Relations between China and Japan

The social movements in Japan, especially the students’ campaign against the school and the government have left a great deal of images on Chinese people of that time, including my parents. They also told me about a lot of things that were related to Japan social movement at that time. Back to 1960s and 1970s, China was engaged in Cultural Revolution, and many passionate “revolutionary” teenagers were seeking to pass the spirit of revolution to neighboring countries; they did succeed in passing that spirit to Japanese teenagers, when the “Red Army” and other radical teenager groups protest and even fight against the Japanese government to advocate Maoist Revolution. My father told me that there was once a group of passionate Japanese dramatists that came to China and met Chairman Mao. They were just as excited as Chinese revolutionary red guards and waved their “Quotations from Chairman Mao” when they saw him, most of them even cried when they did so. Together, these dramatists and Chairman Mao accused the Japanese Communist Party of “going on a lane of revisionism” and advocated a thorough revolution to overthrow the Japanese government. Of course, we know later that most of those radical fighters died during their conflict with the government, and the remaining members turned into terrorist groups that committed a series of attack, explosions and kidnaps. They were among the most remembered people and things in that radical time of China.

Japan’s restoring relationship with China was also a commemorative incident at that time, and the most direct impact of that was the import of several Japanese movies that moved a generation of Chinese people, including people of later generations such as myself. My parents described that Japanese movies at that time showed a rich life Japanese people led: good houses and apartments, electric appliances in the household and even cars for ordinary people. All those things were unimaginable for Chinese people who lived in poverty by then; as for me, I was moved by the innocent emotion and love expressed in the Japanese movies, such as Mother’s Birthday, Proof of the Man and the most popular Manhunt starred by Ken Takakura, the actor that influenced countless Chinese people, actors and directors. I learned those movies by reading the pamphlets my father left in my grandfather’s house and knew a lot about them. Later I found the original movies online and was deeply touched by those characters. Those movies have actually become the symbol of a repaired Sino-Japanese relation in that time, and changed the stereotypes of Chinese people towards Japan.