20130812

Lewis: "Global Times" wishes to cool down

Written By Lewis
Translated By Chen-t'ang

The editorial of Global Times (GT), the Party's mouthpiece, is very popular in China, because comparing to the People's Daily, GT is playing a more radical, nationalistic and hawk-style pioneer role.
After the faith of Communism has fallen, "nationalism" has become the common language between CCP and Chinese people. GT absorbs the atmosphere of Mao's times, creating a feeling of containment of foreign aggression, and the thought "US Imperialist will not cease from their wild ambition to subjugate China" is still bought.
The hidden meaning is promoting unity for Chinese people against foreign aggression under CCP.

GT commented the July 1st protest in HK, pointing out CCP shall act commonly towards opposition voices in HK and shall avoid "interact once by once" with them;
on 30th July, the Japanese vice foreign minister visited China and hoped to have a Sino-Japanese summit conference, and GT has similar thoughts as before.
The editorial said China shall give a cold shoulder to Japan's diplomatic action, and needs not to improve Sino-Japanese relationship that quickly.
Its 'standpoint' is that the strength of China is greater than that of Japan: "Japan dares not to confront China traditionally in terms of strength, which is growing weaker and weaker,
and they cannot afford the political cost of doing so."

It is not uncommon to see these cocky tones on GT, yet such discourse is not encouraging "premature foreign policy", but rather encouraging a spritual victory with nationalistic characteristics, and not a war between China and Japan.
In fact, the State Council of China is determined to audit the indebtedness of local governments, showing the high risk of burst in economic and social order, and thus China cannot afford to start a war.
Japan has so much moves, using little tactics to confront China, showing CCP's incompetence as they show no, or a few, responses. So GT is not actually spreading hawk-style thoughts but rather cooling off for CCP: the CCP government is having a smart move while holding still! CCP leaders are like having a chess purposefully,
using the name of nationalism to cool off the fire of nationalism.

Because the CCP knows that the controversy on the East China Sea is a double-edge sword: if well-controlled, it could be a "nationalistic viagra"; but otherwise the CCP's tolerance would be chicken.
The education of CCP creates a generation deeply impacted by "nationalistic passion", and there could always be side-effects. So the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands activists are always, or mostly organised by official organisations.
If there are activists who are not willing to "cooperate", CCP will crack them down.

Lots of analysis says that the "lost temper" of China is similar to that of Japan and Germany before WWII. When the myth of communist giant has fallen, China has nothing but the aggrieved feeling of "the entire world has wronged us",
and this in turn has become the foundation of foreign aggression. In China, similar thoughts are widely popular. Unlike People's Daily, which the public would not treat it seriously, GT is truely acclaimed by the Chinese public.
CCP knows its status, but the 'angry youths' are 'passionate' irrespective of the status of China. The impact of extremist rightists in Japan are not that great, but there are a lot of Chinese angry youths. Why does some hot-blooded local middle-age only assume Japan as the sole militarism country?

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