When it comes to the conflict between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, who speaks for today’s China? Is it the Chinese protesters who have smashed Japanese-made cars and attacked Japanese stores and restaurants in the mainland? Is it the netizens who have urged calm and restraint? Or those netizens who say they are itching for war? And why exactly did those protests turn so violent, so fast?
Those questions are impossible to answer definitively, of course. But TLN editor David Wertime, joined by columnist and researcher Michael Anti, freelance writer Helen Gao, and others from China and Japan’s blogosphere took their best shot this afternoon on Al Jazeera’s The Stream, an innovative online show with a strong social media component.
TLN is especially grateful to all those guests joining from Asia, where it was the middle of the night. The discussion was nonetheless animated and interesting; we invite our dear readers to have a look.