New | Beware the ‘chubby blue guy’: Chinese dailies warn public against Japan's ‘Doraemon’
A few state-run newspapers in the western Chinese city of Chengdu earned themselves a barrage of ridicule after they warned that the Japanese cartoon series Doraemon is just another tool used by the Japanese government to cover up its war atrocities.
The Chinese people “should be less blind and think more carefully” when looking at the drawings of the robotic cat and its human friends, the paper said. The article was widely carried by other official media including the Xinhua news agency, which seemed to indicate official support of its reasoning.
“Doraemon is a part of Japan’s efforts of exporting its national values and achieving its cultural strategy; this is an undisputed fact. Taking this to heart, we should be less blind and keep a cool head while kissing the cheeks of the chubby blue guy,” the newspaper said.
The Chengdu newspaper said consumers of Japanese pop culture should “be clear about the murky nature of Japanese culture and never forget history”.
The article referred to Japan’s occupation of China during the second world war and the current Japanese government’s ambiguous stance on the events almost seven decades ago.
Rising nationalism in both countries and a lingering territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea has dragged the relationship between the world’s second- and third-largest economies to new lows over the last two years.
A survey conducted earlier this year indicated that 53.4 per cent of Chinese expect a military confrontation with Japan, while 29 per cent of Japanese expect war with China.
The survey was released by Japanese non-governmental organisation Genron and the state-run China Daily newspaper.
Despite widespread popular aversion against the Japanese government, Japanese cartoons and wider pop culture are, however, hugely popular in China. Japan was the most desired destination for China’s wealthy travellers this year, according to a survey by Travelzoo Asia-Pacific conducted at the beginning of the year.
The commentary was released at a time when the Sichuan capital is hosting a Doraemon exhibition featuring 102 “life-sized” statues of the manga and anime figure.
Reactions on social media indicate that many disagreed with the paper’s reasoning.“Dear government, be assured that we won’t be fooled,” one microblogger wrote.
“The world adults live in is just too frightening,” another one wrote with sarcasm.
This week has also seen a thawing of diplomatic ties between China and Japan as the two countries resumed high-level talks on maritime issues after a two-year hiatus.
On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Their encounter was the second since August, when the two ministers attempted to mend ties in a first tentative meeting in Myanmar. That was the first such meeting since Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping took office as Japanese premier and Chinese Communist party general secretary respectively in 2012.
Also this week, China welcomed the largest-ever Japanese trade delegation to visit the communist nation.
