Immediately following Prime Minister Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine on New Year's Day, many Chinese people recorded their protests and arguments against the visit on Internet bulletin boards. Last autumn, a lewd skit performed by Japanese exchange students infuriated people in Xian, China, and sparked protests. There is concern about anti-Japanese sentiment spreading even among young Chinese who can be assumed not to have had personal experience of past Japanese aggression. On the other hand, however, many Japanese people probably have no idea how widely Japanese culture has been accepted in China in recent years.

Among novels, works by Haruki Murakami, followed by those of Natsuo Kirino, Asa Nonami, and Koji Suzuki, have been translated into Chinese and are being read in China. Recent bestsellers in Shanghai and Beijing include "The Life of Quill, Guide Dog," with photos included. In Shanghai, there are a dozen or so of Japanese-style public baths with names such as "Asakusa yokujo." People are also attracted to "belt-conveyor" (self-service) noodle restaurants, inspired by Japan's self-service sushi restaurants. I call these movements "the Japanese phenomenon."

Although China has a long history as an agricultural country, during the past dozen or so years, it has seen a reduction in its agricultural population and an expansion of its urban population at the highest speed in recorded history. In urban areas, an affluent middle-income group of the kind referred to as "petite bourgeoisie" has also expanded still further. Now that the mandatory retirement age of 60 has become common and enough other social "infrastructure" has been established for middle-aged and capable generation to demonstrate their potential to the full, top-caliber people, who were leaving the country, are now returning.

Those Chinese people who have learned a global perspective in a natural manner at foreign affiliated companies or other workplaces that open their positions to competent human resources show an interest in all kinds of things from western countries and from Japan, the predecessor of China in the sense that it has established a modern urban culture in East Asia. Thus, for example, modern Chinese can read and enjoy novels which describe human beings in the cities who, although enjoying material affluence, are beset by a sense of loneliness and emptiness, as well as being exposed to various types of stress.

In short, the prevailing Japanese phenomenon is mostly attributable to the fact that the lifestyle and "mood" of Chinese people in urban areas are rapidly coming to resemble those of the Japanese.

A global perspective also encourages one to look at one's own outlook in comparison with others.

Where intellectual circles are concerned, "Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan" by Masao Maruyama (Chinese translation published in 2000) has begun to reach a wide range of Chinese readers. For example, by studying the writings of Maruyama on Ogyu Sorai, a great thinker of the Edo period, who contributed to the development of Confucianism in an original Japanese way, Chinese people have now even started to take a fresh look at Confucianism which lay behind the traditional Chinese way of thinking that China, which has the most sophisticated culture and lies at the center of the world, is surrounded by barbarians.

I agree that Chinese studies and news coverage in Japan have been improved but there are still many Japanese who cannot grasp the substantial changes in the mentality of the Chinese in recent years. That is partly due to the speed of change in China but I suspect that a far greater reason may lie in the fact that Japanese tend to believe that China as a whole still lags behind.

What should be paid attention to here is that, with the Chinese mentality changing greatly, the social psychology of the aggregation of such people is becoming fairly unstable. A change in the environment can upset even an individual's state of mind. I believe that this instability lies behind the oversensitive reaction of young Chinese people towards the skit in Xian, which could have been dismissed lightly if their state of mind were stable, and the overheated discussions voicing anti-Japan sentiment on the Internet.