", and two universities, Chicago and Pennsylvania State, cut ties with Confucius Institutes - as have at least three in Europe.

In the Name of Confucius focuses on Canada, but the problem is worldwide. In Britain, there are at least 29 Confucius Institutes, attached to major universities such as Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Cardiff and University College London. There are also 127 Confucius 'classrooms' in schools around the United Kingdom - teaching from texts, if Liu's film is correct, that promote the Chinese Communist Party.

And yet in an op-ed for the Times Higher Education supplement in 2015, the President of Imperial College, Alice Gast, expressed her wish for the UK's universities to be "China's best partners in the West". The UK ranks first among European countries in welcoming this Chinese influence - a point celebrated in China's state media as marking a "Confucius revolution".

Except it is not a 'Confucius' revolution, but the exporting of the values of a brutal, corrupt, cruel dictatorship. "An oppressive government," said Confucius, "is to be feared more than a tiger". We need to wake up and stop this collusion, before it is too late. In the Name of Confucius is a film everyone involved in China policy and education policy should watch. Confucius must be turning in his grave

 

[F-14B]

The Chinese forget that in the first 3 years of the war the japs screwed them so bad that they had to rescuedby the yanks

 

[hit&run]

Nothing wrong here.

People can handle nationalism and their harsh historic realities. Leftist thugs should stop doing fear mongering. In the name of Political correctness when a lie and adultrated history is paddled it creats more despondency that spurts out abrruptly and creats upheavals that go out of the hand very fast.

Leftist slimmy snakes should stop making their carriers out moralities which are actually immoral lies.

 

[amoy]

I've always thought the War commenced in 1931 not 1937. IMO it's only to set records straight, not something like "altered history" as the OP or some Indians posters put.

Wish some Indians took off your ideological lens, and forgot about Leftist, Rightist, Patriotism or Communist, just for a moment. Instead focus on cold FACTS first, without being blinded by anti-China sentiments.

It started in 1931. In a few days Japanese captured NE China =Manchuria.

Zhang Xueliang, who was known as a womanizer and an opium addict, was the deputy commander in chief of R.O. China and the de facto ruler of NE China then. He was taken by Japanese Kwantung's attack by surprise, and instructed not to resist.

Most of Chinese army gave up Manchuria and fled southward with hardly a (formal) fight.

Meantime communists organized the NE United Resistance Force or also called
Anti-Japanese volunteer armies in Manchuria. But Chinese guerillas were gradually crashed by Japanese and Chinese quislings by 1938 due to isolation and extreme harsh conditions in NE China (-40c temp in winter).

Gen. Yang Jingyu, the commander of United Resistance Force was killed in an ambush.

Last stand

Yang led more than 40 engagements in Jilin Province, despite critically lacking supplies. In response, the Japanese committed a scorched earth strategy by routinely looting rural harvests, confiscating food from villages, and forcefully segregating civilians into "lawful settlements", in the attempt to deprive the resistance any means of supply. Large collaborationist patrols were also frequently deployed to inflict attrition on the guerrillas.

Kim Il Sung founder of N.Korea fought in the Northeast United Resistance Force, heading the Korean regiment.

Kim (R) met his Chinese comrade in the United Resistance Force