Tuesday, April 12, 2005

China and Japan

The Japanese were wrong in continuing to depict history wrongly in the textbooks for their students. But the violent Chinese demonstrators were also very wrong - their riots in the streets of Beijing and Shenzhen did not endear them to the world who saw them, on their TV sets, behaving like hooligans, pelting buildings with stones and bottles and overturning and damaging cars. Their demos would have got the message across better if they were peaceful but alas that was not to be. The Japanese ended up as the nice guys here.
On TV, some of the Chinese students spoke out against the Nanjing massacre which has been mostly denied by Japan. But one must not forget, that once upon a time, in Oct 1949, the Chinese invaded Tibet ruthlessly and hundreds, if not thousands, of Tibetans died in their struggles in years to come, against the marauders. Many Tibetans fled overseas and to-date China has yet to return Tibet to the Tibetans. The Chinese need to look inwards at themselves too.

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