Image source,CNS
The 31-year-old Jiang Fangzhou was admitted to Tsinghua University with a 60-point drop in the college entrance examination due to his writing skills and became famous when he was young.
Many Chinese intellectuals who had participated in relevant exchange programs of the Japanese government were caught in a whirlpool on social media. They were labelled “traitors” by Chinese netizens.
Chinese celebrities, including the well-known writer Jiang Fangzhou, have been invited and sponsored by the Japan Foundation for International Exchange to visit Japan in the past few years, but this is now causing them trouble. The Japan International Exchange Foundation is a cultural organization under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Its funding comes from government subsidies, investments and donations from the private sector.
This incident is the latest case in China’s increasingly fierce online “criticism” operation. Beijing tried to “fire” the storm. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday (June 9) that such exchanges of visits and exchanges “are common in the practice of international relations.”
Analysts told the BBC that in the context of the deteriorating relations between China and the West, the nationalist sentiment on the Internet in China has been heating up, and in many cases it has exceeded the “expected range” of the authorities, which in turn gave the Chinese government “a great deal” Big problem”.
Being scolded as a “traitor”
This incident originated from a performance evaluation report of the International Exchange Foundation published on the website of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The document shows that between 2008 and 2016, a total of 73 individuals and 71 group members were invited to Japan to visit and inspect projects.
“China has a considerable number of intellectuals who have strong influence in forums and media circles, but have weak relations with Japan,” the report reads. Therefore, the agency began a recruitment plan, “I hope that through contact with people from all walks of life in Japan, they will have the opportunity to experience Japanese society firsthand, and promote Chinese society’s understanding of Japan by publishing articles.”
The report mentioned Chinese writer Jiang Fangzhou, reporter Duan Hongqing, and associate professor Xiong Peiyun of Nankai University.
On Weibo, several influential nationalist accounts such as “Guyan Muchan” and “Dagua Xiong Lao Liu” dug up this report and reprinted it. They accused Jiang Fangzhou and other intellectuals of favoring Japan for economic benefits. , “Dwarfing China” while elevating Japan.
Both “Guyan Muchan” and “Dagua Xiong Lao Liu” have more than 6 million fans, which quickly ignited the anger of some Chinese netizens. On Weibo, there are more than 80 million hits on related topics. Among them, Jiang Fangzhou suffered the most verbal criticism.
Image source,Xinhua News Agency
The relationship between China and Japan has been ups and downs in recent years. In the later period of the Abe administration, there was some relief, but after Suga Yoshihide came to power, the Japanese government once again opposed Beijing on a number of issues.
“The imperial army betrayed the imperial consortium? … This mass admiration of Japan actually took the Japanese money!” commented a netizen. The Imperial Union Army was a Chinese armed force supported by Japanese invaders during World War II.
“Betrayed by (Japan) for real money, the labels of contemporary traitors can never be washed away,” another netizen criticized.
31-year-old Jiang Fangzhou was born in Hubei, China. With his writing skills, he was admitted to Tsinghua University, the highest university in China, with a score of 60 points and became famous when he was young. She subsequently wrote “Opening the Skylight” and “The True History of the Evil Child” and other books mainly aimed at teenagers.
According to reports, after accepting the invitation of the International Exchange Foundation to visit Japan in 2015, Jiang Fangzhou wrote his experience of living in Japan for one year as “Tokyo One Year” in August 2017. The book had issued 150,000 copies as of the end of the year.
Jiang Fangzhou refuted this allegation on Weibo, saying that her trip to Japan was only a cultural exchange activity, and that book publishing was “normal commercial publishing” and that the process from writing to publishing was “not related to the International Exchange Foundation”. The inviting party did not communicate at any level.
She said that the Japan Foundation for International Exchange paid her about 20,000 yuan a month for living expenses and research expenses, and there were no additional expenses. She then lived in Japan for a few months at her own expense.
“Japan committed crimes during World War II and has not apologized so far. This is unforgivable and unquestionable,” she added.
Image source,Getty Images
Over the past few decades, many Chinese people are still angry at the history of Japan’s invasion of China during World War II. Japanese far-right visits to the Yasukuni Shrine have triggered protests in China and South Korea every time.
The prevailing network “criticism”
After the turmoil continued to escalate, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs rarely tried to lower the tone of the dispute at a press conference.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday (June 9) that China and Japan are close neighbors, and the exchanges of personnel between the two countries are very close. The exchange of visits and exchanges between countries is “common” in the practice of international relations.
He said that the personnel exchanges between China and Japan promoted by government support are numerous and have made positive contributions to the development of relations between the two countries.
“China hopes to achieve the goal of enhancing understanding, building trust and deepening friendship through sustained, healthy and stable personnel exchanges between China and Japan,” he said.
Deng Yuwen, a researcher at the China Strategic Analysis Think Tank, believes that the controversial project is the widespread cultural exchanges between major powers. The Chinese government is doing the same thing. However, due to the poor relationship between China and Japan, public opinion “occupies the moral high ground. “This makes Beijing unable to refute directly, but can only cool down.
He believes that the increasingly radical nationalist sentiments of the Chinese people have often exceeded the “expected range” of the authorities and “present a big problem” for Beijing, which is enough to sound a warning bell for the authorities.
Image source,China Changan Net
Controversial post on the website of China’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission, China Changan.com
But the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper, who was originally known for inciting nationalist sentiments, was immediately criticized by netizens. Some netizens criticized him as a “fencer” (meaning someone who is not firm), and others accused him of “appearing patriotism, but in fact a traitor.”
In October last year, a member of the world-popular South Korean music group “BTS BTS” gave a speech at an online awards ceremony and mentioned the “history of suffering” between South Korea and the United States in the Korean War. It was also in China. Social media has set off a controversy of “humiliating China” and has been severely criticized.
Although Beijing and the Moon Jae-in government have maintained a relatively friendly relationship, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China responded to the matter in a low-key manner at a press conference, emotional netizens still vehemently criticized the Chinese brands that cooperated with the group and called for the group to be removed. song.
In another post, Hu Xijin admitted that the “increasing trend of online listings” on the Internet in China is squeezing the discourse space on the Internet. He urged everyone to appropriately relax the standards of “political correctness” and do nothing. Everything has to be found out with “sinister intentions.”
“Mutual advantage”
According to Deng Yuwen’s analysis, the patriotic public opinion between the Chinese government and the people used to be a “mutual use relationship”. Since the West will also use private public opinion to pressure China, the Chinese government also hopes to use the voice of the people to express its tough policy to the West. “It echoes the sentiments of the people.” Some private opinion leaders “see patriotism as a kind of business.”
“The problem is that once the government releases the signal of nationalism, it cannot completely control the public opinion. Because the public opinion will definitely occupy the moral high ground under the banner of political correctness,” Deng Yuwen told the BBC.
He said that the continuous development of this kind of folk nationalist sentiment may cause the government to “set fire.”
From “hiding one’s capacity and biding time” to “working hard”, how much should Western countries worry about China’s rise?
Earlier this month, several nationalist social media accounts in China issued a statement stating that the Italian prime minister “recognized for the first time that the epidemic in Italy was half a year earlier than China” and cited a report by the so-called Italian Radio and Television Corporation (RAI).
This triggered protests from the Italian government. The Italian Embassy in China issued a statement stating that the content of the article concerning the Italian prime minister was “completely a lie” and “without any basis.” The Chinese Embassy in Italy also issued a statement calling on the majority of netizens not to “misbelieve or misrepresent such false information.”
As the relationship between China and major Western countries has rapidly deteriorated in recent years, the famous “wolf war” style has dominated China’s diplomacy in recent years, and the network supervision department has also strengthened supervision of China’s domestic public opinion. A large number of government critics and liberals Intellectuals were banned or banned.
On May 31 this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping admitted in a collective study in the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee that China’s diplomatic approach, which is full of nationalist sentiments, has not been warmly welcomed. He hoped that China would make friends in the international community.
“We must pay attention to grasp the tone, be open, confident and humble, and strive to create a credible, lovely, and respectable image of China,” Xi Jinping said.