hankyoreh

By Park Min-hee, Beijing correspondent

Portraits of Mao Zedong seemed to be dancing in every direction. It was Sept. 18, the peak of the protests in China against Japan’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands (the Diaoyu Islands in China), and a huge stage had been erected in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Toting big portaits of the "Great Helmsman" and placards with such bloodthirsty slogans as "Open fire on Japan" and "Kill the Japanese bastards," demonstrators marched in teams a few hundred strong, while security police "directed" them at the front of the ranks. It was an unusual spectacle to say the least.

The ones holding pictures of Mao praised him as a "powerful leader" and a "hero in the resistance against Japan." It was baffling to see the same man whose Great Leap Forward and Culture Revolution took tens of millions of lives making this sort of comeback in the hearts of the Chinese.

Maoism may indeed be the single most powerful religion in China today. As rage against widespread corruption, income inequality, and injustice combines with anxieties over an economy that is losing steam by the day, people in China have been turning to their old leader. In his book "China in Ten Words," Yu Hua writes that the many problems that emerged after development may be "precisely why Mao keeps being brought back to life." A dangerous combination, fed by discontent with reality, is taking shape between China's left wing and patriots, who are presenting nostalgia for the Mao days as some kind of alternative.

In Japan, we can also find shadows reminiscent of this growing Sinocentrism. The latest round of friction was touched off by Japan's far right, which irresponsibly exploited a territorial issue in the hopes of winning political points. Having lost their way amid a Fukushima nuclear crisis, an economy mired in quicksand, an aging society, and the disgruntlement of young people robbed of opportunity, these right-wingers have derided the Peace Constitution and any kind of reflection on history, and are working to promote a sense of nostalgia for the glories of the militarist [imperial] era.

Japan's right-winger par excellence may be Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, whose declaration of the Senkaku Islands' nationalization back in April hinted at the conflict to come. History shows that Japan's acquisition of Okinawa and the Senkaku Islands in 1885 was the result of expansionist incursions. The Cold War order that the US built in Northeast Asia after the Second World War is what left the potential for territorial disputes over Dokdo and the Senkaku Islands. Even after this latest development, it is difficult to find any words of reflection in Japan - anyone willing to say that the claims of dominion over Senkaku are tied to a history of invasion, or that the situation worsened because of the breaking of an implicit agreement at the time Tokyo and Beijing established relations.

Meanwhile, far right-leaning former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a man who denies that comfort women were forcibly mobilized, is considered likely to win reelection. East Asia is now under threat from the Chinese left and the Japanese right, both of whom are turning to nostalgia rather than tackling their real issues. The Senkaku conflict is just a symptom of a deeply rooted problem of multiple contradictions and political confusion in both countries.

The situation is becoming riskier still with the US and China's battle for the future. It's no coincidence that conflicts over islands have been intensifying all over Asia recently. Having spent decades with command of its seas in US hands due to its own weak navy, China is now demanding an equal footing in the Asia-Pacific region.

Washington, for its part, hopes to take full advantage of this complex skein of territorial dispute to hem Beijing in. China and Japan may be the ones clashing now, but any one of the region's nations, South Korean included, could be sucked into the vortex at any moment.

Two pasts and two futures are colliding right now around the Korean Peninsula. It is a dangerous situation.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]