The following is from Mr. Akio Yaita's series column 'Chinese sketches' published in Sankei Shimbun today.
Many people should now know that Mr. Yaita is one of the leading experts on China, having a history of growing up in China as a residual Chinese orphan.
Beijing has no 'The Grateful Crane'
There isn't 'The Grateful Crane' in Beijing.
"If I have the opportunity to meet Kaifu Toshiki, I would like to hear it directly. Why did you stop sanctions on China then?"
In late May, in a small pub in Ota-ku, Tokyo, former student leader of Chinese democratic activists, Mr. Wang Tan shook his beer a bit and made him more enthusiastic.
After the Tiananmen case in June 1989 when the democratization movement suppressed, Mr. Wang, who ranked first in the Chinese government's wanted list, chose to forgo the opportunity to escape abroad and enter prison.
'It's a memorial service to friends who died to keep fighting in jail,' that what Mr. Wang said.
He also believed that 'the international community cannot admit the regime of sending out tanks and slaughtering students. A democratic nation always supports our fight.'
However, as the world strictly denounced China for human rights and democratization issues and formed economic sanctions against China, Japan was the first to reopen China's yen loan.
When, in August 1991, Mr. Wang heard the news that the Prime Minister Kaifu first visited China as a leader of a significant nation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in prison, 'As much as the tears flow, it was regrettable,' he says.
On the other hand, it said that Chinese foreign affairs officials had positioned Kaifu's visit to China as 'a big victory for foreign policy with Japan.'
Japan-China relations person who attended a Kaifu visit to China about the anticipation of Japanese Government in those days, 'There was a thought that we must not make China isolated as a neighboring country' and it talked to 'There was the expectation of not having heads for the democratization little by little, too, if involving China in an international society'.
In the next year of the Kaifu visit to China, the Emperor visit to China will also realize in the form that Japan accepts the request from the Chinese side.
Japan played a significant role in resolving China's isolation in the international community.
However, a Jiang Zemin administration has set about the anti-Japanese war museum that exceeds 100 places in private each area in the autumn in 92, which China raised a country and welcomed the emperor's visit.
The Jiang administration thought that it was necessary to instigate nationalism to maintain the prestige of the Communist Party who lost in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, put together the 'National Patriotism Education Principles' and started the 'Japan criticism campaign' on the subject of the Second Sino-Japanese War quietly.
Since 2000, anti-Japanese demonstrations have frequently occurred in China, and Japanese companies have encountered setting on fire by them.
The leading role was all generations who received patriotic education during the Jiang Zemin era.
There is an old story in China called 'Mr. Dong Guo'.
A student named Mr. Dong Guo helped a dying wolf chased by a hunter in the mountains.
However, the wolf tried to attack Mr. Dong Guo in reverse, rather than to appreciate his kindness.
It is a summary that a farmer who passed there beats a wolf with plow and kills him, and the farmer preached to Mr. Dong Guo, 'You must not have shown any mercy on the enemy (wolf).'
Most Chinese know this old tale, which also found in elementary school textbooks.
Kind people rewarded
Unlike Japan's old tale, which prescribes 'Kind people are rewarded' such as 'The Grateful Crane,' China teaches children that 'don't abuse sympathy.'
After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, everything that Japan did for the Communist Party administration would have been the subject of mockery, like Mr. Dong Guo, in the minds of the communist party leaders.
With the recent US-China confrontation, China has begun to become isolated again in the international community.
It assembles the situation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
And China's diplomacy has begun to shift to Japan again.
Japan should never become Mr. Dong Guo, in order not to grieve Wang and other democratic activists.
*The following is an English translation of Mr. Dong Guo found on the net.
Once upon a time, there was a kind-hearted man named Dong Guo. One day on his way home， he met a wounded wolf. The wolf asked him for help by crying pitifully，' Help！ Help！ Sir. Some hunters are after me to kill me.'
Mr. Dong Guo felt sorry for the wolf，, and he hid the wolf in his bag. When the hunters came and asked him if he had seen a wolf，, he told a lie. The hunters left, and the wolf saved.
Getting out of the bag， however, the wolf jumped at him with sharp teeth and glaring eyes. Just at this moment came a farmer. Without any hesitation, the farmer killed
