http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ME25Ad01.html
May 25, 2011
Hitler and the Chinese Internet generation
By Richard Komaiko
On Thursday, May 19, prominent Danish film director Lars von Trier publicly
expressed sympathy for Adolph Hitler. The board of directors of Cannes, the
world's pre-eminent film festival, promptly announced that Von Trier was no
longer welcome at the festival. [1]
This was a brave decision, especially considering that Von Trier's latest film
is considered a contender for the festival's top prize. Meanwhile, an ocean
away, sympathy for Hitler is proliferating, but bravery is nowhere to be found.
There is a growing trend in the Chinese blogosphere to vocalize praises and
expressions of support for Hitler. If Chinese authorities fail to address this
problem, dangerous consequences may ensue.
The rumor
A rumor is spreading virally throughout the Middle Kingdom that asserts that
Austrian-born Hitler was raised by a family of Chinese expats living in Vienna.
According to the rumors, a family named Zhang found young Adolf - born on April
20, 1889, when he fell on hard times as a young man in Vienna.
They took him in, sheltered him, fed him and paid for his tuition. As a result
of this assistance, Hitler held eternal gratitude and admiration for the
Chinese people. The rumor also asserts that Hitler secretly supported China in
World War II, and that his ultimate ambition was to conquer the world in order
to share power with China, with everything west of Pakistan to be administered
by the Fuhrer, and everything east of Pakistan the province of the Chinese
people.
This rumor apparently resonates deeply with the Chinese Internet generation. On
May 10, 2011, a user of Kaixin, the Chinese equivalent of Facebook, posted a
version of the rumor on his wall. The post attracted an enormous following,
with more than 170,000 views and 40,000 comments.
Of the people who left comments, 38.8% believe that Hitler was raised by
Chinese, 7.1% believe that Hitler supported China in World War II, 4.6% regard
Hitler as a hero, and 9.1% hope that China will have a leader similar to
Hitler.
As the rumor spreads throughout the Chinese social web, admiration for Hitler
is growing stronger and stronger. Blog posts with titles like "Why I like
Hitler" [2] are popping up every day, and an increasingly greater share of
young Chinese are choosing to express their nationalism by voicing support for
Hitler.
The reality
To a cosmopolitan audience, it should go without saying that the rumors of
Hitler's Chinese upbringing have no grounding in history or fact. Nonetheless,
for the benefit of my Chinese comrades who do not see the obvious falsity, I
would like to take a moment to dispel the rumors and explain the reality of
Hitler's relationship with China.
Hitler was not raised by Chinese people. Hitler lived with his parents until
roughly the age of 15, whereupon he moved to Vienna. His years alone in Vienna
are detailed in Chapter II of his memoirs, Mein Kampf. [3] Nowhere in the
chapter is there any mention of a Chinese family.
The word "China" doesn't even appear in the text, nor do the words "Chinese",
"Zhang" or "Cheung". There is absolutely no indication that Hitler had any
meaningful contact with Chinese people in his youth.
Hitler did not admire Chinese people. In fact, nothing could be further from
the truth. Hitler regarded Chinese as an inferior race. Many Chinese bloggers
are quick to point out that Hitler once said, "The Chinese people are not the
same as the Huns and Tartars, who dressed in leather, they are a special race;
they are a civilized race."
This quotation only stands for the proposition that Hitler considered the
Chinese to be higher on the racial totem pole than Mongolians, but it says
nothing about where they rank overall. In fact, Hitler believed that Aryans
were the only "culture-creating race", while the Chinese and Japanese were
merely "culture-bearing".
Hitler viewed the Chinese people as an inferior race, and actually blamed them
for many of the world's problems. For more information, see The racial state:
Germany, 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh.
Hitler did not support China in World War II. China's principal support in
World War II came from the United States. In 1941, the American Air Force
created a special squadron called the Flying Tigers (fei hu) to fly covert
missions over East Asia to defend the Republic of China against Japanese
incursions.
As a descendent of someone who served with the Flying Tigers, I am deeply proud
of the support that America provided to the Chinese people. China also received
material support from Great Britain and the Soviet Union. China did not receive
any support from the Nazi regime. There is an extensive historical literature
on this topic. For further information, see Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939:
The Road to World War II by Gerhard L Weinberg.
Hitler did not endeavor to share power with China. There is not the slightest
shred of historical evidence to suggest that Hitler entertained any such
notion. On the contrary, Hitler delivered China into the hands of its
arch-nemesis, Japan. And even then, Hitler only reluctantly accepted the notion
of Asian sovereignty over East Asia.
The reason
How did the Chinese Internet generation come to acquire this sense of sympathy
for Hitler, and why are they so readily prepared to believe rumors that are so
obviously false?
In 2007, Chinese author Song Hongbing published a book called The Currency War.
It was a hodge-podge of anti-Semitic conspiracies about how the Jews control
the money supply and manipulate world events in order to grow their fortunes.
When the global economy ground to a halt in 2008, The Currency War shot to the
top of the Chinese best-seller list, and Chinese bookstores couldn't keep
enough copies on the shelf. [4]
Aside from this incident, however, China is not often associated with
anti-Semitism.
Indeed, according to several Beijing college students interviewed for this
article, the word "Hitler" does not evoke images of anti-Semitism or genocide,
but rather, strong leadership and nationalism. They say that they admire Hitler
for his ability to unify his country and restore it to a position of respect in
the international arena.
According to them, conditions in China today are similar to the conditions in
Weimar Germany that brought Hitler to power: crippling inflation, wounded
national pride and a perception of rivals around every corner. It may come as a
surprise to many Westerners to learn that young Chinese actually feel stifled
by a lack of economic opportunity.
Westerners often focus myopically on the growth rate of China's gross domestic
product (GDP), which is roughly 9% per year. While this is an important
indicator of prosperity, it must be considered in tandem with other important
metrics, such as inflation and the increasing cost of residential real estate.
China's consumer price index rose 5% in the first quarter of 2011. This means
that the effective real growth rate in GDP was only 4%. On top of that, the
cost of real estate in many cities is growing at 20% per year. Considering
these numbers, put yourself in the shoes of the average recent college graduate
in a city like Shanghai.
You make a decent income, but you can't afford to make a down payment on a
piece of real estate, so you rent for a few years. But because the price of
real estate is growing many times faster as the overall economy, the longer you
wait, the less you can afford to buy. And in Chinese culture, if you can't
afford a home, you can't start a family, and so forth.
Appreciating this economic angst brings us one step closer to comprehending the
admiration that the Chinese Internet generation feels for Hitler: they crave a
strong leader to lift them out of their economic woes. But aren't there other
strong leaders in history to choose from? Why not choose a leader whose
reputation is unsullied by the stains of aggression? At this point, nobody
really knows. While it's not clear why they have chosen Hitler as their
rallying cry, what is certain is that this affinity for Hitler will have a
detrimental impact on China's ambition of foreign relations.
The repercussions
The most immediate impact of the Hitler phenomenon will be felt in Japan. For
decades, the Chinese government has demanded that Tokyo revise its high school
history curriculum in order to reflect the full horrors that the Japanese
military visited upon Nanjing during World War II.
This demand has been one of the largest and most persistent friction points in
Sino-Japanese relations. If it turns out that China's own history curriculum
lacks adequate coverage of the horrors that the German military inflicted upon
European Jewry, the Chinese government will lose the moral high ground and
appear completely disingenuous in its relations with Tokyo.
The Hitler phenomenon will also have a negative impact on China's relations
with its continental neighbors. Countries like India and Vietnam are already
concerned about Beijing's military buildup, which has seen double-digit
increases for each of the past five years.
When they discover that the most popular personality among young Chinese is a
man best known for expansionism, their sense of suspicion will flare, and they
will invest a greater share of societal resources in preparing for
confrontation. This response may have a paradoxical effect of further stoking
the flames of Chinese nationalism and increasing tensions around the borders.
The most consequential effect of the Hitler phenomenon, however, will
undoubtedly be felt on China's relationship with Washington. The Chinese
foreign policy establishment expends considerable resources in Washington to
promote the idea of "China's peaceful rise", a form of exceptionalism which
holds that China's rise to power will be free of armed conflict.
Due to the overwhelming weight of historical authority against it, the peaceful
rise theory has gained only limited traction inside the beltway. But when the
engineers of America's foreign policy discover that young Chinese idolize the
most famous aggressor in history, the peaceful rise theory will lose all
credibility, and those who seek to paint China as a threat to American
interests will be emboldened.
The resolution
Immediate action must be taken to educate Chinese youth on the truth about
World War II and show them how critically history has judged the rule of
Hitler.
As a first step, Kaixin should remove the inflammatory post and issue a public
correction of facts. Just as Facebook ultimately realized that it had a public
security duty to remove a page calling for the "third intifada", [5] so too
Kaixin must realize that as one of the largest media outlets in China, it
cannot tolerate expressions of support for proponents of aggression.
Second, the Chinese Ministry of Education should conduct a thorough review of
the history curriculum taught in Chinese high schools in order to make sure
that its treatment of World War II is in line with international academic
standards.
Finally, relevant Jewish organizations, from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to the United States Holocaust Museum, should engage with Chinese
partners, such as the Shanghai Center for Jewish Studies and the Sino-Judaic
Institute, to promote Holocaust education and awareness of modern genocide.
Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist George Santayana
taught that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The
only thing more lamentable than repeating history because we failed to learn
from our mistakes would be repeating history because others failed to learn
from them.
Notes
1. Von Trier Expelled From Cannes Over Nazi Comments, New York Times, May 23,
2011.
2. Click here for the Chinese-language text.
3. Mein Kampf, Chapter II.
4. China, Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories and Wall Street, New York Times, Oct
2, 2008.
5. Facebook Removes Page That Demanded 'Third Intifada' Against Israel, Fox
News, Mar 29, 2011.
Richard Komaiko is the author of Lawyer in Modern China.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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