We asked some protesters – more like revelers, actually – what this was all about. “Whitewash,” said one of them in English and repeated the word several times over, presumably referring to the alleged whitewash of Japanese war crimes against China in present-day textbooks.
“They [the Japanese] are too arrogant. We can’t take it any longer,” said another. How did they know about the “whitewash?” They were told about it in their work unit. Where did the flags come from that were ceremoniously burnt? A guy handed them out when they boarded the bus that took them to the demonstration.
I can’t vouch for it that the Beijing protests were as contrived and carefully staged. But people picking up rocks on cue as TV cameras focused on them and making quite a show of hurling them at the windows of the Japanese embassy while “riot police” looked the other way strongly suggest it – and suggest the same organizers of the spontaneous anti-Japanese outpouring.