How to deal with anti-Japanese riots in China?

“So much for Shanghai as an international city.” Some of the assessments of observers of the anti-Japanese riots in Shanghai last Saturday were pretty harsh. Many questions come up at foreign invested companies in China, also the ones that are not Japanese. A few answers. This is a unique moment to show some moral leadership in your company.

1. Do not underestimate the anti-Japanese feelings at your work place. Chinese have a longstanding tradition of hate against the Japanese. Although very few people have for example read the much-discussed Japanese history books and the rhetoric is often flimsy, you should take those anti-Japanese feelings serious. Especially when your people have to deal with Japanese customers or suppliers, it makes sense to discuss the issue. In some cases you might even have to reassign people.
2. Do not make the issue bigger than it is. Although the riot was racist in nature and became violent, the violence had a rather symbolic value, compared to the damage violent demonstrations sometime cause outside China.
3. While the issue can become highly emotional, most Chinese employees will vote with their feet. Rather then engaging in anti-Japanese activities, they would keep their jobs, customers and suppliers.
4. Special attention needs the position of Japanese employees in your company. They might feel very uncomfortable in the current situation. This does not allow a “watch and let go” attitude.
5. Some of the Japanese companies will opt out. Consumer oriented businesses saw already a drop in their sales since last year, the announced boycott of Japanese products will add to the momentum. Japanese tourists will pick different destinations. Some Japanese companies are considering moving out their non-essential staff and family members as they did during SARS. Whether there will be a long-term effects, depends on the weeks and months to come. Tensions at Japanese companies in China will be higher.
6. Local reaction of the government has been diverse when it comes to protecting property against attacks by demonstrators. In Shenzhen Japanese property was protected, while in Shanghai thousands of police men and demonstrators looked on while property was being demolished. Among the demonstrators in Shanghai the feeling was clearly that the government was not supporting them. The last thing the government wants is the have anti-Japanese riots turn into a anti-government riot, but the rope it is walking is pretty thin. That ambivalent attitude can be expected more.
7. The organization behind the demonstration is strengthening every day and because of the internet activities can be announced and coordinated better than ever on a national level. The government has been moving against the main organizers, but because of the same ambivalent attitude it is unclear whether this anti-Japanese movement can be contained very easy.
8. One of the more troublesome scenarios could be an effort of the government not to contain, but to lead this movement, when there is no other way out to contain the developments.
9. While people now take to the streets to express their anti-Japanese feelings, there is no reason why to should be limited to that. Taiwan could be another nationalistic issue that would go down with the Chinese patriotic feelings. US diplomatic missions have been warning their citizens too. That was pretty premature, but any subject or country that would incite nationalistic feelings in one way or the other could be the target of future demonstrations.
10. Chinese media are not allowed to discuss these issues and lack the moral leadership you would expect from media in this kind of situation. So people will use different means, including your offices and the internet to exchange their thoughts. This is a good moment to show moral leadership too, not by banning those activities (that would be hard anyway), but for example by dealing with the racist and violent character of the demonstrations and share your opinions.

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