Tea Leaf Nation

On May 8, the Japanese government announced it would honor the 1995 war apology, a decision widely interpreted as a diplomatic gesture aimed at smoothing ties with China.  Tensions between the two countries have recently escalated due to events such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s suggesting a possible revision of the 1995 apology, key cabinet [...]

“Yesterday I met a Japanese who has lived in China for 13 years, almost a China Hand [i.e. one possessing a deep understanding of China]. He built ten elementary schools in poor mountainous areas in China, but when he visited the kids, some picked up little rocks and threw at him, yelling ‘Get out of [...]

People’s Liberation Army Major General Luo Yuan debuted on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, just as a true military man should—with a big blitz and an ensuing war-in-words. On February 20, Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper, published an article headlined: “What Asahi-readers should know: The Truths of China. PLA Major General says ‘Will Bomb Tokyo’.” [...]

The Chinese Web version of Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, posted the following image on Sina Weibo, China’s most active microblogging platform: The screenshots shows two remarkably similar posts, the top from Sina’s Weibo platform, which has about 400 million users, the lower from Internet giant Tencent’s own Weibo platform, which, according to [...]

Five months since Japan’s “nationalization” of the disputed Senkaku islands, called Diaoyu in Chinese, the issue remains as combustible as before — and now, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounding off on the topic, the reactions of Chinese and Japanese social media users highlight the uneasy reality of geopolitics over these remote isles. [...]

This article also appears in ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Are Chinese audiences growing weary of anti-Japanese propaganda? It would seem that some, at least, are growing sick of the pathetic villains, superhuman heroes and lame endings that many Chinese movies and television series about World War II, or what Chinese refer to [...]

On Sunday, Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) returned to power, winning 294 of the 480 seats in the lower house of the nation’s parliament, which is empowered to choose the nation’s Prime Minister. Ex-prime minister Shinzo Abe, who held the position in 2006-2007, will thus lead the country once again as its seventh prime [...]

[The following is an op-ed, and does not necessarily express the opinions of the editors.] After the outbreak of anti-Japan riots in China incited by the Diaoyudao dispute, I asked my Chinese teacher, “Why do you think the anti-Japan sentiment is still so strong in China?” “I think it is because many Chinese people are [...]

If China Central Television (CCTV) wants to strike fear deep into the hearts of the Pentagon and the Japanese Ministry of Defense, it has to be more careful with footage selection. In its October 15 evening newscast, CCTV showed clips of a military exercise by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army that simulates seizure of an [...]

On Saturday protestors in dozens of Chinese cities took to the streets to voice their anger at the Japanese government’s nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands in Japanese) in the East China Sea as a flagrant violation of Chinese sovereignty. In Beijing, thousands of protestors besieged the Japanese embassy, hurling eggs, bottles and anything [...]

On September 7, Taiwan (formally known as the Republic of China) president Ma Ying-jeou flew to Pengjiayu (彭佳嶼), a tiny islet under the jurisdiction of the Taiwanese government. According to the official Taiwan Presidential Office news release, the purpose of the trip was “to reiterate Taiwan’s sovereignty over the [nearby] Diaoyutai Islands.” A Sina Weibo [...]

What’s the best camera for capturing images of the recent boycott of Japanese goods in parts of China? Why, a Canon SLR camera, of course.   At least so thought one apparent protestor (or so one might think at first glance – more on this later) sporting a vivid ‘Boycott Japanese Goods’ t-shirt complete with [...]