WOW!
"If you win, or you lose, it's a question of HONOR.
And the way that you choose, it's a question of HONOR."
Beautiful, and profound. Whoever wrote the lyrics did their job well. Beats the living he** out of "there's no life like it" (CDN), or "Army of One"(USA).
WOW!
I know that the enemy of one's enemy is one's friend, but there are a few things that I find very destestable about the Japanese. And here are some of them.
The whole of East Asia absolutely detests the Japanese. There is not one country in that entire region who doesn't see the Japanese as a vile and dangerous enemy. Even Taiwan, where negativity to China as well as support for Japan is highest, something like 45% of the population has a favorable China, and only 12% has the same opinion for Japan. And keep in mind, this is probably the one asian nation(Japan's model colony) with by far the most favorable opinion of the Japanese. The Japanese are, by a wide margin, the most DISPISED nation and people in all of East Asia. China, otoh are looked on rather positively by most nations of East Asia. These reasons are mainly historical.
China at this point politically/economically dominates most of the nations of mainland East and Southeast Asia. The notable exceptions to this are South Korea and Vietnam, and both of them are rapidly falling under China's sphere of influence. The truth of the matter is that the current Chinese communist regime owe a great debt to the previous Chinese dynasties that came before it for it's current geo-political clout.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties(last 500 years), the Chinese Empire generally dominated the entire East Asian region and were noted for their tolerance and commericalism. Both Korea and Vietnam were both, just 140 years ago, part of the old Chinese Empire. Most of the pacific rim states were vassals of China even as recently as the 1830s.
One of the reasons why leaders of countries of the Pacific rim(Phillipines, Malaysia),as well as South Korea, tends to gravitate towards China, is because it was such a Powerful(and quite frankly just) hegemon in the past. The middle Kingdom didn't have slavery or social castes. It very rarely commits accepts of genocide(2 specific incidents in the last 500 years). China was a commerical and assimilationist society. Thus alien peoples could be easily and quickly SINICIZED, while client states were provided with trade and prosperity. Now obviously the Chinese government of today probably hasn't inherited the wisdom of their ancestors but nevertheless the other asian leaders are influenced by this history.
Now Japan was quite unlike China during the majority of the last 500 years. It was a feudal caste society from the late Sengoku period through the Edo period. Even today descendents of their Burakumin slave caste face routine discrimination. Feudal Japan's culture simply didn't have the flexibility necessary for the assimilation of alien peoples. Either you're japanese or your a foreigner with reduced or no rights. The Korean enimity of Japan mainly began the the 1600s due to Japan's invasion of the peninsula. Effectively, the Japanese tried to exterminate the Koreans. And when the Chinese pushed them out of Korea in their first invasion, they took several hundred thousand Koreans as slaves back to Japan where their descendents still reside as the Burakumin.
During that same period, Japanese pirates conducted countless slave raids in the then polynesian kingdoms and cheifdoms of the Pacific rim(Okinawa, Taiwan, Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, kingdom of Java). Thus all the modern island nations of the pacific rim share a deep loathing for Japan.
Now zoom forward to the 19th and early 20th centuries and Japan's behavior becomes even more loathsome. Korea's hatred of Japan was worsened when Japan occupied that country from the 1890s to the end of WWII. They enslaved(not oppress, but put in chains and dragged off to do forced labor) something like 20% of Korean male population at it's peak. I once read a historical paper that basically said that between 1900 to 1940, around 70% of all Korean women were raped at least once in their lifetime.
Japan's deeds to Asian peoples in WWII was essentially a combination of genocide, rape, and slavery.
Thus, the current regime in China is somewhat like the degenerate heir of a once noble family. Though he is probably vile and ignoble, the combined good deeds of previous administrations give China a good reputation.
The modern Japanese regime is much like the son of a family of racist serial-killers. No matter what Japan tries to do to raise it's profile, it's image in the eyes of other asian countries will always be tarnished by it's deeds in the past.