Through the historical example of Baron Albert d’Anethan, the Belgian minister to Japan who saw through anti-Japanese black propaganda during the First Sino-Japanese War, this essay examines China’s manipulation of international opinion and Europe’s moral responsibility.
It asks whether present-day Belgium and Europe can once again discern the brutality and human rights abuses hidden behind China’s panda diplomacy.
2019-04-14
Yet Belgium is the country that produced Baron Albert d’Anethan, Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan, who was not deceived by black propaganda.
I want to see the pride of modern Europe, so sensitive to human rights repression.

This is a chapter I published on March 20, 2019, under the title:
Baron Albert d’Anethan stayed in Japan for the long span from 1893 to 1910.
What follows is also an essay I discovered on the Internet the other day.

Baron Albert d’Anethan of Belgium.

2014-04-11
This is a repost of yesterday’s news article, because I had not read the latter part carefully enough, so I am uploading it again.

Can Belgium once again see through the barbaric nature of China?
2014.4.10 msn Sankei News

I was led to wonder whether the etymology of “panda” might somehow be “propaganda,” which also means the manipulation of international public opinion.
The “panda diplomacy” displayed in Belgium at the end of March, during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour of Europe, was eerie enough to invite such a misunderstanding.
The classification that calls the “good side,” based on factual information, “white propaganda,” and the “bad side,” which conceals false information, “black propaganda,” further brings to mind the black-and-white spotted panda.
Japan, too, has already experienced this, but the lovable panda makes people feel China is familiar and spontaneously creates a peaceful impression.

Yet Belgium is the country that produced Baron Albert d’Anethan, Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan, who was not deceived by black propaganda.
Once again, I want Belgium to see through the barbarity of China, which hides behind pandas, massacres ethnic minorities, and deprives its own people of freedom.
I want to see the pride of modern Europe, so sensitive to human rights repression.

The keen insight of Baron Albert d’Anethan.

Baron Albert d’Anethan remained in Japan for the long span from 1893 to 1910.
During that time, he completely discerned the conduct and disposition of the Japanese people, and came to trust them.
During the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), he possessed the insight not to be misled by the black propaganda that threatened to drive the Empire of Japan into international isolation.
The crisis was due chiefly to the spread of fabricated reports in American newspapers.
At the time of the occupation of the Port Arthur naval harbor, they reported that “the Imperial Army massacred 60,000 noncombatants, women, and children of the Qing Empire. Only 36 managed to escape.”
Baron d’Anethan, who understood the discipline of the Imperial Japanese Army, must have instantly sensed the obvious implausibility of the figure of 60,000, even considering the area and population of Port Arthur.
He began an investigation and sent a report to his home government.

“Japan is taking care of the wounded and sick, and the Red Cross, under the patronage of Her Majesty the Empress, is carrying out its work to perfection. Japan, too, joined in 1886 for the purpose of protecting the wounded and sick in land warfare. The Geneva Convention is being observed.”

“From what I directly heard from Viscount de Labrie, the French military attaché who was present on the scene, those who were killed were soldiers who had taken off their uniforms, and it is not true that women and children were killed. The residents had evacuated before the occupation, and the only ones left behind were soldiers and arsenal workers. Even while looking at the bodies of their comrades, treated in a cruel manner, the Japanese soldiers somehow restrained themselves to merely taking the enemy prisoner.”

Soldiers of the Qing army killed soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army, dismembered their bodies, and hung them from trees and eaves.
Certainly, the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army continued fighting while carrying with them their fury over such outrages.
To be continued.