Reason for Japan's playing up 'Chinese committing crimes'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, January 19, 2004

Reason for Japan's playing up 'Chinese committing crimes'

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The law-breaking acts of a few Chinese in Japan, as well as the trend toward a rapid increase in such behaviors indeed constitute an important cause of the problem of "crimes committed by Chinese in Japan". However, it is undeniable that Japan's internal factors also function to heat up this issue in Japan.

Recently, the issue of Chinese committing crimes in Japan has become a hot topic of conversation among Japanese people. Chinese police have recently sent out liaison officers as permanent staff to the Chinese Embassy in Japan who concert efforts for the solution of related problems between the two countries.

There are some talks in the media, especially on the Internet, of the two countries on "the problem of crimes committed by Chinese in Japan" (generally called the problem of "crimes committed by Chinese in Japan" by the Japanese side). These talks mostly pointed out certain reasons, but sometimes these remarks are biased.

Reason for "Chinese in Japan" committed crimes

To probe the reason, it is first necessary to make clear the following questions: To what degree have the "Chinese in Japan" abided by Japan's law, and what is the development trend of the issue?

According to the data released by the Japanese police, crimes committed by foreigners put on file by Japanese police in the first half of 2003, crimes committed by Chinese rose 42.4 percent year on year, accounting for 40.1 percent of the total of crimes committed by foreigners. This figure itself shows that the situation about crimes committed by Chinese, especially its tendency, does deserve concern.

However, the actual situation and pure statistics are two different things. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the Chinese residing in Japan, and local people of Chinese origin are law-abiding. The Chinese of the older generation, in particular, have settled in Japan for many years and have long been merged into the local community wherein they live and work in peace and contentment. Those who make up the 40 percent criminal cases actually constitute a small number of people. Among this small number, two types of people have caused the worst influence.

One is those Chinese who illegally entered into Japan by the stowaway method. Japan's sluggish economy smashed their daydream for gold. When driven into a corner, they would, more often than not, join some locally organized Chinese criminal gangs.

At present, most criminal cases involving Chinese, especially those of criminal syndicate in nature, are largely associated with this type of people. They even monopolize some business of local "black markets", such as making fake passports. Even when a Japanese chieftain, the hero in famous Japanese director Kitano Takeshi's movie "Brother" telling a story about mafia, has to flee away, the first thing coming to his mind is to find a "Chinese" to buy a counterfeit passport.

The other type, though in a smaller number, make much more bad social influence. They are a tiny handful of Chinese studying in Japan who take the evil way. It must be admitted that a tendency of blindly going abroad has emerged in recent years among some groups of people at home. Many students are very vague about their motives of going abroad.

The writer of this article has contacted several such students who, unfamiliar with the actual condition in Japan and with a lack of real intention to learn knowledge, just want to get an academic certificate from such a developed country like Japan and take the chance to make money through working there.

But the stark reality in Japanese society is that it is perhaps very difficult for a foreigner to earn a living without skills and adequate financial resources. Suffering from hunger is very common and becoming homeless is not at all surprising.

Under such circumstances, some students who are originally morally defective and lacking the experience of toughening and frustration at home are prone to take the road of committing crimes by breaking the law if they get no correct guidance and help. Such criminal cases are more shocking than mafia cases.

For example, in a murder occurred in a Japanese county at the beginning of 2002, a local old man, honored as "father of Chinese students in Japan" in the local community, was robbed and killed by several Chinese students he had been helping. And the eldest of them was only 23 years old. This atrocity of returning evil for good should be strongly condemned in any country, let alone in Japan which is particular about the tradition of requiting favors. It is imaginable what a stir was made by immediate publication of the case in Japanese media. It is psychologically a telling blow to many Japanese long been engaged in the cause of friendly exchanges between China and Japan.

Something behind the media's hyper

It is true that the illegal actions made by a handful of Chinese in Japan and the trend of rapid increase in such behaviors are indeed an important reason for the so-called problem of "Chinese in Japan committing crimes". But it is also undeniable that some elements in Japan have also stirred and stoked the case to make it as hot as it is now.

First of all, some changes have taken place in Japanese public's sentiment toward foreigners. In the past decade, as Japan's economy has consistently been in a state of stagnancy, the public has shown low confidence and nationalism has gradually gathered momentum. Ordinary people are becoming more and more conservative about "foreign countries", "foreigners" and "internationalization".

When the bubble economy was in its prime, Japan was full of confidence about its own strength, it had no difficulty in admitting even as many as 100,000 foreign students. But now it has set harsher conditions for the selection of outsiders. Perhaps a comparison between the past and the present can tell the above-said change.

Second, Japanese media is exaggerating the issue by fuelling xenophobia. When one tunes in the radio or television and looks over newspapers, headlines such as "Police caught Chinese theft gangs involving over 1 billion", "Chinese students suspected of killing the father of students in Japan", "Chinese captured collectively for stowaway" came to one's eyes.

It can be said that the Japanese media has keen interest in reporting "Chinese in Japan committing crimes". According to Chinese media's statistics, Kyodo News Service alone released, in five days from September 1-5, 2003, as many as 10 news items about Chinese being arrested in Japan for crimes. In the era of media, public opinion guidance often decides the view of most ordinary people.

Similar concentrated reports on this issue easily give those Japanese, who originally have no understanding of the Chinese, a generally one-sided impression, which finally affect the Japanese outlook on China.

In addition, the bumpy road the Sino-Japan relations have traversed in recent years and the adjustment of Japan's policy toward China may form the fundamental backdrop for Japanese media's behavior.

It is well known that the relationship between nations always sets the keynote of the mainstream media in its reports on another country. There are many precedents for this in history. The most typical one is how the US media depicted Stalin. The change of keynote was quite dramatic, from the dictator in the 1930s to amiable beloved 'Uncle Joe" during WWII, and then to the ruthless world menacer.

The same holds true of Japan. For instance, Japanese media had very positive reports on China in the 1980s when Sino-Japan relations enjoyed smooth development. Especially in the period when the former Soviet Union pressed Japan hardest, popular Japanese novels on imagined wars were all telling stories about how China and Japan fought in alliance against former Soviet aggression.

In recent years, however, with the gradual formation of the trend of China's rise and the adjustment of Japan's foreign policy, Tokyo's decision-making level's attitude toward China differs greatly from their original one.

Now Japan is more concerned about how it can have a dominant say in the future order of the East Asian region. In the process, there unavoidably exists the possibility of "playing games" with China. Therefore, Japan has raised its concern and vigilance against China's rise to an unprecedented extent.

Against this general background, plus the disturbances caused by historical problems in the two countries' political relations, and problems such as shrine visit and intrusion into Japanese embassy in China, it is imaginable how the keynote the Japanese mainstream media will set for its reports on China.

By People's Daily Online

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