Tohoku Earthquake and Nipponophobia

Ten days after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami struck the Tohoku region of Japan; the country is still suffering from the devastating effects of nature’s wrath and the on-going nuclear power plant crisis. Prime Minister Naoto Kan described the situation as Japan’s worst crisis since the Second World War.

Standard & Poor’s and IHI Global Insight said that the cost of 3/11 to Japan is around $150 to $200 billion and Japan’s real GDP growth this year could be cut by 0.2%–0.5%. Staggering sad economic loss it is indeed but the loss of people’s lives estimated to be around 15,000 is the one that brings great grief to the Japanese people. I bow my head as I express my most sincere sympathies to my Japanese friends and to the Japanese people.

In the spirit of sympathy and solidarity, China and Philippines have offered aid to Japan. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami, both Philippine President Benigno Aquino III  and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered their deep sympathy and solidarity as well as humanitarian and financial assistance to Japan.

A Chinese search-rescue-and-relief team immediately arrived in Japan and the Chinese government have donated $4.5 million. Premier Wen has also reiterated that China stands ready to provide more assistance to the Japanese people if they would need it. On the part of the Philippine government, it has send its own assistance team to Japan and has offered $14 million financial aid to Japan. In addition to the government-to-government level assistance, countless number of Filipinos and Chinese people has also offered financial and humanitarian assistance to Japan.

The helping hand extended by China and Philippines in this most trying time for Japan has a special weight given the three countries history of conflict. Nearly seven decades had passed since the war erupted in the Far East but anti-Japanese sentiment also known as Nipponophobia is still present in China and Philippines. But while Nipponophobia is greatly waning in the Philippines it is still persistent in China. Based on the 2010 BBC Poll on 25 countries with Nipponophobia, China ranked #1 while the Philippines ranked #25.

Why is it that Chinese have a deep-seated resentment against Japan? How is the Sendai earthquake playing a part in the melting the anti-Japanese attitude among the Chinese? How could it be that Filipinos have become the country with the least anti-Japanese sentiment as per BBC Poll considering that Philippines was severely destroyed during the brutal Japanese colonization?

Chinese people’s Nipponophobia traces back to its history of wars and post-war disputes. The defeat of Qing Dynasty by Meiji Empire over the possession of Korea during the First China-Japan War (1894 – 1895) started the ill feelings of Chinese towards the Japanese. The anti-Japanese sentiment among Chinese was even more intensified during the devastating Second China-Japan Conflict & War (1931 – 1945) where an estimated 20 million Chinese perished. The Rape and Murder of Nanking (1937) War is considered by Chinese historians as the single event that old and present-day generation Chinese would always refer to as to their justification of their deep-seated Nipponophobia. To this day wartime events are major point of contention between China and Japan. Many Chinese are still harbouring grudges over the war and related issues.

The ruling party of China – the Communist Party of China have obviously used this sentiment among the Chinese people to spur patriotism and nationalism and allegiance to the government. Not a day has passed here in China when I cannot watch on television the wartime struggle and drama of the Chinese people. Chinese schools and media have become effective tools of the government to inculcate a strong sense of history among the Chinese people.

I remember a Chinese student who has waited for me after I deliver a lecture on history and foreign languages in Mainland China last year. He told me “Yesterday after watching a documentary on the Second World War, I felt anger towards Japan because of what they did in Nanking.” I politely told the young Chinese that he should put his ideas about Japan in a proper perspective. But some Chinese can be so obsessed with Nipponophobia that it already borders to insanity. I remember an incident in Beijing several years ago, a Filipino family on vacation in Beijing was hacked to death by an anti-Japanese man. The criminal (executed by firing squad by PRC) mistakenly thought the Filipinos as Japanese.

The unfortunate calamity that befell upon Japan last March 11^th is now appearing to melt down the deep-seated Nipponophobia among the Chinese. In an unprecedented event in China-Japan relations, the Japanese government have accepted China’s quick of offer of aid and assistance. On a people-to-people level, millions of Chinese have opened their hearts and wallets to help the Japanese. Hours after 3/11, a record of 12 million Chinese bloggers in sina.com have echoed in a matter of few minutes its sympathy and solidarity with the suffering of the Japanese people. In Chinese universities many Chinese student leaders are encouraging students to be part in helping the victims of 3/11.

Prof. Lim Taiwei of the University of Hong Kong said that the sheer enormity of the 3/11 is transcending differences between China and Japan and symbolically this is very important in improving the pace of China-Japan relations.

Considering the same fate Filipinos and Chinese have had with the Japanese during the Second World War, the Filipinos more forgiving to its former colonizer and forgetful to the horrors their country faced during those fateful wartime years. Today, the Philippines, its government and its people are considered to have unantagonistic relations with Japan. As per BBC Poll on anti-Japanese sentiment shows Filipino people as the least Nipponophobic.

Anti-Japanese sentiment among Filipinos was at its peak a few years after World War II. An estimated 1 million Filipinos, of a wartime population of 17 million perished. Manila, the erstwhile premier city and business capital of Southeast Asia was burned to ashes. Its people massacred and raped by the brutal colonizers.  Prof. Jose Trota of the University of the Philippines said “Every Filipino family was hurt by the war on some level.”

If every Filipino family was hurt by the war how come Filipinos have a very friendly attitude towards Japan? Manila-based journalist Carlos Conde wrote in International Herald Tribune in November 2005 “If the war destroyed 80% of the Philippine economy, its consequences – the war reparations, the ensuing relationship between Manila and Tokyo, the Cold War, the rise of Ferdinand Marcos, who exploited Japan’s postwar penitence and benevolence and almost single-handedly repaired relations with the Japanese – damaged Filipinos even further, diminishing their sense of pride and their ability to appreciate their past and learn from it. World War II left the Philippines damaged long after it ended. This damage defines the modern Filipino: poor and lost, perpetually wandering the globe for economic survival bereft of national pride.”

In contrast with the Chinese government, the Philippines government failed to inculcate among the Filipinos especially among its young people a strong sense of history. I remember, when I was a student in Manila, I find many school textbooks short of information and stories about the Second World War and the Philippines. To satisfy my curiosity I have to go to libraries or buy books just to satisfy my curiosity. In fact, the Contrast it to Chinese students who are reminded every now and then of the horrors of the war inside the classroom and portrayed on TV dramas. If in the Philippines, Koreanovelas are on primetime TV; In China, the conflict and war of 1931 to 1945 as portrayed in numerous TV drama is a regular show as far as I can remember. Honestly, it sometimes annoys me.

While I both personally dislike the highly critical sentiment of most Chinese and the very favourable attitude of most Filipinos towards the Hapones or Ribenren(Tagalog and Mandarin for Japanese), I commend the Chinese and the Philippine government and its people for their great compassion towards the Japanese people after the 3/11 nature’s wrath. May this act of goodwill towards one another continue on even after the tragedy of 3/11. It may be the worst in mother nature but it certainly brought out the best in human nature.

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Sun, a Filipino based in China, writes PH.CN on ProPinoy, a weekly column on Philippines-China relations, politics, history, and current events. He studied Political Science, History, and Foreign Languages in Philippines and China. Follow him on Twitter @phdotcn