Like many other fellow post-war babies, the Diaoyu Islands is an issue close to my heart. When the Defend Diaoyu Islands campaign first started in the early 1970s, I was teaching in the University of Hong Kong and was not directly involved in this student movement, but it hurt me knowing that some of my students were badly beaten up by the police during the demonstrations. Just before the handover, one of my students, Chan Yuk-cheung, drowned while swimming ashore one of the Diaoyu Islands.
These memories were sad, but sadder was the knowledge that such patriotic bravery and sacrifices were in fact meaningless as these incidents will not change anything. These are simply political statements from some helpless small folks who hate to see the loss of Chinese territory to Japan, which at that time would seem inevitable given the relative power of the two countries.
There is a Chinese tradition of taking a long-term historical perspective. The map of China has expanded and contracted many times, and as long as we are still here fighting, one day the tide will turn.
I read with amusement recent events related to the Diaoyu Islands. It is now the Japanese turn to do silly and meaningless things: raising funds to purchase the islands, taking tours there, organising fishing contests, planning to inhabit and develop the islands. These are happening while Japanese ships were being turned away by Chinese frigates, while just a few years ago it was the other way round.
I can discern desperateness when I see it, and some Japanese are now clearly very desperate that, after 40 years, their attempt to grab the so-called Senkaku Islands is now destined to be foiled.
Knowing the Japanese psyche, there is real danger that some might attempt to perform really desperate acts dragging both countries into military conflict, even war. It is a very grave matter when the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda proclaims his intention to 'nationalise' or even buy part of the Senkaku Islands.
This is a serious provocation from the Japanese side, and China may well retaliate. A hundred years after a humiliating defeat by the Japanese navy, public sentiment in China is quite willing to have a face-off with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands for a vendetta. The situation is quite precarious.