By Yi Lu, a Tea Leaf Nation contributor
The protest, argued all those engaged, was a spectacle of solidarity, and it appeared so at first glance: Beginning September 16, anti-Japanese grievances that had been simmering for months over the Diaoyu Islands, called the Senkaku in Japanese, overflowed into Chinese streets, engulfing more than a dozen cities in an arc along the country's eastern seaboard. Angry mobs of young men and women confronted armies of police, hurling eggs, rocks, and bottles at Japanese establishments that were, by and large, owned by Chinese nationals. Some looted. "Defend the Diaoyu Islands to the death," chanted the crowd, and together they surged.
Yet amid all the calls to remain steadfast and united, there were traces of division that most cameras failed to capture. As reckonings of the protests rolled in, self-criticism on China's micro-blogs quickly descended into sharp verbal attacks based on regional rivalries and class resentment. Beneath a cocoon of nationalistic solidarity, the anti-Japanese movements last week revealed how much potential for fragmentation and disarray exists within modern Chinese society.
The center of contention was Guangzhou, China's third largest city, where protesters attacked the city's landmark Garden Hotel on September 16. The Japanese consulate, located inside, was unscathed. "It pains me to learn that the mob assaulted the Garden Hotel!" wrote @老莫_且将流年换不悔, addressing the protesters directly in his comment via Sina Weibo, China's Twitter. "You only know that the Japanese consulate is inside, but don't you know that the very name of the Hotel was hand-written by [former Chinese leader] Deng Xiaoping? Don't you know that there are other consulates inside? Don't you know that this place has long been the pride of Guangzhou? Today, Garden Hotel is a barometer of our civility."
Torrents of blame, often laced with hostility toward any outsiders, soon emerged among Guangzhou netizens, who began to see the day in protest more as a defense of their hometown than of the Senkaku Islands. "Among the crowd, those who shouted to defend the Diaoyu Islands to the death were mostly non-locals who spoke Mandarin; those who marched to defend public order were mostly local students who spoke Cantonese," observed @羊城网小劳. "And for those who sold Chinese flags along the way, they just wanted to make a quick buck out of this mess."
Such fears of outsiders reverberated well beyond Guangzhou. Swelled by strong local pride, netizens across major Chinese cities grappled consciously with the anxiety of losing ownership of neighborhoods that, the protests had suddenly rendered dangerous. "Be careful if you speak Suzhou dialect in Suzhou, or you'll be taken as a Japanese and the migrant workers will give you a nice beating," mocked @mavis-m宝, pointing to tonal similarities between the two tongues. "I don't want to be a bigot discriminating against people based on their regions, but in light of the recent disturbances, I am now really worried about my hometown. All those with ill intentions, get lost!"
"Is there a 'Defend Suzhou' movement?" @mavis-m宝 later asked. "I'll sign up."
Such nativist comments, appearing often in conjunction with photos to name and shame rioters, kindled an outburst of counter-criticism. Many netizens defending the protesters argued that accusations based on innuendo only solidified regional prejudices and promoted insularity. They also argued that these comments unfairly targeted the protesters' sense of patriotism, which many hold close as a unifying theme. Yet for staunch natives who hold their regional pride even dearer than their national pride, such moral censure represented a kind of bad faith.
"To those who claim that Guangzhouers are rioters, didn't you see that there was actually no one from Guangzhou in the mob?" wrote @Ciceroo, a Guangzhouer, calling into question whether anyone protesting in Guangzhou could be legitimately called a "Guangzhouer." "Don't you realize that by accusing us, you are the real cause of fragmentation in China? You fake patriots."
Geographic origins are not the only force that threatens to divide a country that seemed so united just last week. Many netizens have begun to argue that the protests, which resulted in destruction of Japanese property and accounts of widespread looting, sprang from the bottom half of China's population, mainly working-class citizens who used the day to express their anti-elitism and class resentment.
"I just saw the news story about a man in Xi'an who owned a Japanese car and got hit in the head, and it tore me apart," wrote @飞远的家雀儿. "This reminds me of all the innocent victims during the Cultural Revolution. Those who cannot afford their own cars smashed those of others, all in the name of patriotism! Are these people really human? How can they ever get rich like this? You have to work hard to move up in this world, and hating the rich does not help anything!"
Significantly, many of the most shocking images of internecine hate available on Weibo involved cars--mostly Japanese models--scratched, damaged, and in some cases, overturned. As a sign of both physical and social mobility, a car in China embodies the aspirations of an emerging middle-class, whose ranks most migrant workers seek to join. In this regard, images of wrecked cars offered a glimpse into an ingrained sense of injustice and unfairness that helped draw youth mobs to violence.
"Why were thousands of Hong Kongers able to organize a protest in perfect discipline, while we mainlanders couldn't even maintain the most basic order?" asked @许纪霖. "Crowds were mobilized and only practiced sheer wanton vandalism; they had no sense of personal reckoning. As a result, national conflicts turned into class conflicts based on hatred of the rich."
"There is only one key to curb reactionary populism," he finally said. "Create an autonomous civil society."
Hope for a freer China was voiced online, but dull cynicism soon echoed back. Many netizens on Weibo did not appear to trust the generally hard-working but otherwise reflexively patriotic migrant workers. Nor did they trust the government to unfetter full civil participation.
@飞行的劳拉 's comment evinced this mistrust of authorities: "Public demonstrations like this did not just happen overnight. These events, requiring more than mere days of planning, were just like political rallies typical of Mao's times. The purpose of all this spectacle was two-fold: On one hand, the protests diverted people's anger towards the government, and on the other, it was also an effective scare tactic. For those who want to politically mobilize, today's chaos will [lead to] fear of tomorrow, [as] everyone saw how terribly things could go wrong." He asked, "Do you still dare to mobilize?"
While any discussion of the government's role in planning the recent protests is purely speculative, it is fair to say that last week's protests appeared to be sanctioned by at least some quarters of Chinese officialdom. The police protected and chaperoned the crowd, keeping the situation from spiraling out of control. Following the protests, Chinese media called for restraint, but also took care to stoke patriotism by emphasizing that the protests reflected Chinese people's righteous anger and self-determination.
Yet if comments on China's Internet are any guide, the homogenous image of one nation unified against Japan's territorial claims merely avoided the political challenges that it generated. At a time when locals are afraid of non-locals, the middle class afraid of the poor, and the government afraid of its own people, the recent anti-Japanese protests in China offer a telling reminder of the many regional and socio-economic divisions that continue to hold sway in the country today.
This story originally appeared on Tea Leaf Nation.