Like many people around the world, I’ve spent some of the past few days looking at photos and reports about the escalating anti-Japan protests in China. There is an excellent collection of them here for those that are interested. Browsing it, your first inclination may be to marvel at the particularly insane bits, like the hotel advertising that Japanese guests are no longer welcome or the Audi dealership with banners outside that literally advocate mass genocide (is this a new Audi sales campaign?). But for anyone who has been to a protest in China before, your second inclination is going to be to say this: where are all the fucking cops?
If you didn’t think that, try scrolling through the album again — or just doing an image search for “protest Japan” on weibo — and looking for police officers. You’ll see a few, sure. But you won’t see many.
Now, let’s compare that to photos from the Beijing “Jasmine revolution” protest, an incident so small that it not only didn’t have any car-flipping, burning, or rioting, it didn’t even have any protesters. There was an army of police there; it’s somewhat evident in the few pictures I have on my site, but you’ll find better photos of the incident here, among other places.
But perhaps that’s an unfair comparison, so let’s turn to a very fair one: the anti-Japan protests outside Japan’s embassy on September 18, 2010. Conveniently, I took video of that one, but here’s a short excerpt from the post I wrote at the time:
What was impressive was the show of control put on by the police, especially given that the protesters were there in support of the official government line. By the time we got there in the afternoon, police had cordoned off at least a one-block radius in every direction around the Japanese embassy. The streets to the north and east of the embassy, outside of the police tape, were lined with PSB officers, one standing every five feet or so for several blocks. There were easily a hundred of them, and obviously many more inside the police tape.
[…]
By the time we got to the Western approach to the embassy, where a small crowd had gathered on the intersection of Xiushui St. and Xiushui North St., there were reportedly no protesters left inside the cordoned off area, just some Western reporters and a whole lot of police. It was a show of force, a demonstration of control.
Now, obviously, these protests are much bigger than the 2010 protests, or the Jasmine revolution non-protests. And just as obviously there are police monitoring the protests in China right now; I am not suggesting that these people are rampaging through the streets completely unimpeded or anything.
But anyone who has followed domestic protests in China for even a short period of time should be clear on the fact that if it wants to, the government has the means to totally shut these protests down. They may have sent in the tanks back in ’89, but these days there are legions of trained riot police, People’s Armed Police, and other anti-protest forces. Every major city has them. If you think that China doesn’t have the law enforcement capability to totally shut down these riots, you’re delusional. If these were anti-government protests, not only would they not have carried on this long, but half the people in those photos would be in jail by now. Before the Jasmine protests (for example) police nationwide were literally arresting people just for considering going to the protests, not to mention people police thought might go.
The Global Times writes this morning in an op-ed condemning the violence:
There is no reason to suspect that the government is turning a blind eye to the violence seen over the weekend. This is simply the view of those who make a habit of criticizing the government.
Really? Then where is China’s police force? Even if all the riot police are busy doing traffic stops or something, I’d think if nothing else the chengguan could handle something like this pretty easily (and we all know how much they hate it when people dirty up city sidewalks).
The evidence that China is turning a blind eye to these protests is overwhelming. The absence of China’s police forces is glaringly obvious, especially in contrast to the vast numbers that turn up and start jumping in front of lenses and smashing cameras whenever a protest China’s government doesn’t like is scheduled to take place. China has clearly shown it is more than capable of keeping anti-Japan protests under control if it wants to. The obvious conclusion now — the only conclusion now — is that it doesn’t want to.
(Obviously, if we were to look at the sabre-rattling that has been going on in China’s media, we’d find more evidence that the government is not-so-subtly fanning the flames here. Case in point: a sympathetic editorial about the protests in the People’s Daily. That link is now broken, but the it is cited in the New York Times.)
Some will probably still feel that the title of this blog post is a bit sensationalist, but I disagree. The state many not be financially supporting — or even publicly encouraging — these protests, but I would argue the low police presence and apparent lack of attempted control sends a very strong message of support, especially in a country where you can get arrested and sentenced to a year of labor for a retweeting a joke.
Chinese citizens should have the right to protest publicly, of course, but that right should not extend to the destruction of property or to violence. The government should absolutely be doing much more than it is to control these protests, and I hope that it will step up soon, or tomorrow (9/18) could be very, very ugly. I think a lot of these protesters need to look themselves in a mirror and ask why they’re willing to beat their own countrymen and advocate exterminating the Japanese over some rocks they have never visited (and will never visit). But China’s government needs to be held accountable for the role it is playing in this violence as, by and large, it stands on the sidelines, content to let Chinese citizens in the wrong place at the wrong time driving the wrong car take the heat just because it’s a good distraction from the series of blunderous scandals that has been this year in Chinese domestic politics.
UPDATE: I have heard from several people who attended the Beijing protests that those were well-staffed with police and security. It does seem from photos and other evidence that the situation wasn’t the same in many other cities though, which would explain why there wasn’t much destruction in Beijing but there seems to have been elsewhere. I’m not sure why this is, but a Chinese friend emailed me a theory that I find very interesting. Make of it what you will:
The whole anti-Japanese thing is definitely state-owned, no doubt.
But I think you can go deeper…one party, different fractions
/clique…as far i as I am concerned,there are three major fractions
in ccp.As for this event..it is Hu’s and Jiang’s at play….
Look at the most violent cities, Xi’an, Chang’ sha, etc…they all are
under Hu’s folks
Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou…lol….Shanghai clique…
UPDATE 2: Found this image just now, via this site. This would certainly seem to be evidence the protests are state-supported, no?
I suppose the police could be confiscating this vehicle, but somehow I doubt it. And I’m not sure why they’d confiscate it rather than ripping off the banners (since the result of getting in it without ripping off the banners is precisely this bad-PR photo, though it’ll be good PR to some folks in China). For those that can’t read them, the top one says “When Chinese people get angry the results are serious!” and the big one along the side is the same message as the Audi dealership; ‘Even if we turn China into a field of tombstones we must eliminate all Japanese.’ The other bits are (unsurprisingly) anti Japanese slogans about eliminating the Japanese, not worshipping Aoi Sola, etc.
In other anecdotal-but-interesting news, a friend of my wife’s family, who works for a city government in China, was taken along with his coworkers to a (mandatory) anti-Japan protest on Tuesday. Sounds pretty state-sponsored to me.
I wouldn’t say the police were absent…at least at the Beijing protest I was at. There were hundreds, but they were just directing things. People threw rocks at the embassy – absolutely an illegal activity – but then were just directed by police to keep marching around. I (a foreigner) was taking video and got hassled by a cop for it worse than I saw anyone who was committing actual crimes did.
Yeah as I said above, by ‘absent’ I mean apparently less numerous and less active, not that they’re not there at all (though they do appear to be there in much less force than I’d expect). A couple people got arrested at the 9/18 protest in 2010 that I went to just for shouting slogans. But apparently now it’s cool to torch buildings; no need to intervene there…
[…] wants to. The obvious conclusion now — the only conclusion now — is that it doesn’t want to. Continue reading related postWhat Keeps the Chinese Up at NightEuropean astronauts learning Chinese to prepare for […]
So what kind of protests you guys would eager to see?
Remember the Arab spring ? And did you see what happened to the us ambassador to 利比亚 a year later?
Don’t classify protests into pro-democracy or anti-democracy lens.. Try to gain some basic understanding of the history behind. Otherwise what you desperatly promote will in the end turn out to be 成事不足 败事有余.
Pat Buchanan is right. Listen to him. He is a true patriotic american
@ YoungIT: What on earth are you talking about? No one said ANYTHING about pro-democracy or anti-democracy. Personally, I’d most like to see protests where NO ONE GETS BEATEN AND SHIT DOESN’T GET SET ON FIRE.
YoungIT
Please explain the history. Why is China protesting over uninhibited islands signed over to Japan in 1895. There are many Polish people interested in your answer.
I don’t think state-sponsored, more state-channelled, like the 1990 Belgrade embassy bombing when authorities bussed students to the US Beijing embassy, and closed the protests down after a few days.
[…] the Anti-Japan Riots Are State-Sponsored as ChinaGeeks writes, or state-tolerated, the message from the Party and official media is now to […]
[…] the Anti-Japan Riots Are State-Sponsored as ChinaGeeks writes, or state-tolerated, the message from the Party and official media is now to […]
I don’t like riots either. But how come the naive protests turned riots in the spring of 1989 was hailed as pro democrazy protests? Don’t be so selective.
As to the dispute about diaoyu islands, Ask the British why they had a fighter with the argentina on the island far away from it’s shore!
Sometimes the best way to understand the other side is to look your self in the mirror or try to put yourself into the others shoes. Unfortunately pride and prejudice are in the way. It is abundantly obviously that is not easy. Just seeing the sons and daughters of both the americans and iraqis and afhans killed in those endless and meaningless wars makes me so sad.
I doubt it is sponsored by the state. It’s your illusions since ideology is deeply rooted in most westerners mind.
@ YoungIT: What “rioting” was there in the spring of ’89? Granted, there was some fighting as the military entered the city, but I’m not sure it counts as “rioting” at that point. They WERE peaceful protests until the military basically invaded Beijing. And then, it wasn’t the protesters who were “rioting,” it was mostly workers and other Beijingers who were trying to protect the kids in the square.
As for why they’re called pro-democracy, it’s because they were pro-democracy. You’re absolutely right they were also naive, and they were pretty disorganized. But they certainly weren’t “riots” and comparing them to what’s happening now is ridiculous.
I’m not sure whose shoes I’m supposed to be putting myself in here, but as you’re an expert in history, you may recall that Americans also have some reasons to be angry at Japan for historical injustices. However, unlike some folks in China, we have moved on because that is history. Sure, Japan still has some crazy nationalists now, but so does China. And as for the Diaoyu/Senkaku rocks…doesn’t matter whose shoes I’m in there, I don’t care about them at all. There’s some oil there, fine, whatever. The governments can split it or fight over it or whatever but i can’t imagine myself ever taking to the streets to protest because some other country was claiming a rock with oil my country claims in some random part of the ocean hundreds of miles from any place I will ever go.
It’s a lot easier for u to move on since 1. There was not so much loss on the us side and not so much humiliation to speak of ; and 2. Us dropped 2 a bombs on japan.
Do some research on the event in1989. If u r objective enuf and openi ded enuf and have the mim ability to think out of the box the western media framed , u will realize that the government was quite liberally minded and had quite a high level of toleration, indeed.
Again to say the riots were sponsored by the state is as ridiculous as to blame the us government for the wtc on 9/11. It’s called paranoia. It’s stupid – plain and simple.
The ol’ young’un should take his heed of his own words of wisdom: he certainly hasn’t shown enough to suggest that he’d be capable of achieving much of anything.
BTW, the Falkland Islands aren’t uninhabited (and uninhabitable) rocks.
That said, I wouldn’t go as far as saying “state-sponsored”. After all, I am happy to stipulate that the protestors, though narrow-minded and bigoted, are there of their own volition. NK this isn’t. I wouldn’t interpret free eggs as sponsorship. That said, I’d easily go with “state-sanctioned” or “state-facilitated”, since the government clearly has the ability to stamp it out if they wanted to, and are choosing not to exercise it.
Yeah, state-facilitated is probably the best description of this. The Party feel that with the economy taking a nose dive, recent official abuses of power, the farce that was the Gu Kailai trial proving that “Rule of Law” in China is as mythical as Dragons and officials beating up women – people must need to let off a little steam.
I don’t even believe that those protests are facilitated by the government. Westerners are such ideologues that if the protests are allowed and they are not pro democracy ones , how can the ‘dictatorship’ allow it to proceed? You are the victims of your media’s brain washing.
Too much daily dose of “human riots activist, pro democracy fighter and most famous Chinese artist ai weiwei bla bla bla” will surely turn almost any innocent adolescent into a zealot , not so much different from any religious fundamentalist.
[…] a post titled, “China’s Anti-Japan Riots Are State-Sponsored. Period,” Charles Custer argues the point: The evidence that China is turning a blind eye to these protests is overwhelming. The absence of […]
The point, youngster, is if the CCP can stop any pro-democracy protests, why couldn’t they stop anti-Japanese protests?
Does this mean The Party is weakening?! Surely not!
There are many different voices. They are not monolithic as western media tend to let you believe. It is hard to believe that the central government encourages the protests. Do you guys just love pro democracy or anti- government protests? LOL. see you brain has been preconditioned to view the world in just black and white. Preaching democracy is in your genes but it is not in mine or most Chinese ones. I even doubt it is the right medicine for fixing the ills in contemporary china.
“I don’t even believe that those protests are facilitated by the government.”
—do you know what “facilitated” means?
“how can the ‘dictatorship’ allow it to proceed?”
—there is no question of “how can…”. The question is of intent. We know the CCP will quash pro-democracy protests, as it has the means and the will to do so. The means to quash a protest doesn’t vary with the type of protest, be it pro-democracy or anti-Japanese…it’s riot police, and in the case of 1989, tanks and live ammo. So the only variable is the will to use those means. That they lack the will to quash current anti-Japanese protests is in and of itself a willful act of omission. It’s really high time for you to acquire at least a rudimentary grasp of logic.
It’s also high time for you to stop simply regurgitating the usual catch-phrases that you guys memorize like the times tables, and actually engage your brain.
” It is hard to believe that the central government encourages the protests.”
—not hard at all. Guy throws egg/rock at Japanese embassy, flips over Honda and sets it on fire…and police do nothing. That guy has just been encouraged to continue doing the same thing, and other guys have just been encouraged to copy him. Simple as pie to comprehend…for most people.
“but it is not in mine or most Chinese ones”
—not in yours, that’s for sure. Not actually sure what you have for genes, and no desire to find out. But equally sure you’re not qualified to speak for “most Chinese”. Actually, THAT is one thing you guys are genetically inclined to do – trying to speak for people other than yourselves.
Song of the Article
Black Sabbath
-The Mob Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3yjnobolxM
[…] and more believe that the weekend anti-Japan protests in more than 80 cities are state sponsored. The arrest of three protesters in Shenzhen who were peacefully demonstrating in the middle of […]
[…] and more believe that the weekend anti-Japan protests in more than 80 cities are state sponsored. The arrest of three protesters in Shenzhen who were peacefully demonstrating in the middle of […]
Not good enough Comrade K
War Pigs – Black Sabbath.
Beijing Cream makes an even more interesting point that these anti-Japanese demos are extending to HK, and there is a place with a good deal of bad blood between it and the Mainland.
There was a huge discrepancy between the number of cops (and People’s Armed Police) in Beijing versus elsewhere, for obvious reasons. So i think the Global Times’ claim that there is no reason to suspect the authorities were “turning a blind eye” is basically true.
As you noted above, it’s clear that the authorities wanted these events to happen. But i actually think they were watching them very closely indeed. It seems to me that local authorities outside of Beijing simply weren’t given detailed instructions as to how to react.
I attended yesterday and, similarly to Eric, found the hundreds of cops in essentially a facilitation role, as documented here: http://southseaconversations.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/a-lazy-sunday-afternoon-at-the-beijing-anti-japan-protests/
Also, just another small but significant point: the editorial quoted by the NYT was a People’s Daily Online commentary, it was not “in the People’s Daily”.
The piece hasn’t been taken down, this link to it still works: http://opinion.people.com.cn/n/2012/0915/c1003-19018681.html
[…] are speculations that the government is encouraging the protests. Two ways it’s possible to see how the Chinese government could be supporting […]
Nodody can look oneself objectively. A mirror shows only feelings but truth. Histry is only useful to find what and how made it. But Chinise patriots seems to cut it to love or hate and have it to survive. And unfortunately, they have no goals like a TV-game showing no way after completed. If it were no enemy, they kill themselves.
Actually there has been some police response in Shenzhen:
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/09/17/raw-video-anti-japanese-protests-turn-violent/
Jasmine protests was an event where police had time to organise themselves beforehand, and the 1989 pro-democracy protests didn’t trigger a strong police response on the first day either. Tibet 2008, lots of destruction on the first day with little police intervention, and not because government sanctioned or sponsored it, they were just very slow to respond.
With pro-democracy events, police has got clear instructions to get everybody who looks like a protester off the street, and use as much violence as necessary to achieve that. In this case, however, peaceful protesters are allowed on the street, so police can’t respond with the same fierceness.
In comparison, how much was this riot “facilitated” by government? What was police more busy with: cordoning off the streets and channeling protesters or actively engaging with violent rioters?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332484/TUITION-FEES-PROTEST-London-streets-flames-25k-rampage.html
[…] speculation that the government is encouraging the protests — something that website China Geeks does a good job of explaining. Two ways it’s possible to see how the Chinese government could […]
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Custer, your little logic failed when you look at 1) there are protests against Japanese in Hong Kong (and those are same people who protest against Chinese patriotic history) and 2) there are Chinese Americans protests against Japanese in California. How do you explain that?
[…] As Charlie Custer wrote today, it’s hard to envision any of this happening without the tacit, and likely active, support of the government. Playing to the mob and turning it loose has never been a winning strategy. Hopefully the Chinese government sees that before it is forced to decide between compromising and thus potentially undermining its own legitimacy or a military adventure which would destabilize the region and undo decades of “Peaceful Rise” rhetoric. […]
Here in Tokyo the Japanese are calm but puzzled about all the hate wafting their way from the west. Here and there there are a few nationalists barking through loud speakers or holding signs but the vast majority – almost everyone, is just going on about their business. They read the stories about the wild-eyed Chinese in their newspapers and worry about their businesses in China but they are calm. The Ginza and the Meiji Shrine are full of wealthy Chinese here on shopping trips. They don’t seem to be bothered by the fuss back home. Every Japanese department store has friendly announcements in Chinese, Korean and English.
If I were Japanese I’d be worried about the crazies focusing all their hatred toward these islands. I don’t see how a war can’t be in the future.
[…] Chinageeks og Charles Custer sammenligner de anti-japanske med jasmin-protesterne i Kina i 2011 (eller manglen på samme) der var rettet mod den kinesiske regering, og hvor der derfor var bunker af betjente og stort set ingen demonstranter: But anyone who has followed domestic protests in China for even a short period of time should be clear on the fact that if it wants to, the government has the means to totally shut these protests down. They may have sent in the tanks back in ’89, but these days there are legions of trained riot police, People’s Armed Police, and other anti-protest forces. Every major city has them. If you think that China doesn’t have the law enforcement capability to totally shut down these riots, you’re delusional. If these were anti-government protests, not only would they not have carried on this long, but half the people in those photos would be in jail by now. Before the Jasmine protests (for example) police nationwide were literally arresting people just for considering going to the protests, not to mention people police thought might go. […]
Here in Hong Kong, the news footage (from Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen, three cities in southern Guangdong province) shows that once the protestors were blocked from causing physical damage to Japanese department stores, they turned their anger on the police, using chunks of broken pavement as projectiles. Police in military uniforms didn’t show up until dusk. At most, the police used tear gas, batons and water cannons to disperse some of the crowd. The amount of destruction of private property is considerable, especially if you consider that vandalism quickly gave way to looting.
People driving by on Japanese brand cars (all made in China, by the way) were also attacked, and there are photos showing a man who was killed for doing just that.
There were also anti-Japanese pro-Diaoyu Island protest marches in Hong Kong, but these were peaceful. One man burned Japanese and USA flags and was apprehended. That’s it.
I wonder if the Chinese communities and Chinatowns in Japanese cities were afraid of physical retaliation, but I’m willing to bet that they were all safe.
And what about Taiwan? Were there any protests in the island? Are they taking sides? From a geographical standpoint, Taiwan is the closest to the Diaoyus, but the people there don’t appear to care much…
Just updated the post with this, but I find it quite interesting, so will also add here: UPDATE: I have heard from several people who attended the Beijing protests that those were well-staffed with police and security. It does seem from photos and other evidence that the situation wasn’t the same in many other cities though, which would explain why there wasn’t much destruction in Beijing but there seems to have been elsewhere. I’m not sure why this is, but a Chinese friend emailed me a theory that I find very interesting. Make of it what you will:
@Eric I’ve seen NOTHING in my part of Taiwan. A huge number of the big businesses in this city are Japanese brands. We have Muji, Uniqlo, Nitori, Family Mart and any others you’d likely find in a big Asian city. Haven’t seen a thing and haven’t heard a thing.
@ Eric Tan: I believe Taiwan claims the Diaoyu/Senkakus as its own too, it just doesn’t have the muscle to make as big a stink about it as China. So if there were protests there, I wouldn’t expect them to be pro-PRC protests…
@ YoungIT: You need to come up with some actual support for your argument if you want to keep commenting here. “Westerners are brainwashed” is not an argument. In the post above, I have laid out quite a bit of evidence to support my theory that the riots are state-supported. If you don’t think that’s the case, you need to provide some evidence to the contrary, not just say “you guys r so biased lol!”
@ jim1980: Was there arson, rioting, or destruction of property in Hong Kong or the US? I’m not arguing that plenty of Chinese people aren’t genuinely angry at Japan. What I’m saying is there’s a reason people were only burning shit on the mainland and it is that the PRC government finds these sort of protests to be a welcome distraction from things it doesn’t want the general populace paying attention to, as long as they don’t get too crazy. (It seems they did cross the “too crazy” line over the weekend though, and will likely be shut down).
Here’s a theory for you….
Zhou Yongkang, head of PSB is easing off a little with the cops to show how much he is needed by the regime.
@ Chimerica War: That’s another interesting one!
“Was there arson, rioting, or destruction of property in Hong Kong or the US? I’m not arguing that plenty of Chinese people aren’t genuinely angry at Japan. What I’m saying is there’s a reason people were only burning shit on the mainland and it is that the PRC government finds these sort of protests to be a welcome distraction from things it doesn’t want the general populace paying attention to, as long as they don’t get too crazy. ”
By your logic, LA riots or other riots in US history must be sanctioned by US government since they don’t have enough polices to stop them in time. I guess that the riots in Mideastern regarding US films must be sanctions by those respective countries as well.
Funny… We tried organizing a pillow fight three years ago for 100 people and 60 cops showed up in Beijing. http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2008/03/25/No-Pillow-Fighting-in-Beijing
That would be your illogical take on Custer’s actual logic, jim1980.
@ jim1980: No, that’s not my logic, nor is it even a comparison that makes any sense. I am not arguing that all riots are sanctioned. What I am arguing is that when riots occur in a police state with huge numbers of trained riot police and other law enforcement that are ready to move at any time in case of anti-CCP protests, that probably indicates the government isn’t too upset about the rioting.
I highly doubt LA had the manpower or the training to deal with the LA riots immediately and effectively. But if you don’t think major Chinese cities don’t have that kind of manpower and training, you’re absolutely fooling yourself.
C. Custer,
“UPDATE: I have heard from several people who attended the Beijing protests that those were well-staffed with police and security.”
Since there is contradict evidence against your theory, by logic, your theory is null and void. Maybe title change is in order.
Furthermore, you have way too much faith in Chinese security force. Most local government are acting way independent of central government.