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| Image: by megan512 on Flickr |
By Tyler Roney
In the China-Japan PR battle, China’s authoritarian system gives Japan the upper hand.
For those who missed the “Voldemort Wars” between the Chinese and Japanese ambassadors to the UK this past week, China’s ambassador Liu Xiaoming, in a piece in The Telegraph, compared Japan’s militarism to Lord Voldemort — the same He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named from the Harry Potter series. Liu said the “Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo is a kind of horcrux, representing the darkest parts of that nation’s soul.” Japan’s ambassador, Keiichi Hayashi, struck back with his own accusation that China risked playing “the role of Voldemort.” At which point, China, somehow, became sorely offended, with Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying calling Hayashi’s remarks “ignorant, irrational and arrogant.”
Though it’s not uncommon for Sino-Japanese relations to devolve into name-calling, it is rarely so hilarious. The Chinese public are having a bit of fun with the idea, and it has drawn more than a few jeers. At The World of Chinese, Weijing Zhu comments: “If we follow Liu’s logic, Japanese militarists are probably the Death Eaters, and to defeat Japanese militarism, peace-makers would need to wage a war against the Death Eaters, find the rest of Japan’s horcruxes, and destroy them.” She adds, “Who would be Neville Longbottom in this picture?”
But the bigger story is the PR war between China and Japan, a war China is doomed to lose. China may be able to intimidate militarily, isolate diplomatically, and bully financially, but in the battle for public opinion, the Middle Kingdom — for all the money and influence in the world — doesn’t have a hope.
Read the full story at The Diplomat