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Chapter 10 Popular Culture and Collective Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in Chinese–U.S. Relations after 9/11 Gerrit W. Gong On the morning of September 11, 2001, where in the United States was the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Yang Jiezhi? He was in Salt Lake City, previewing, among other things, preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Standing side by side, the ambassador and I watched CNN in disbelief and horror as the World Trade Center towers, struck by two fuelladen hijacked jetliners, burned and collapsed. In the hours and days that followed, I watched as the ambassador (and others) reoriented Chinese–U.S. relations from strategic competition to global war on terrorism cooperation. Those foreign policy changes reflected fundamental issues for East Asia, all rooted in history. Indeed, East Asia’s remembering and forgetting context can be analyzed in terms of four elements.1 First, modern digital broadcast and digital retrieval capabilities increase the intensity, speed, scope, and emotional resonance accorded issues of memory. Yet paradoxically, these issues—whether between China and Japan; China, South Korea, and North Korea; the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan; or South Korea and North Korea—can be replayed before nationalistic publics without historical context. Volatile nationalism combined with the ability to vivify emotional historical events also creates unprecedented incentives and avenues for public diplomacy. Second, strategic alignments hinge on historical terms, definitions, and symbols. This is one reason senior Japanese leaders visiting (or not) the Yasukuni Shrine so directly affects Chinese –Japanese relations. Third, practical efforts to settle and compensate wartime injustices are now part of international law. German compensation of wartime prisoner-of-war claims shape ‘‘slave labor’’ cases in Japan. Japanese efforts to settle ‘‘comfort women’’ cases affect legal strategies and cases in South Korea, the Philippines, and elsewhere. A fourth contemporary international issue also hinges on historical memory. When and how do Germany , Japan, and China become ‘‘normal’’ states? The dynamic between 203 204 Gerrit W. Gong domestic and international implications of memory and foreign policy questions affects Berlin, Tokyo, and Beijing—and their neighbors. Popular culture and collective memory are integral to the domestic and international contexts of these ‘‘remembering and forgetting’’ issues. FOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES The time when elites made foreign policy on the basis of perceived national interests is largely gone. Mass publics now demand their countries pursue national interest and international prestige based on their perceptions, including historical and contemporary memory. Imagine four photographic images. The first is the billboard cover for Quentin Tarantino’s movie Hero, starring the martial artist Jet Li.2 The second image is of the Chinese movie director Zhang Yimou. The third is of the virtuoso violinist Itzhak Perlman. And the fourth and last image is the billboard cover for the international film Red Sorghum.3 How are these four images—each evidence of popular culture and collective memory—related? Let us start with Red Sorghum. The film includes a scene depicting the late 1930s where occupying Japanese soldiers have forcibly rounded up a group of Chinese villagers. The local village butcher has been ordered to flay a large animal, which the Japanese troops are roasting and eating on their bayonets. A Japanese officer approaches the butcher and offers him a cigarette. ‘‘You’re very skillful,’’ the officer says. ‘‘Oh, just so-so,’’ the butcher modestly disclaims . The officer says, ‘‘The commander has spoken: He wants you to flay another.’’ The butcher says, ‘‘OK, OK, where?’’ ‘‘Over there,’’ the officer points to a village man, head hanging forward, hands tied behind his back, being hoisted up in front of all the villagers. ‘‘What are you staring at?’’ the officer asks. ‘‘Flay him, take his skin off.’’ ‘‘Sir, you must be joking,’’ the butcher says incredulously. ‘‘No, flay him, take his skin off,’’ the officer reiterates. The Japanese officer turns to the villagers. ‘‘Listen everyone,’’ he shouts, ‘‘you’ve trampled the sorghum. Now you’re going to learn a lesson. Watch this man get flayed!—that guy hanging there. Can you all see clearly? If any of you oppose us, this is what’ll happen to you!’’ The butcher cannot believe what is happening. The villagers recognize the man—it is Sanpao. The butcher gets his knife from his assistant— and thrusts it into the trussed man. It is an act of mercy. The butcher wants to kill the condemned man and spare him the pain of having his skin peeled off piece by piece. A...

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