Recently the Japanese Prime Minister offered an expensive ($500) potted plant to a shrine in Japan. China. was. pissed. Why? Because leader Hu Jintao bought the exact same plant but hadn't delivered it yet... now he has to get something new.
Well... not really.
The Yasukuni Shrine honors the nearly 2.5 million Japanese who died during Imperial Japan's many wars between 1867 and 1945. Of course a great deal of these Japanese died in the Empire's wars of aggression against Korea and China. During the course of these conflicts the Japanese soldiers and leadership committed some excessively dastardly acts- dastardly by the standards of the time, by the standards of today, and franky, dastardly by an improbable combination of the Klingon, Roman, and Aztec Empires combined. (Aztec might be a step too far but it was bad.) The actions need not be recounted here but a number of the Japanese leaders were convicted of Crimes Against Humanity and branded war criminals. Some of those leaders are also honored at the shrine. Thusly, when a Japanese Prime Minister honors the shrine he can be implicitly seen as honoring Japan's militaristic and, in some cases, downright barbaric actions towards its neighbors.
Were other countries involved this would be a straightforward story of one leader doing something insensitive and another country taking understandable umbrage. But whenever China is involved it's never that simple. China's people adamantly refuse to tolerate foreigners even discussing "internal Chinese affairs." When I was teaching in China I had to answer endless questions about the Torch Relay Protests occurring in the West. When I pointed out that the United States recognizes that Tibet is a part of China even though a few thousand protesters don't I was seriously asked why police didn't open fire on the protesters.
The Chinese government has used perceived assaults on China to fire up nationalism among the Chinese people (because you're not allowed to comment on the Chinese government without insulting the Chinese people), has attempted to economically punish artists for performing the Taiwanese National Anthem (in Taiwan), and has frequent "news" showing recycled and edited footage designed to make the Taiwanese legislature look like a constant fist fight (it isn't like that all the time) and the United States appear to be a crime infested failed state. I don't necessarily have an issue with one government voicing an opinion (nor do I have an issue with some countries being frustrated at Japanese insensitivity)- it's just that the China doesn't get to demand a "hand's off" policy with foreign powers commenting on its "internal" affairs while simultaneously attempting to control the actions of people in other countries.
The cognitive dissonance involved in China attempting to control the personal/quasi-religious actions of the Japanese Prime Minister while demanding that no one be allowed to comment on Chinese internal politics is hypocrisy and hints at what issues will come to dominate international politics if China is ever the center of the world.*
*China's name implies that it is in the center of the world: 中國 means "Middle Country." I'm not using that as some sort of damning closing argument- it's just that if legions of foreigners get to comment on the effect of cowboy westerns on millions of Americans I think it's fair game to point out that what your country calls itself may have an effect on the national psyche.
