Anti-Japanese rallies and national interest in Shanghai

James Farrer, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Shanghai

One of the more surprising aspects of the recent series of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China was the role played by Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city.

The experience of Shanghai in dealing with nationalistic sentiments may offer a case study of the constraints that a globalized city's well-being imposes over narrow nationalistic pulls. For the time-being the Chinese and foreign stakeholders in global Shanghai have succeeded in containing the damage but questions remain about the future.

As sociologist Saskia Sassen argues, a few major cities are key centers in processes of globalization, including flows of foreign labor. The largest center of foreign investment in China, Shanghai has overt ambitious of becoming China's "global city."

When Shanghai students and office workers marched into the consular district on April 16, destroying signs and shop windows and shouting "Japanese out of China!" -- both they and the Chinese government seemed willing to risk those global commitments for the nationalist cause. A closer look, however, reveals a more moderate politics shaped as much by local concerns as nationalist sentiment.

Within the protest itself, participants voiced four dominant discourses. The loudest voice was a simple patriotism of flag waving and patriotic songs. The second and harshest voice was an unreflective Japan-bashing with little political content; common insults included "Japanese devils" and "Down with Japan." The third discourse was a political argument against right-wing nationalism in Japan. Many protesters argued that the textbook revision and visits by Japanese government officials to the Yasukuni shrine were grounds for opposing Japan's membership on the UN Security Council.

A fourth distinctive discourse was a self-consciously moderate internationalism, which was evident in posters praising Germany for its admission of war guilt, and even a willingness to cooperate with Japan. When asked why they opposed Japan, a mixed group of students and young workers strongly disagreed with the phrasing of the question. One replied, "We are not against the Japanese people or against Japan." Another protester showed a reporter that he was wearing a John Lennon t-shirt. "John Lennon was married to a Japanese," he said, "so I am not against all Japanese."

Local government reactions also showed conflicting pressures between national and local interests. The day before the protest, the Shanghai City Public Security Bureau used SMS messages and other media to discourage participation. On the ground, however, they facilitated the protests by allowing protesters to take over a city block and surround the Japanese consulate.

This passive strategy was aimed not to promote destruction, but rather to limit conflict between the police and the protesters. Damaged relations with the local Japanese community were less a worry than provoking anti-government sentiments among students.

While these tactics conformed to the national government's political priorities, they were a substantial setback for municipal Shanghai's global aspirations. The day after the protest, the municipal government went into damage control mode, contacting shop owners whose property was destroyed and providing forms to claim compensation (though not specifying how much would be paid and when). The head of Shanghai's Foreign Affairs Office met with the Japanese consulate general and expressed regret for property damage. Therefore, while the Chinese national government publicly denied any need to apologize or compensate for the protests, the Shanghai city government moved quickly.

By the next weekend, Shanghai media painted the protests as an illegal riot that had "damaged the image of the city."

The initial reactions of the local foreign community shared this split between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Although few foreigners in Shanghai worried about their immediate safety, many felt that by allowing violence against foreign property, the police had set a dangerous precedent for future demonstrations. Japanese residents were alarmed and angry but said they were planning to stay.

Their local ties to Shanghai outweighed national rivalries, and Japanese companies could not afford to pull out. For instance, Teruo Katayama, a Kyoto native whose popular restaurant suffered US$40,000 in direct damages quickly reopened on April 28th to the personal encouragement of loyal Japanese customers and the assurances of local policemen.

Japanese and other foreigners in the city remain committed to the vision of a cosmopolitan Shanghai despite doubts about government protections during any future political crisis.

As China's rising global city, this Shanghai story also has implications for understanding the politics of globalization more generally. Political motives cannot be reduced simply to a story of narrow local and nationalist loyalties versus globally oriented economic interests; we should also take into account the local cosmopolitanism developing in key polities such as Shanghai, creating mixed loyalties which -- at least in peaceful times -- may moderate more radical expressions of national sentiment.

James Farrer is Associate Professor of Sociology at Sophia University in Tokyo and visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai for the 2005 academic year. He researches youth culture China and Japan, and the foreign communities in Shanghai and Tokyo. Reprinted with permission from YaleGlobal Online, (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu)