By Shi Yinhong
China-Japan relations may have been in a state of almost
continuous deterioration in the three years before Shinzo Abe's
election last fall, but the crisis provided an opportunity in the
shape of worry and fear.
By the time Junichiro Koizumi's term as Japanese prime minister
was up in September 2006, his successor already had more worries
and fears than he had anticipated.
Abe faced growing criticism of Koizumi's attitude toward China
and Japan's slide toward international isolation as a result of its
stand on history and the resulting China policy. "Abe's direction"
produced a dramatically softened China strategy alongside a push
for Japan's "military normalization" and nationalistic politics
even more pronounced than Koizumi's.
Chinese leaders have long looked for opportunities to improve
the country's ties with Japan. They have been concerned with the
negative impact of a protracted confrontation between China and
Japan.
They immediately identified "Abe's direction" as suited to
China's interests and decided to make a daring but wise strategic
experiment as soon as Abe became Japanese prime minister. They
agreed to receive him in China even if he refused to promise not to
visit the Yasukuni Shrine. The goal was to resume high-level
contacts between leaders of the two countries and create an
"ice-breaking" opportunity for the frozen bilateral ties.
This decision prompted Abe to further soften his attitude toward
China, making it even harder for him to reverse course (especially
by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine again), while markedly improving
China's international image and status in respect to China-Japan
relations.
In the six months following Abe's China visit last October,
China-Japan ties have been strengthened thanks to good will,
caution and dedication.
Particularly noteworthy is the improved atmosphere in which the
two countries have worked to develop bilateral ties despite
fundamental disputes remaining largely unresolved.
It was against this backdrop that the "ice-thawing visit" to Japan by Premier Wen
Jiabao took place last week. The trip was conducted according to
the emerging strategy and achieved broader results than anticipated
thanks to Wen's statesmanship and charm.
The China-Japan Joint Press Statement, based on talks between
the two leaders, lays out the principles for a strategic
relationship of mutual benefit between the two nations. It
significantly expands the range of China-Japan relations as well as
the basic rules.
The relationship moves from being limited to the issues of
history and Taiwan to including East Asia security, energy and
environmental protection, military exchanges, building mutual
trust, economic and technological cooperation to further global
stability and development.
This has opened up a prospect of great significance: the
possibility of China-Japan relations heading into the new stage
described by Wen.
The joint statement largely redefined the multi-level and
multi-content mechanism for dialogue between the two governments.
The high-level economic dialogue is particularly noteworthy because
it is a first in the history of China-Japan bilateral ties.
Another decision expressed in the joint statement is the plan
for large-scale exchanges that will include young people. Both
governments worked hard before Wen's visit to resolve the major
dispute over the East China Sea.
Unfortunately, no pre-visit breakthroughs were made.
Nevertheless, in addition to reiterating the general principles of
mutual benefit and joint development, the two sides promised to
speed up bilateral talks in an effort to develop a detailed plan to
move the process ahead.
Wen's speech to the Japanese Parliament won widespread praise
from the world press as well as that of the two countries. In
addition to reiterating the facts of the catastrophe inflicted on
China by Japan's war of aggression and making the point that Japan
must learn from history, Wen attracted particular attention with
new or relatively new key points.
He said that the Chinese and Japanese nations learned and
borrowed from each other in ancient and near-modern times; since
1972, Japanese leaders have admitted to the war of aggression and
expressed remorse; they have apologized to victimized countries on
multiple occasions and won positive responses from the Chinese
people and government.
He made the point that since World War II, China recognized that
Japan was becoming a nation of peace and the Chinese people will
never forget Japan's support for China's reform and opening to the
outside world as well as its drive toward modernization.
Existing and potential major difficulties still threaten
China-Japan relations. The long-standing major disputes between the
two countries have not been resolved and appear unlikely to be
resolved in the foreseeable future.
The countries' broad cooperation faces obstacles posed by the
media and politics as a result of deep-rooted mutual suspicion.
Despite the successful "ice-thawing" trip, there still exist many
threats to bilateral ties, of which a possible visit to Yasukuni
Shrine by Abe is an obvious one.
From a broader perspective, there will always be variants in
China-Japan relations, but they can turn for the better, not just
for the worse.
Considering the improvement of bilateral ties since Abe's China
visit last October and the achievements of Wen's Japan trip last
week, we have reason to believe the China-Japan relationship will
grow steadily and markedly in the days to come.
The author is a professor of international relations at the
School of International Studies at Renmin University of
China.
(China Daily April 18, 2007)
