458 { China’s Quest
Government implement its 1982 commitment ... and eliminate the nega-
tive effect caused by this issue.” Nakasone acceded to Beijing’s demand and
directed that “certain portions of the text book should be reconsidered.” Over
the next months, Nakasone four times instructed and urged the Ministry of
Education to revise the textbook. The final version met China’s requirements
on a number of issues. Beijing, however, remained unsatisfied. Xinhua elabo-
rated on the continuing inadequacies of the text.
During 1985, popular anti-Japanese sentiment in China, fanned by
Beijing’s repeated campaigns against Japan on the history issue, and per-
haps behind the scenes by conservative CCP leaders opposed to Deng’s
policy of opening, erupted into student protests.^56 In many respects, these
anti-Japanese demonstrations were the genesis of the student movement
that would challenge the regime so powerfully in 1989. The 1985 demonstra-
tions showed the ability of anti-Japanese nationalism to mobilize popular
sentiment in China, as well as the remarkable ease with which patriotic
movements in China can transform into anti-regime movements. This
factor, which would become central to China’s foreign relations after the
1989–1991 upheaval, first manifested itself in 1985. As outlined by scholar
James Reilly, criticism of Japan by China’s government created a space for
autonomous activities by freelance nationalists. CCP authorities were then
faced with a choice of toleration or limitation of the activity. Toleration
garnered nationalist legitimacy for the regime, but it also carried dangers
of unleashing popular discontent and damaging China’s foreign relations.
This dynamic, first manifest in 1985–1986, would become a key dynamic in
the twenty-first century.^57
Mid-1985 opened a period of relative liberalization in Chinese society, a
period that would last until January 1987 and the purge of Hu Yaobang.^58 This
brief period of relative tolerance opened a space for student patriotic protest
focused on the government’s post-1978 policy of relying on Japan to modern-
ize China. September 18 (“9-18”), 1985, was the anniversary of the Mukden
Incident of 1931 in which elements of the Japanese army in Manchuria dam-
aged a section of rail line to create a pretext for the seizure of that entire region
by Japan. Nakasone had visited the Yasukuni Shrine only the month before,
on the anniversary of Japan’s 1945 surrender. On 9-18, over a thousand univer-
sity students held rallies on their campuses in northwest Beijing, listened to
anti-Japanese speeches, and shouted anti-Japanese slogans. The students from
several universities then merged and marched the seven miles to Tiananmen
Square in central Beijing. This was the same route taken by patriotic Chinese
students in May 1919 when popular nationalism first emerged on China’s
scene. Posters in 1985 proclaimed “Down with Nakasone,” “Down with the
Second Occupation,” and “Boycott Japanese goods.” The “second occupation”
referred to the growing role and highly visible presence of Japanese goods,
brands, and companies in China. This was a direct challenge to one of Deng’s