Eat a Lot of Worms!

According to Xiao Qiang of the China Digital Times, this is "one of many anti-Japanese animations circulating among young Chinese netizens recently" ("Anti-Japanese Animation in Chinese Cyberspace," 7 Apr. 2005)

The captions says: "Protest!" "Strongly Oppose!" "For Good Luck in the Year of Rooster, Eat a Lot of Worms!"

Like the US today in the Middle East, Japan is feared and hated by the peoples of other Asian countries, especially in China (but as well by many in Korea, Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia), who were brutally subjugated by its mid-20th century imperialism. Japan is seeking a permanent seat on the UN Security Council; neighboring populations (sometimes abetted by their governments) are angry at the prospect.

Of course the real question is not what countries should be on the Security Council, but how the vast majority of the nations in the world can end an institutional arrangement that gives the WWII era victors a permanent veto over the development of global alternatives to armed conflict.