Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China on Sunday sets a number of firsts. It is the first official visit by a Japanese prime minister to China in five years; it is the first overseas visit by Abe since he assumed office last month other than the US, Japan's key ally; and it is the first time that an official visit was arranged in such a speedy fashion.
Abe's visit took place against the backgrounds of an escalating nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula as Pyongyang declared the intention to conduct a nuclear test in the near future, and the deepest freeze in Sino-Japanese relations in the 34 years since the two countries normalized relations.
The Chinese leadership accorded Abe the highest protocol treatment, with the top three leaders meeting him. Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Abe's visit breaks the free fall in bilateral relations during former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's tenure when summit meetings were suspended over Koizumi's visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine that houses Class A war criminals. While Abe has largely dodged the question of whether he has visited or will visit the shrine during his term in office, he has acknowledged the political sensitivity of the issue and promised to act appropriately.
Indeed, one of the most difficult tasks for Abe is how to deal with Koizumi's legacy on relations with Asian countries. While Koizumi has been instrumental and audacious in bringing domestic reform that may have a positive long-term impact on the economy, the same can hardly be said of his diplomacy.
He put too much weight on Japan's relationship with the US, with perhaps a wrong conviction that as long as Washington and Tokyo are on good terms, everything else would not matter that much. He forgot that the US has its own strategic interests.
MOST HARMFUL
Perhaps the most harmful thing to the Japanese relationship with neighboring countries -- China and South Korea in particular -- is that Koizumi put his ego ahead of national interests. This harmed Japan in the long term and has already undone many of the good things that Tokyo, through "soft power," has done for the international community.
Koizumi's inflexibility created big obstacles on a range of issues important to Japan: such as permanent membership of the UN Security Council; how Japan's pursuit of a "normal country" will be perceived by others; aid to developing countries; its contribution to peacekeeping but its attempt to whitewash history; the Yasukuni shrine and remilitarization.
Beijing has placed much hope in the Abe government to break the deadlock in the estranged bilateral relationship; this was clearly reflected in its willingness to play host to Abe at such short notice and during an important Chinese Communist Party plenum.
But the visit is merely a beginning for the mending of fences, because challenges lie ahead for Beijing and Tokyo. They have to deal with mutual suspicion and distrust, historical animosity, territorial disputes and ongoing structural changes that are re-shaping East Asia.
Indeed, despite growing trade, investment and other socioeconomic ties between China and Japan, the level of mutual understanding and trust remains low. Economic interdependence between the two has continued to deepen, with bilateral trade reaching close to US$200 billion annually. More than 30,000 Japanese businesses have set up factories in China, accounting for 10 million jobs. There are more than 300 pairs of sister cities, and every week more than 500 flights connect the two countries, moving thousands of tourists and businesspeople.
But the suspicion and distrust between the two countries have never been so explicit and strong. In addition, recent spats over territory, history, military buildups and alternative approaches to developing regional security and economic architecture place the two Asian powers in a dangerous rivalry.
AMBIVALENCE
There are many reasons behind the ambivalence of the bilateral relationship. These include:
* The two countries' changing domestic political dynamics as new generations of leaders take the reins and as policy debates and processes are increasingly influenced by public opinion and growing nationalist sentiment.
* Divergent views of and interests in the security architecture of East Asia and the role of military alliances, as well as suspicion over each other's intentions.
* Perceived and actual competition for the region's political and economic leadership, fueled by China's continuing growth and Japan's recent recovery.
Complicating this changing relationship is a lack of mutual trust, which in turn is fed by the legacy of the past, territorial disputes and domestic developments. Indeed, a serious challenge to leaders in both capitals is that never in history have both countries been powerful at the same time.
This raises the question of how potential competition for regional primacy is to be managed.
This problem is vividly captured by Yoichi Fundabashi, Japan's most widely read foreign affairs commentator: "A rising China will induce critical, painful and psychologically difficult strategic adjustments in Japan's foreign policy. Japan has not known a wealthy, powerful, confident, internationalist China since its modernization in the Meiji era."
Over the last decade, there has been a gradual shift in Japan's China policy from "a faith in commercial realism to a reluctant liberalism."
This has been due in large measure to the generational change of leadership and fractured Japanese domestic politics since the early 1990s. At the same time, Tokyo is becoming increasingly wary of an emerging China with growing economic and military power.
The liberal assumption that China would become more accommodative as it became prosperous -- hence necessitating a strategy of economic engagement through Official Development Assistance (ODA) programs, trade and investment -- was eroded as tensions began to build up between the two countries in the 1990s.
There is also growing doubt in some quarters of the Japanese media over the strange nature of the Japan-China relationship despite pretensions to continued friendship. Likewise, recent public opinion polls in Japan also depict a downward trend in positive feelings toward China and a growing wariness driven by uncertainty over that country's role in the Asia-Pacific region and its impact on Japan.
FOUR FACTORS
Four factors have influenced the state of Sino-Japanese relations. The first is the power shift in East Asia. As mentioned above, over the last two decades, the Chinese economy has registered an average of more than 9 percent growth while Japan stagnated during the 1990s. It was only in recent years that the Japanese economy began to show signs of recovery.
China's dramatic growth means that the gap between China and Japan has decreased; at the same time, China's influence in the regional economy is expanding, especially in Southeast Asia where Japan used to hold a commanding position. Japan is beginning to feel that China may soon take over as the leading economy in Asia. Thus has begun an implicit competition for a regional leadership role if not hegemony or dominance.
The second factor is that the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union removed the link that used to bind the two countries in the common purpose of checking Soviet expansionism and threats to East Asian security.
Third, there have been generational changes in the two countries' leadership. Older-generation Chinese and Japanese statesmen such as Zhou Enlai (周恩來), Liao Chengzhi (廖承志), Kakuei Tanaka, Masayoshi Ohira and Takeo Fukuda expended tremendous efforts to build bridges after China and Japan established diplomatic relations. Indeed, in the 1980s, Chinese and Japanese leaders Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) and Yasuhiro Nakasone strongly promoted greater Chinese-Japanese youth exchanges. The current leaders in both countries, however, are hostage to growing nationalism and highly sensitive to public opinion at home. This creates enormous difficulties for policy flexibility and compromise.
Finally, the international security environment has also changed. The nature and scope of the US-Japan alliance have changed, prompted by the US' post-Cold War strategies of maintaining primacy in the region and globally, and preparing for contingencies that require alliances to be more adaptable. The US-Japan alliance has gone beyond the original bilateral security arrangement to take on more regional and even global missions. For Beijing, this poses the threat of infringing on Chinese sovereignty -- particularly where Taiwan is concerned.
These four sets of factors combined confront Beijing and Tokyo on how best to manage their bilateral relationship. Managed well, this could be turned into a realistic relationship based on mutual respect, acceptance and parity; it could also degenerate into open rivalry, fanned by history, nationalism and the pursuit of dominance in the region.
THREE LAYERS
From the Chinese perspective, there are three layers in Sino-Japanese relations. The first relates to history and Taiwan.
The second is the anchor of this relationship. During the Cold War, their common interest in opposing Soviet expansionism made a China-Japan-US alignment possible. But the end of the Cold War has removed this pillar. However, growing economic interdependence seems to have replaced it.
The third layer contains a number of so-called "T" problems: Taiwan, territorial disputes, textbooks and trade friction. To enhance mutual trust, the two countries need to devote more efforts to developing the four Cs: communication, confidence, cooperation and common interests.
The resumption of top-level talks should offer hope for an improved bilateral relationship in the coming months. Hu and Abe have agreed to meet again in Hanoi next month at the APEC leaders summit and at the China-Japan-South Korea summit in December.
Next year marks the 35th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries and both governments have indicated their commitment to use the occasion to strengthen bilateral ties in all areas.
Economic ties aside, the two countries have also established mechanisms for a security dialogue in both bilateral and multilateral forums, including the Six-Party Talks, ARF, ASEAN+3 (dealing with terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and regional security) and the East Asia Summit.
China and Japan could make a great contribution to East Asia's peace and prosperity by properly handling their disputes and seeking common ground for cooperation.
Yuan Jing-dong is a research director at the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he is also an associate professor of International Policy Studies.
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