456 { China’s Quest
captions further roused people’s ire. The Nanjing Massacre and germ war-
fare experiments in Manchuria were recounted. The campaign culminated
on August 15, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender announcement in 1945.
A commentary in Zhongguo qingnian bao (China youth daily) gives a sense
of the tenor of the campaign:
Are the officials of the Ministry of Education mentally unbal-
anced? ... No! Of course not, they consider themselves smart. A few
Japanese constantly bear in mind the profit they gained from the in-
vasion of China and the war in Southeast Asia. Their hope of realizing
their dream of reviving militarism is indefatigable. Their attempt to
deceive the younger generation through education is deliberate. Their
intention to revise history and to beautify militarism under cover of
ancestor worship is carefully thought out. Nevertheless how could his-
torical facts written in blood be concealed by lies written in ink? Your
‘samurai’ forebears used innocent Chinese to test bacteriological war-
fare and used them as living targets. They dismembered and chopped
up Chinese captives who were tied to trees. You forced Chinese to dig
holes and bury themselves alive. You adopted such savage means as the
‘iron maiden,’ pulling out fingernails, branding, belly cutting, electric
grinding, and flesh eating to persecute Chinese compatriots.^51
Scholar James Reilly suggests that the month-long anti-Japan propaganda
campaign of 1982 arose out of conflict between the CCP’s liberal reformers
and conservatives concerned about the growing flow of Japanese investment
into China.^52 Conservatives such as Chen Yun and Bo Yipo were dismayed at
Japan’s growing economic role in China, linking Japanese investment to in-
flation, trade deficits, growing indebtedness, and disruption of the planning
system. Conservatives also feared that Japan would exploit China’s growing
dependence for political purposes, and that Japanese influence might lead
to political liberalization. Deng settled the dispute by ruling in favor of con-
tinued Japanese investment, but authorized a month-long propaganda cam-
paign to assuage conservative fears about the political implications of Japan’s
role. Reilly also suggests that calling forth Chinese animosity against Japan in
this fashion in 1982 created a space for public expression of such sentiments
that would bear fruit in the form of student demonstrations several years later.
The media campaign ended abruptly on August 15, 1982, about a month
before Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki was scheduled to visit Beijing. (August
15 is the day in 1945 the emperor announced Japan’s surrender.) Beijing did
not want to spoil the atmosphere for Suzuki’s visit—the first by a Japanese
prime minister since Masayoshi Ohira’s December 1979 visit. During his visit,
Suzuki promised that Japan would listen fully to China’s criticisms on text-
book matters. “The Japanese Government will be responsible for making the
corrections [in the text books] as soon as possible, take concrete measures