Southern Weekend
Original 2011-08-11
In the eyes of the government, labor export to Japan is an effective means of promoting the development of overseas Chinese. However, the people believe that laboring in Japan is an inferior job and not a decent one. Some Fangzheng women have married in Japan through relatives or intermediaries, but they are not recognized by people in their hometowns.
Southern Weekend reporter Qin Xuan intern Fang Shuo
Editor: Shi Zhe Intern Mei Lan
The total deposits in Fangzheng County are about 5 billion yuan, and the amount remitted to their hometowns by Fangzheng people in Japan is close to 4 billion yuan, which is more than the GDP of Fangzheng in 2010.Another figure that can be referred to is that the annual financial income of Fangzheng in 2010 was 223 million yuan.
In the 1990s, the Japanese government specifically provided ODA assistance programs for Fangzheng County, and when Japanese Ambassador Yuji Miyamoto visited Fangzheng in 2008, he also expressed his intention to promote cooperation in the Heilongjiang region. However, Founder County government officials told reporters that there is not a single Japanese wholly-owned enterprise in Founder County at present.
The Pathfinder Directory Wall was covered with a green canvas on Aug. 5, as can be seen from outside the park. (Zhang Hongwei/Photo)
On the night after the CPAF awarded prizes to five people who went to Fangzheng County, Heilongjiang Province, to “smash the monument”, the government of Fangzheng County dismantled the wall of names of those who died in the Japanese Pilot Corps. The wall was inaugurated on July 25, 2011, and was removed on August 5, 2011, after more than ten days of existence.
After the wall was completed, it was reported by the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, and the news was transferred to the country to be interpreted as a monument to the Japanese invaders, which provoked public anger. Since August 3, people from abroad have been protesting at the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden in Founder County, where the wall is located. Although the local government explained the erection of the wall through the media, it was arrogant, and was even more reluctant to dismantle it, merely announcing on its official microblogging site that it had “dealt with it”. Immediately after, the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun criticized China’s anti-Japanese sentiment over the removal of the wall.
The construction and demolition of Founder County, with a population of only 260,000, made it nationally famous. Fierce nationalists called Fangzheng County a “traitor county”, and Southern Weekend reporters in Fangzheng County repeatedly heard rumors of discrimination against people from Fangzheng County in foreign countries, including Fangzheng County people being refused accommodation.
Wang Weixin, head of the Foreign Affairs Office of Fangzheng County, initially responded to civilian skepticism on his official microblog, saying that the purpose of building the wall was to make the world reflect on the dangers of war and cherish the preciousness of peace. But apparently things have not gone as planned.
The Past and Present of the Wall of Fame
On the morning of August 6, late protesters were granted permission to enter the park. Only shovelfuls of fresh earth remained where the wall of lists once stood. Protesters took pictures and set off firecrackers in front of the ruins. At noon, the local government, in the name of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Founder County People’s Government, posted a closure notice at the entrance to the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden. In the evening, including the two vice governor, including more than ten local officials came to the garden on duty. When the reporter tried to go up for an interview, an official frowned and asked his colleagues to keep silent.
Contrary to online rumors, there were in fact two walls inaugurated at the same time on July 25, one being the “monument” rumored to be a memorial to the Pioneer Corps deceased, and the other being the wall of Chinese adoptive parents, which still stands behind the Chinese Adoptive Parents Cemetery.
In addition to the names of the people involved, both walls are inscribed with a preface. Pioneering Corps directory wall of the preface outlines the history, clear history as a lesson; adoptive parents directory wall preface to the Chinese adoptive parents to adopt the orphans of the Pioneering Corps to be recognized. Local officials told this reporter that the two walls are very careful in the use of words, the Japanese directory used “deceased”, while the Chinese adoptive parents used “deceased” to show the difference. The two walls of the preamble to the people’s government of Founder’s County.
Construction of the two walls began about a month ago. A local stone businessman told reporters that the two walls used stone size is very large, not locally produced, materials plus construction, not more than 400,000, and rumors online only pioneering directory wall of the expenses of 700,000 yuan.
From the controversy over the construction of the wall until its demolition, the local government’s external explanation rarely mentioned the project and approval process. The only disclosure was on August 3, the night the Pioneer Corps directory wall was smashed, Wang Weixin said on the official microblog of Fangzheng County that the wall had been reported to the People’s Government of Fangzheng County in 2007, and finally approved by the State Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be built.
The State Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not made any public response to the matter by press time. According to the Southern Weekend reporter, on May 10, 2011, Tong Baogang, secretary of the county party committee of Founder County, county governor Liu Jun led a delegation to visit the Consulate General of Japan in Shenyang, and brought Founder County for the East Japan Earthquake donations of 100,000 yuan, during which time, had mentioned to the consulate the establishment of a wall of lists.
Guo Xiangsheng, a folk expert on the history of the Pioneer Corps in Fangzheng County, said the local foreign affairs office had discussed writing a preface with him four months ago.
Reporters in the official website of Founder County to find “according to Founder County National Economic and Social Development Twelfth Five-Year Plan” (discussion draft), the outline mentioned: these years Founder has formed a “one main two wings” of the overseas Chinese development model. That is: to protect and develop the landmark attractions to Japan as the basis, by deepening the feelings of China and Japan, and then drive the labor export and investment in Japan “two wings fly” economic development model.
The Lotus Festival of Founder County is celebrated on July 28th every year. Wall of lists inaugurated on the eve of the Founder’s County Lotus Festival. Japanese Consul General in Shenyang Matsumoto Morio went to Founder’s County to participate in the Lotus Festival, and visited the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden. Japan’s “asahi shimbun” then reported on this, became the trigger for the monument incident.
Although it is impossible to rule out the involvement of Japanese civic associations, according to the reporter, the Japanese government has not provided funding for the construction of the wall, nor has it provided information support for the directory. Meanwhile, the Overseas Chinese Chamber of Commerce (OCC), a civil society organization in Founder’s Prefecture, has also stated that it is not involved in the matter.
Japanese language training schools can be found everywhere in Founder’s County, with several segments of banners hanging in front of one school celebrating the visa granted to a chef going to Japan. (Qin Xuan/Photo)
Historical memory is also “sequential”.
After the wall of lists triggered civil emotions, Founder’s County emphasized the special historical memory that the Anti-Japanese War brought to Founder’s County as the basis for the legitimacy of the local construction of the wall. Officials in Fangzheng County claimed that the construction of the wall does not deviate from a correct understanding of history and is in line with China’s diplomatic approach to Japan. However, Founder County’s historical memory is a bit heavy-handed.
There are three kinds of monuments related to that period of history in Fangzheng County, in addition to the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden Monument Complex, there is also the Resistance Monument in Daluomi Township of Fangzheng County, as well as the Monument to the Red Army of the USSR in the east of Fangzheng County. However, compared with the best-protected and most elegantly constructed Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden Monument Group, the Resistance Monument is remote and lonely, and the Soviet Red Army Monument can only be accompanied by barren grass and shit. As for the ordinary people who were persecuted by both the Japanese invaders and the Soviet liberators, only a few words are mentioned in the local history.
In the official narrative of Founder’s County, the Chinese-Japanese Friendship Garden Monument Group, which corresponds to Japanese orphans in China, receives unusual attention.
The Pioneering Corps were armed colonists introduced into the pseudo-Manchurian region by Japan from within the country and were dependent on the Japanese Kwantung Army. After the surrender of Japan, tens of thousands of colonists from the North Manchuria region were cut off from returning to Japan due to the conditions, and a considerable number of them gathered in the Founder’s area. These people became refugees, and most of those who survived were women and children.
In order to survive, many Japanese women married Chinese men in Founder’s County. According to historical records, many of them were ransomed. Children, on the other hand, were adopted by families in Founder County. This history is regarded by the local government as an expression of the humanitarian spirit of the Chinese residents.
After 1949, through the Red Cross, the Japanese survivors in Founder’s County were able to communicate with Japan and a small number were able to return home. Since then, this special group of survivors has been a part of Sino-Japanese diplomacy, and in 1963, Zhou Enlai instructed the construction of a Japanese cemetery in Founder’s Prefecture for the remains of Pioneer Corps members found in the area. The tomb’s headstone does not include a list of the deceased. However, Guo Xiangsheng said he had not found the document in the government archives that Zhou Enlai had authorized the construction of the cemetery.
In the 1980s, the Japanese Cemetery in the Asan area was moved to the Japanese Cemetery in the Founder area, and a Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden was formed around the two cemeteries. 1986, with the approval of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a reception room was constructed next to the cemetery, and two year-round management and caretakers were set up to make it easier for Japanese people to pay tribute to their loved ones.
Since then, Founder’s County has become the only county in the country with a Japanese cemetery and has become a special pawn in Sino-Japanese diplomacy.
The Official Impulse to Construct Historical Memory
The suddenness of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden is obviously not only due to the Sino-Japanese relationship. In recent years, Founder’s County’s greatest economic gain has come from this special history.
After the reform and opening up, a large number of Japanese survivors returned home with their relatives, opening the channel between Founder County and Japan, driving the county’s labor export to Japan and immigration. After more than thirty years, to date, Fangzheng County 260,000 people, more than 10% in Japan, forming Fangzheng County’s overseas Chinese characteristics.
Fangzheng County belongs to Harbin, the county’s economy is mainly based on agriculture, industrial and mining industry is not developed, no railroads and water transportation, the economic achievements of the past few years almost all rely on the Japanese Fangzheng people. The total amount of deposits in the bank of Founder County is 5 billion, and the Founder people in Japan contributed nearly 4 billion, which is more than the GDP of Founder in 2010, and the other figure that can be referred to is that the annual revenue of Founder in 2010 is 223 million.
The Founder’s County Overseas Chinese Chamber of Commerce told the Southern Weekend reporter that in recent years, the development of Founder’s County, the Chinese overseas Chinese accounted for a considerable portion of the funds.
As a result, the slogan of creating the characteristics of a hometown of overseas Chinese has been realized as an actual project of the local government this year. 2008 saw the construction of a Japanese-style street in the northern part of the downtown area of Founder’s Prefecture. The following year, the prefecture requested that all street stores add Japanese names to their plaques.
In addition to the construction of the wall to build official historical memory, Founder County also has a series of overseas Chinese projects, including the Overseas Chinese Elementary School, the Overseas Chinese International City project, and in May, CTS Weihao Film & TV Culture Development Co. Ltd. signed a contract with Founder County to film a TV series about the Japanese Pioneering Corps and overseas Chinese subjects. Retrieved from the Founder County government website, the project also includes the establishment of offices in Japan, the establishment of reflecting the Japanese style, with overseas Chinese landmarks, as well as organizing the first Sino-Japanese Friendship Founder Forum and so on. This work has also attracted research from Heilongjiang Province.
Indeed, the status of the Japanese Remnant issue in Sino-Japanese relations also heated up in 2011. In 2007, the year in which Founder’s County applied for the construction of the wall of lists, a series of events related to the survivors took place. In February of that year, a historical documentary book, Japanese Orphans in China, was published under the auspices of China’s Foreign Propaganda Office, and in April, Premier Wen Jiabao, during his visit to Japan, mentioned in a speech to the Japanese Diet that Japanese orphans had been assisted in China, as well as a reference to the Chinese adoptive parents’ cemetery in Founder’s Prefecture.
China’s official stance on orphans has been echoed by the Japanese side, with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda receiving representatives of the orphans in China at the end of 2007. one month later, in January 2008, Japanese Ambassador to China Yuji Miyamoto visited the cemetery in Founder’s County and inscribed a message of benevolence and love.
What are the economic benefits of feelings?
In the official narrative of Founder’s Prefecture, the local people “returned kindness” to the Japanese orphans and received their gratitude. The most officially honored are the personal stories of Isamu Endo, an orphan, and the Japanese farmers Nagasaku Fujiwara and Fukuda Arima. Among them, Fujiwara Nagasaku and Arima Fukuda were not orphans, but had made remarkable contributions to the improvement of rice cultivation in Founder’s County with gratitude, and six years after Fujiwara Nagasaku’s death, the Founder’s County government erected a monument to his memory in the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden. In the commentary of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden, Fujiwara Nagasaku is referred to as a famous Japanese rice expert.
Isamu Endo, as an orphan, had organized donations for China’s disaster relief efforts and built the tomb of his Chinese adoptive parents in the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden, which is the same name as the monument to his Chinese adoptive parents in Shenyang. Isamu Endo’s adoptive parents and a dozen other Chinese adoptive parents are buried in the tomb, but the names of these adoptive parents are not indicated.
During the visit, the reporter asked local officials how Isamu Endo persuaded the Chinese relatives of his adoptive parents to agree to bury the bones with others without erecting tombstones or engraving their names. Local officials said this is a humanitarian performance of the people of Founder.
Guo Xiangsheng, who has long been engaged in research on orphans, said the idea of building tombstones for the bones in the cemetery had previously been mentioned by orphans, but was not implemented.
In the 1990s, the Japanese government specifically provided ODA assistance programs for Fangzheng County, and when Japanese Ambassador Yuji Miyamoto visited Fangzheng in 2008, he also expressed his intention to promote cooperation in the Heilongjiang region. However, Fangzheng County government officials told reporters that there is not a Japanese wholly-owned enterprises in Fangzheng County. Obviously, the economic benefits of the emotional card are doubtful.
A private citizen engaged in overseas Chinese affairs in Fangzheng County told reporters that the sentiments of the descendants of the orphans towards Fangzheng County were weakening, and that the second and third generations of Japanese orphans, or those who had lived in Japan for a long period of time, had no personal experience of the situation of their forefathers more than 60 years ago. Fangzheng County, “national economic and social development of the twelfth five-year plan” (discussion draft) has also been mentioned in the war orphans as the main body of the traditional overseas Chinese resources are facing shrinkage, and its conclusion is precisely that “the core overseas Chinese resource sites need to be strengthened”.
In fact, Fangzheng folk understanding of Japanese relations is not the same as the official understanding of the diaspora. The outbreak of the “smashing monument” incident, the reporter heard a lot of street complaints. In the eyes of the government, labor export to Japan is an effective means of promoting the development of overseas Chinese. But the people think, go to Japan to do labor are inferior work, not decent. Part of the Fangzheng women through relatives or intermediaries to marry in Japan, but also not recognized by the people in their hometown.
The blood relationship with Japan has not resulted in a cultural exchange on a large scale in Founder. On the surface, the vast majority of plaques in the main streets of Founder’s County have Japanese characters on them. In fact, in the plaque appears bilingual more in the cultural exchanges of the crossroads, especially the border towns, which is accompanied by the phenomenon of multicultural symbiosis, but Fangzheng County, the only Japanese restaurant has been closed down a few years ago, and the streets marked with plaques in stark contrast. Interestingly, this reporter saw Korean imports in several supermarkets, but was unable to find a store specializing in Japanese goods.
The most accurate illustration of the county’s relationship with Japan in Founder’s County is the Japanese language training schools that are everywhere. This reporter has seen several three-meter banners hanging in front of one school, all celebrating the visa granted to a so-and-so chef from so-and-so township who went to Japan.
In 2008, the government of Founder County to build about 500 meters long Japanese style street. According to the reporter’s observation, the street lacks of Japanese flavor, but also did not form a commercial scale. Every night at 5 o’clock, more than half of the stores on the street has been closed.
Until last year, the overseas Chinese in Japan to the positive performance of the investment in the end. 2010 the end of the year, Founder County, the establishment of the Chamber of Commerce of overseas Chinese, the Chamber of Commerce is the only work of the hospitality of the overseas Chinese back to their hometowns. Chamber of Commerce staff told reporters that the demolition of monuments destroyed the investment environment in Founder County, has affected the attitude of overseas Chinese to return to their hometowns to invest.
awkward response
In late July the wall was interpreted by nationalists as a “monument to the Japanese invaders,” which alerted the Founder’s County government, and on the afternoon of August 3, protesters from outside the area entered the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden and threw paint at the wall, where they were arrested by the garden’s police. However, the five were released the same night and were not detained for damaging public property.
At 5:00 p.m. on August 3, the Founder’s County government opened an official microblog on Sina, and by 8:55 p.m., the government had placed a nearly three-minute video on the microblog. The video featured a close-up of the landscape inside the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden and an explanation of the standing directory wall by Wang Weixin, director of the Founder County Foreign Affairs and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.
Although Founder’s County government officials have since been interviewed by People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency and other media outlets, it was only in this video that it was mentioned that the building of the wall had been approved at various levels, by the State Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Founder County Propaganda Department officials told reporters that the opening of microblogging was intended to do through the network to communicate, but they did not expect the netizens’ replies to the wording of the intense, anti-bringing greater pressure on public opinion.
In another microblog posted at 10 p.m. on August 3, the Founder’s County government mentioned that the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden is not an open tourist attraction, but is specially designed to receive visiting Japanese groups. This statement was interpreted by netizens as meaning that the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden is for the exclusive use of Japanese people and Chinese people are not allowed to enter freely.
On August 4, the Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden was closed and several media requests for admission were denied.
On August 5, the reporter saw at the scene, outside the garden surrounded by at least 20 local vehicles. The garden was guarded by nearly 100 local government workers and public security officers, one of whom was holding a video camera. A number of outside protesters were prevented from entering the garden that day. However, the protesters were not invited to visit the garden to do explanatory work. The Pathfinder Directory Wall, which can be seen from outside the garden, was covered with a green canvas.
That night, the pioneer directory wall was dismantled. The next morning at 7:00, Founder County official microblogging released to the last message before the deadline: Founder County Sino-Japanese Friendship Garden in the Japanese pioneering corps of the civilian casualties of the directory wall has aroused great concern of the majority of netizens, many people questioned, the wall was also caused by the defacement. As a result, a decision has been made to temporarily close the garden to deal with the wall.
As with the expenses of building the wall, the costs of tearing it down and maintaining order are difficult for outsiders to know.
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