From June 29 to 30, 2024, the Japan Expo was held at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington. This two-day event, which was free and open to the public, celebrated Japanese art and culture. (Ye Man/Daqjiyuan)
October 19, 2024 – In mainland China, wearing a kimono not only invites verbal abuse, threats, and slander but can also lead to arrest and detention by public security on charges of "provoking trouble." This isn’t a fictional story but a long-standing reality.
On October 14, 2024, another kimono "incident" occurred at a beach in Sanya, Hainan. A woman wearing a kimono for a photo shoot was loudly accused by a man who said she was "unpatriotic."
On October 1, 2024, two women wearing kimonos were livestreaming on the streets of Xiangyang, Hubei, when passersby accused them of being "unpatriotic." Someone threatened, "Aren't you afraid of getting beaten for wearing a kimono on the street?" The police were called, and the women were taken away. Furthermore, videos resurfaced online showing the same women being cursed at in Changsha, Hunan, on August 27, 2024, for wearing kimonos. Some even accused them of "committing the crime repeatedly."
On April 27, 2024, two other women wearing kimonos were dancing and recording a video outside a museum in Chongqing when they were surrounded by a crowd of citizens who verbally attacked them. The crowd chanted, "Don’t let them leave, they are spies, call the police!" Physical altercations ensued, and the two women, along with the man filming them, were taken away by the police.
On December 25, 2023, a woman wearing a kimono while shopping in downtown Guiyang, Guizhou, was harshly berated by another woman, who called her a "traitor" and demanded she remove the kimono in public. The next day, the woman in the kimono was forced to issue a public apology online.
On March 20, 2023, at the Jī Míng Temple scenic area in Nanjing, a male tourist filed a complaint after seeing a woman wearing a white kimono taking photos under cherry blossoms. Besides him, several others also reported her to the police or called the 12345 hotline. A netizen recorded a video of the woman, labeling her behavior as "immoral."
The most highly publicized incident on the Chinese internet was on August 10, 2022. A woman cosplaying as a character from a Japanese anime wore a kimono on Suzhou’s famous "Japan Street" to take photos. She was quickly taken to the police station by public security (reportedly auxiliary police), who confiscated her kimono, socks, and wooden clogs. A few days later, she was forced to issue a public apology online.
This incident seems to be the first case in mainland China where someone was accused of "provoking trouble" simply for wearing a kimono. Following that, voices warning against "police overreach" and the "misuse of provoking trouble charges" became louder. To quell public outcry, the CCP proposed a major revision to the Public Security Administration Punishment Law, which had been in effect since 2005. In the second draft of the revised law, a new clause appeared in Article 34: “Anyone who wears or forces others to wear attire or symbols in public places that damage the spirit of the Chinese nation or hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation will be subject to detention or fines.”
Tsinghua University Law Professor Lao Dongyan opposed this clause, arguing that it meant "the state is directly interfering in citizens' personal attire," an "excessive intervention." She pointed out that phrases like "damage the spirit of the Chinese nation" and "hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation" were "extremely vague," leading to "arbitrary expansion" of punishment and "abuse of power."
While the kimono has become a thorn in the side of the CCP, other "Japanese elements" have not faced the same level of rejection or suppression. After the Suzhou kimono incident, Lao Dongyan publicly questioned, "If wearing a kimono is considered provoking trouble, then how many people in China would be guilty for driving Japanese cars, buying Japanese products, watching Japanese films or novels, listening to Japanese music, traveling to Japan, or using anime images?" In 2023, following the kimono "incident" in Guiyang, another netizen asked, "Why don’t you protest at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and demand cutting diplomatic ties with Japan?"
There have been other "anti-Japanese" movements manipulated and incited by the CCP. For instance, large-scale anti-Japanese protests took place in mainland China in 2005 and 2012. A censored article revealed that, in 2005, in response to Japan's approval of its history textbooks and its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, protests with thousands to tens of thousands of participants occurred in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. In Shanghai, some demonstrators even vandalized Japanese cars and restaurants. After the 2012 Diaoyu Island incident, these cities again witnessed protests that surpassed the 2005 events in scale, duration, and violence. One extreme case during that time saw a Japanese car owner’s skull crushed by demonstrators with a U-shaped lock.
However, because "nationalistic anti-Japanese sentiment also carried dissatisfaction with the intense contradictions in Chinese society," some slogans read, "Give me 3,000 urban management soldiers, and I’ll take back the Diaoyu Islands; give me 500 corrupt officials, and I’ll bankrupt little Japan." As the protests began "spreading to smaller cities and county-level cities," the CCP became worried that "anti-Japanese protests" could inadvertently turn into "anti-Communist" demonstrations. The CCP quickly halted the protests and no longer allowed such movements to take place in mainland China.
This shows that "anti-Japan" sentiment has always been manipulated and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In other words, it must not impact the regime’s stability, nor harm the interests of the powerful elites. For instance, the “Japan Street” in Suzhou was specifically built by the local government for Japanese companies. A censored article once questioned, if wearing a kimono on this street, nicknamed "Little Tokyo," is considered illegal, will the restaurants and Japanese companies in Suzhou still feel secure? Interestingly, based on reality, the answer seems to be yes. Perhaps this is related to the following statistics: As of 2021, Japan had become the third-largest source of foreign investment in Suzhou, with 2,973 Japanese companies operating there. The $13.64 billion in Japanese capital accounted for 53.9% of all foreign investment in Jiangsu Province.
For the CCP, ensuring the safety of this significant amount of capital, which ultimately stays within the country, means protecting its own financial interests. When necessary, it’s no surprise that even elements like the kimono and other "Japanese elements" may be heavily promoted. For instance, on March 21, 2024, Wuxi, Jiangsu, hosted a grand “International Cherry Blossom Week and the 37th Anniversary of the China-Japan Cherry Blossom Friendship Forest” event. The event took place in a cherry blossom forest, where artists dressed in kimonos performed on stage, while Japanese political and business figures watched from the audience.
It seems the CCP doesn’t entirely prohibit the appearance of kimonos in mainland China but seeks to deprive ordinary people of the right to wear them for personal reasons. Firstly, the CCP must continue stirring anti-Japanese sentiment among the public. After all, from the very beginning, Japan was deliberately crafted by the CCP as an enemy for the masses. After the CCP took power, through various conspiracies and tactics, it turned everyone outside the red elite into the proletariat, ruthlessly suppressing anyone who didn’t comply—by “killing with the sword, with the rice bowl, and with public opinion.” It’s no wonder that so many people are filled with resentment but have nowhere to vent their anger. The primary reason the CCP has constantly created enemies over the decades is to shift societal tensions.
If "hating Japan" was an emotion the CCP began stoking after the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, then prior to that, Mao's violent "mass against mass" governance model had long been employed by the CCP and continues to this day. For years, the Chinese people have been indoctrinated with hatred while simultaneously instilled with fear. To survive in society, many have desperately sought shelter under the umbrella of power.
Seeing this, the CCP grants limited power to some people, enabling them to control and suppress others. Those who "hate Japan" and dislike kimonos, once given power, feel emboldened to teach a lesson to the wearers of kimonos or vent their dissatisfaction. This division among the people strengthens the CCP's grip on power.
Secondly, the CCP cannot tolerate kimonos because it doesn't want the public to truly understand the depth of Chinese traditional culture. An online article titled "How Much of What the Japanese Value Is Forgotten by the Chinese?" introduced the kimono, known in Japan as Gofuku, which is derived from Hanfu from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, as well as Japan’s traditional wooden clogs and cloth socks, both of which originated from ancient China during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Han Dynasty. The article pointed out that for thousands of years, Japan has inherited and borrowed extensively from Chinese culture, from the coronation ceremonies of Japanese emperors and the names of cities like Tokyo and ancient architectural styles to tea ceremonies, flower arrangements, calligraphy, traditional performances, and even daily meals.
If people inside China were able to read such articles, Chinese nationalism might not be so extreme. They might even develop admiration and pride for traditional Chinese culture. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the CCP fears most.
Communism glorifies violence, and under the CCP's propaganda, ancient emperors, generals, and scholars are all depicted as remnants of "feudalism." Traditional Chinese virtues, such as benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, trust, kindness, gentleness, respect, thrift, and humility, have been systematically negated, criticized, or distorted by the CCP.
China’s 5,000-year-old culture teaches people to cultivate virtue, do good, and benefit society, aiming to achieve harmony between humanity and nature. The CCP, on the other hand, continuously entices people to break moral boundaries, sink into desires, and ultimately destroy the foundation of human life. The Chinese people have always been a spiritual nation, but the CCP uses atheism and evolutionism to brainwash them, relentlessly pushing anti-religion and anti-Buddhism movements to new heights.
Can the CCP really allow its people to understand the Chinese traditional elements embedded in Japanese culture? If it could, the aforementioned article would not have been censored within the Great Firewall. The CCP envies the resilience of traditional culture. Despite its best efforts to distort, suppress, and extinguish it, the Party remains fearful that Chinese people will still feel and recognize the presence and continuity of this culture. As a result, when today’s Chinese citizens wear a traditional garment derived from ancient China, it makes the CCP nervous and eager to eliminate it. This shows that in the face of powerful traditional culture, the CCP is utterly lacking in confidence.
Editor: Pushan
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