Fake Protests

The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > China Is Pushing and Scripting Anti-Japanese Protests:

"Enraged about Japan's tendentious textbooks and territorial disputes in the East China Sea, Sun Wei, a college junior, joined thousands of Chinese in a rare legal protest march on the streets of Beijing last weekend.

Yet the police herded protesters into tight groups, let them take turns throwing rocks, then told them they had 'vented their anger' long enough and bused them back to campus.

'It was partly a real protest and partly a political show,' Mr. Sun said in an interview this week. 'I felt a little like a puppet.'"

Well, Mr. Sun, you should feel like a puppet. You are being used. It's fairly common across the globe (even in the US, but normally restricted to anti-war protests put together by the US arm of Commie International for easily swayed college students), but especially in the Mid-East. Remember the pro and anti-Syrian rallies in Beirut? Same dog.

Anyway, this article is worth reading, if only to get a sense of how deep the anti-Japanese feelings are in Asia. What this feeling means to US policy is a related matter, but one which must be discussed later because I'm running out the door now...