Eric's Beijing Diary

Gerald Curtis from Columbia University was on Dialogue this morning, talking about the relationship between Japan and China. He reiterated the point I made in my previous post: Fukuda's popularity rating should not be taken as a direct measure of the value of the Japan--China relationship. I guess you have to have lived in China for the past five years to really appreciate the sea change that the current warming represents. When I first came to China, I was not really surprised to hear people say, "we hate Japanese," because I knew the history. But after awhile, I began to notice that many of the people who were making that statement really didn't know much about the history. The relentless programming of an attitude of resentment on CCTV began to wear on me. After Koizumi left office, there was hope that the new leader would abandon the provocative practice of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. And China needs a relationship with Japan, a country which has no problem regarding Tibet as part of the Chinese sphere.