By Feng Zhaokui?
"If Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China last
October was an ice-breaking journey, I hope that my visit to Japan
in April will be an ice-melting one," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
said at a press conference on March 16 concluding the annual
session of the National People's Congress.
In the meantime, during their visit to Beijing, Hidenao
Nakagawa, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),
and Kazuo Kitagawa, Secretary-General of the New Komeito party,
(both parties are in the ruling coalition), said the two sides
should remove the "drifting ice" and adopt a win-win strategy in
resolving the problems in their bilateral ties.
The phrases "ice-breaking," "ice-melting" and "removing the
drifting ice" accurately describe the fact that Sino-Japanese ties
have moved out of a five-year-long impasse and onto the path of
continuous normalization and stabilization of the two countries'
relationship.
Chinese President Hu Jintao has stressed that it is important to
treat the bilateral ties and deepen the friendship between the two
countries from a strategic perspective. During Abe's visit in
October 2006, the leaders decided to develop "strategic, mutually
beneficial ties." In late January, Japan "upgraded" its
"comprehensive policy dialogue" to a "strategic dialogue,"
signaling a consensus on approaching bilateral ties from a
strategic perspective.
The key connotation of the word "strategic" is the relationship
between the "parts" and the "whole." When addressing disputes --
that is, "removing drifting ice" -- one should not only see the
leaves but also the forest. Although each tree in the forest is
important, one cannot maintain a tree at the cost of the entire
forest.
As the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping pointed out,
maintaining friendly cooperation between the two countries is a
mission not only endowed by history, but also by reality. Whoever
the Chinese or Japanese leader is, he must not violate this
precondition. From a strategic point of view, any differences or
difficulties in bilateral ties are temporary, insubstantial and not
insurmountable. The friendship between China and Japan is the
overarching theme that outweighs any "differences or
difficulties."
From a strategic point of view, the friendship between China and
Japan is the trunk of a tree, whereas frictions and conflicts
between the two countries are some leaves. The late Chinese Premier
Zhou Enlai once said that we should "seek common ground on major
questions while reserving differences on minor ones." We should not
endanger our friendship just because of some differences. This
serves as a good guideline for Sino-Japanese relations and for the
handling of such issues as the war legacy and the disputes over the
East China Sea. Since 2001, former Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi's frequent visits to the Yasukuni Shrine damaged
bilateral ties. We must learn a lesson from this and avoid such an
impasse in the future.
Wen's trip is the first one that a Chinese premier has paid to
Japan in the past seven years. We are confident that this historic
visit will be successful, and the expectations of the two leaders
and two peoples to strengthen bilateral ties will melt the hard and
drifting ice between them. After a farewell to the cold winter of
bilateral ties, we are ready to embrace the warm spring.
Sino-Japanese relations are the ties between the two peoples.
Wen remarked, "Developing friendship is the common aspiration of
the two peoples, which cannot be blocked by anyone." The bilateral
relations are not to fulfill the global ambition of any big power,
or to win votes for any political party, but to benefit the peoples
in the two countries, as well as the people in Asia and the
world.
Who is developing Sino-Japanese relations? It is the two
peoples. Centuries of friendship between the two brought about the
normalization of bilateral ties in 1972, a milestone in the
historically friendly relations between the two nations.
The trade volume between China and Japan surpassed $200 billion
in 2006. China is expected to replace the United States as the
leading trade partner of Japan in 2007. If the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (SAR) is included, trade between China and
Japan has already surpassed that between China and the United
States. As Kitagawa of the New Komeito party said, "The economies
of China and Japan are interdependent and inseparable," and hence
the economic ties should be a win-win game rather than a zero sum
game. China's growth into an economic power is in the interests of
Japan. Japan has emerged from "a lost decade," which is in the
interests of China. Economic interactions between the two countries
will further enhance mutual understanding.
Economic interactions between countries usually contribute to
the reduction of conflict or friction over political and national
security issues. However, as political interests and national
security are higher priorities for a nation, economic interactions
have a limited role in preventing nations from clashing with each
other. Out of political and national security considerations, a
country tends to care not only about how much it has, but more
about how much others have. A country often worries that the
growing economic power of its rival might turn into military power
and hence pose a military threat to it.
As a Chinese scholar once said, "Trust is both the precondition
and the product of cooperation." If Japan sees the peaceful
development of China as a threat, while Asian countries such as
China worry about the resurgence of Japan's militarism, then the
mutual confidence between the two countries will be weakened. This
discomfort and skepticism are magnified through the lens of
history. The precondition for a strategic, mutually beneficial
relationship is to overcome the lack of trust and a sense of
insecurity, and enhance strategic confidence.
China and Japan should develop a "culture of trust." A culture
of trust will foster trust, while a culture of distrust can evoke
distrust. One key issue in bilateral relations is how to remove
distrust and promote trust. Summit-level exchanges between the two
countries will improve bilateral relations and deepen mutual
understanding and trust in a way that is unparalleled by other
types of visits, because of the intensive communications between
the two sides to prepare for the summit visits, including
discussions of diplomatic protocol arrangements and press releases,
dialogues between politicians and business people accompanying the
leaders, and discussions between the media and ordinary persons, as
well as domestic and foreign media coverage of the visits.
Highlighting the significance of summit-level visits is not to
undermine the importance of person-to-person contact. History
reveals that "civilian diplomacy" paved the way for former Japanese
Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka's visit to China and for the
normalization of diplomatic ties between China and Japan in 1972.
In the same vein, "civilian diplomacy," that is, person-to-person
contact, has played an important role in the recent
"re-normalization" of Sino-Japanese relations.
Being close neighbors across a narrow strip of water, there are
favorable timing, geographical and human conditions for China and
Japan to strengthen bilateral exchanges. "Favorable timing" refers
to the overall tide of the era, that is, peace and development,
globalization and regional economic integration, and increasing
concern over such new challenges as environmental pollution.
"Favorable geographical conditions" refers to the geographical
proximity of the two countries. People can go across the border
without suffering from jet lag, and cargo does not have to be
transported over a long distance on the sea.
By "favorable human conditions" we mean that as Eastern
countries, China and Japan adhere to a Confucian culture, which
values "peace" and "trust." In the spirit of peace and trust, the
two peoples have gotten along well with each other for over 2,000
years.
By "setting into motion the two wheels of exchange at the level
of top leaders and statesmen, as well as through people-to-people
exchange," we believe that the "culture of trust" between China and
Japan will grow. With a "culture of trust," the two countries will
be honest with each other, take history as a mirror and look
forward to the future, and abide by the three political documents
they have signed.
The author is senior research fellow at the Institute of
Japanese Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(Beijing Review April 9, 2007)
