Why This Topic Landed in Japan

Tokyo University announced that it had disciplined a professor in his 60s for embedding an inappropriate string in the source code of a graduate-school admissions page in the School of Frontier Sciences. The string was "June Fourth Tiananmen," and because China's censorship system can block pages containing such keywords, it may have kept Chinese applicants from viewing the exam information. The professor had reportedly kept the string in place from 2020 to November 2023; according to the reporting, the university issued a three-day suspension dated July 29.

What drove the pushback is that the professor was the one who inserted the string, using China's own censorship against it, yet the professor is the one who got punished. Many readers concluded that the university was deferring to China—protecting subsidies and tuition from Chinese students. But the university's stated reason was conduct unbecoming and damage to its reputation, not appeasement; the "deference to China" reading is an inference from the threads, not what the university said. Circulating alongside it was a separate report that in a survey of 1,364 Japanese companies, only 1% expected China's economy to improve, which the threads treated as one more reason to pull back from the Chinese market.

Key Reaction Themes

  • "The wrong side got punished" — Being unable to view the page is a problem of China's censorship; from inside Japan students can still see it, so why punish the professor?
  • Suspicion of deference to China — A reading that the university bent to China to protect subsidies and foreign-student revenue (an inference, not confirmed).
  • Exit talk on China business — Distrust of GDP figures and capital outflows, and a practical view that firms should leave China while they still can.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

The disciplined "Tiananmen" professor at Tokyo University

A professor who planted "June Fourth Tiananmen" in an admissions page's source code to block viewing from China was punished, sparking pushback that "the wrong side got disciplined."

Sources: Mainichi

Comments:

  • "Isn't Todai these days basically on a leash held by China?"
  • "To begin with, lately it's been a university that doesn't raise the flag or sing Kimigayo at its entrance ceremony."
  • ">The string kept Chinese students from seeing the exam info. Is that the professor's fault? I'd say it's the fault of the Chinese Communist Party restricting information."
  • "Also, why does Japan have to be the considerate one here? Go tell China."
  • "Disciplined out of deference to China's censorship? What on earth is that?"
  • "Seriously, on what grounds did they punish this? 'June Fourth Tiananmen' is just the name of a historical event, not a slur or anything. Punishing that is more like suppressing speech."
  • "Huh? If you're studying in Japan you can see it, right?"
  • "It's only that it might be unviewable through China's Golden Shield; there's no problem at all for a student viewing it from inside Japan."
  • "This is Japan—so what's the problem?"
  • ">The string may have gotten the site blocked by China's censorship system so Chinese students couldn't view the exam info. That's a problem with the side doing the censoring, not with the string. Can't you grasp even this much? Mr. bottom-tier-school, lol."
  • "If foreign students drop off, they lose the subsidies, so it's a big problem, right?"

The "1% expect improvement" survey on China business

A report that only 1% of 1,364 Japanese firms expected China's economy to improve drew exit talk and distrust of the statistics.

Sources: msn, 2ch

Comments:

  • "A bizarre situation where growth is 5% yet capital outflows won't stop."
  • "Even if you pad the GDP, the cracks show everywhere else."
  • "China's economy won't improve for decades, but the crowd that got rich off exploitative labor back when Japan was in deflation could use that know-how to make money in China."
  • "Flatlining like this is hell."
  • "Get out while you still have room—it's a country that thinks it can do whatever it likes to Japanese people."
  • "Like Japan, it's aging with a shrinking population, so it can't keep growing forever; the population outflow is worse than Japan's."
  • "It'll be fine, fine—everyone keeps saying China's amazing, amazing."
  • "Wait, they don't even need 'improvement,' do they? They hit 5% real GDP every year, so they're growing like crazy."
  • "And yet Keidanren still doubles down on China, lol."
  • "All that effort for nothing."