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Briefing Report

Japan-China Relations – Present and Future: Premier Wen Jiabao’s Japan Visit

Director, KEIO Institute of East Asian Studies (KIEAS), and Professor, Faculty of Law and Politics, Keio University
Mr. Ryosei Kokubun

[International] April 9 , 2007

My last presentation at the FPCJ on the topic of Sino-Japanese relations and conditions in Northeast Asia on October 27, 2006 coincided with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to China six months ago. Now, Prime Minister Abe’s trip will be followed by a visit to Japan by Premier Wen Jibao of the State Council starting tomorrow on April 11th and through the 13th. Wen Jiabao's visit is significant because it represents a continuation of the head of state summits between the two countries that commenced with Prime Minister Abe’s visit to China.

The year 2007 marks the 35th anniversary since China and Japan normalized relations and it has also been designated the Japan-China Exchange Year of Culture and Sports. While these are positive developments, 2007 is also a year with somewhat complicated historical connotations. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident, as it has come to be called, sparking the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, and the well-known events at Nanjing both transpired 70 years ago this year, and a number of events have been planned as a way to find closure on this tragic episode from our past.

I think Sino-Japanese relations have clearly improved since last fall, but as everyone is well aware they remain quite fragile in several respects. Today I want to touch on three main themes: a simple overview of the state of Sino-Japanese relations on the occasion of Prime Minister Abe's trip to China last October and the state of relations afterward, some observations about what the specific themes will be on the occasion of Premier Wen Jiabao's trip to Japan, and some observations about the course of Sino-Japanese relations from here.

1. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s October 2006 state visit to China and afterward
Prime Minister Abe’s October 2006 visit to China
Last year I said a few things about Prime Minister Abe’s trip to China last October. The trip was made amid an extremely tense atmosphere, and though the two heads of state were heavily criticized by voices within their respective countries, a summit in terms of an individual accord to meet was made a reality. The press statements issued during the summit barely addressed historical issues and instead stressed how postwar Japan has followed the path of a peaceful nation. Another thing that caught the attention of international observers was that Taiwan was not mentioned at all—an entirely new development in the Sino-Japanese dialogue. For the most part, bilateral documents touched on Taiwan in terms of the One-China Principle but such language was not included in jointly issued statements. Of course, the focus of the summit was not Taiwan but a meeting of minds on how to handle Sino-Japanese relations, and I think the presence of this language is part of a mutually reciprocal strategic relationship. For Prime Minister Abe and Japan, I think there was a great deal of anxiety that his sudden trip to China would be interpreted as a diplomatic concession to China. President Hu Jintao insisted on a cessation of official visits to Yasukuni Shrine as a condition for the summit, and since that condition was ultimately put on the back burner and left unresolved, the two heads of state reached their accord while also opening themselves to strong criticism from within their respective countries. Criticism of the summit is also an aspect of a very complicated state of domestic affairs in both countries. In China especially the issue needs to be seen in the context of the maneuvering that led to Hu Jintao ascending to the position of President. At the same time that political elites on both sides were taking on these risks, a direct strategic dialogue was eventually opened between Japanese Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi and Chinese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dai Bingguo, thus establishing a direct link between Prime Minister Abe and President Hu Jintao and ultimately making Prime Minister Abe's autumn trip to China a reality.

Despite the perils of holding a summit and the risk of domestic criticism it concluded on a note of substantive success. Perhaps the most delighted of all at the summit’s success was the United States. I say this because the US is preoccupied with the war in Iraq and problems in the Middle East, and a poor state of Sino-Japanese relations means the US has to engage in a separate dialogue with each country in order to ensure a smooth diplomatic process. So, even a small improvement in Sino-Japanese relations makes things much easier for the US.

Sino-Japanese relations since Prime Minister Abe’s visit and up to the present
In the most general terms, China has changed from a hard line toward Japan to a much softer approach that acts whenever possible to avoid raising historical issues. For example, whenever VIPs visit China, China now quickly organizes press appearances that include President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. We've also seen efforts to expedite various stalled business agreements and the like. Moreover, I think we can conclude that China’s media coverage of Japan since the summit and up to the present has become extremely positive. Coverage in China of the recent comfort women controversy, for example, has been remarkably restrained and tends to emphasize statements that show that Prime Minister Abe’s stance is no different from past governments. Likewise in Japan the overtly anti-Chinese tenor that so characterized public opinion in the past has become more composed of late.

In the sphere of cultural exchange, the exchange of high school age students has become a standard practice. A joint historical research initiative has opened its second panel as well, and from what I hear, despite a good deal of fierce debate, as one might expect, the atmosphere is relatively positive. I expect that around summer of next year a report will be put together by the panel covering the situation up to 2008 and I assume that the content will address those basic historical facts that the two sides have mutually agreed to be valid.

Moreover, a somewhat greater degree of cooperation than in the past concerning the East China Sea and North Korea has become evident since Prime Minister Abe’s trip. We are beginning to see an increase in the number of energetic formal meetings concerning the East China Sea. Nonetheless, the issue presents an extremely complicated situation for the two nations and political prestige is also a factor in play, so I think we have yet to see any significant progress on the issue. Still, I think it will be a major topic at the upcoming summit.

North Korea conducted its nuclear weapon test just as Prime Minister Abe was departing Beijing for Seoul. The Prime Minister's first words upon landing in Seoul were "I want Japan to work in partnership with the US and China on this problem," thus making the North Korea issue the first instance that Japan and China have acted together and a first step toward forming a strategic relationship. Afterwards, China's statements about North Korea, particularly in regard to the abduction of Japanese citizens, showed a subtle shift. Through last year the Chinese side—most notably Premier Wen Jiabao—stated that it would cooperate to the extent that is possible in finding a solution to the North Korea problem. The abduction of Japanese citizens is a central issue for Prime Minister Abe and therefore China is paying attention to it. Recently, what might be a kind of sunshine policy on the part of the US has led to a much more flexible policy by that country toward North Korea, and this may have also lessened somewhat the pressure on China. While these developments by no means guarantee a solution to the North Korean problem their progress can nonetheless serve as a lens through which we can gauge the state of Sino-Japanese relations.

2. The specific issues behind Premier Wen Jiabao’s trip to Japan
I will now turn to my second topic, the specific issues surrounding Premier Wen Jiabao's coming visit to Japan. First, what kind of overall tone should we expect at the meeting that will take place tomorrow? The bottom line is that the two countries are naturally committed to making the Premier's trip a success. A trip ending in failure will set Sino-Japanese relations back several years so it is in the interests of both China and Japan to make sure it is a success. Consequently both sides have thoroughly prepared for the trip. As you all know, Prime Minister Abe is currently preoccupied with all sorts of very difficult domestic issues, including the elections. No doubt, he won’t win votes campaigning just on Sino-Japanese relations and the fact is domestic issues are perceived as something separate from foreign affairs; nonetheless Prime Minister Abe needs this trip to be successful because he then can point to it as one of the achievements of his administration. At this point I can only speculate about what lies just ahead, but I think that the discussion of historical issues will be downplayed as much as possible and the focus will instead be on Postwar Japan, its development as a peaceful nation, and on keeping Sino-Japanese relations on a constructive course going forward.

Focusing solely on historical issues and making the past the main item of discussion raises the possibility that the trip might not conclude successfully, and I think the subject will be avoided for that reason. Now that China and Japan have finally started on the path of developing a diplomatic relationship there will be a good deal of talk on how specifically to move that relationship energetically and constructively forward. And naturally one of those topics will concern how to continue the interaction between the two heads of state. During Junichiro Koizumi's time as Prime Minister he availed himself of opportunities to meet with Chinese officials when overseas, but continuing regular meetings between the two nations, including summits in which the two heads of state each travel once a year to the other country, is something that both sides now want to somehow accomplish. For this reason, I think China will probably ask Prime Minister Abe to come to China this fall. And naturally this will be followed a year from now—around the spring of next year—by President Hu Jintao coming to Japan. The next Party Congress is this fall at which time party leadership posts begin their second term. Moreover, next spring also happens to be when the Hu Jintao begins his second term as President, and for that season I think they are probably thinking about proposing a meeting at around that time. Of course, this all depends on relations moving forward constructively.

Japan and China have yet to establish a hotline between the two heads of state despite nearly ten years having passed since the two countries made an agreement to do so during former President Jiang Zemin's visit to Japan in 1998. In contrast, the US and China have a hotline that the two heads of state use frequently to discuss issues by telephone, and it is crucial that Japan and China adopt such a framework as well. Moreover, as already reported in the media, what might be called meetings of economic ministers, which I assume to include ministers in charge of economic, environmental, and energy policy, will greatly increase communication on the ministerial level. This is, in fact, not new. For a few years in the early-1980s Japan and China held regular ministerial level conferences involving a great number of ministers traveling back and forth on an annual basis to engage in dialogue on specific topics.

Since this is not meant to be a political briefing I will limit my talk to what developments I think would be constructive and to what I think is likely to come out of the summit. For example, the dialogue on security issues has been entirely inadequate. While there has been a small amount of communication between the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in recent years, the fact is there was considerably more communication in the 1980s. It is crucial that this conversation take place in a variety of venues and at the highest possible leadership level. Currently, China is participating in a number of peacekeeping operations (PKO) around the world. The SDF and PLA have a track record of working together in the context of the PKO under way in Cambodia and similar cooperative undertakings are being considered for the future. Another area where the two sides are cooperating on security concerns the hundred of thousands of rounds of abandoned chemical weapons in Northeast China, a topic that has received a great deal of sensational media coverage. The process of removing these shells has in fact been a cooperative effort between the PLA and SDF from the start. And though it has been described as a case of the two sides forming a partnership and cooperating to an exceptionally high degree in order to perform extraordinarily dangerous work, this aspect has been barely reported by the media. In addition to security issues, I think that the joint historical research projects and youth cultural exchange that I mentioned earlier will probably be taken up at the summit as well.

Of even greater interest are the provisions that will form, and the specific substance of, a mutually reciprocal strategic partnership. Dialogue in this area thus far has focused on the East China Sea and on the environment and energy. There are also the North Korean issues as well as financial problems—meaning, exchange rate issues—and the Chinese yuan vis-a-vis the yen. Some other topics that might come up include China's various banking systems and the railroad network. There are also a number of issues with a somewhat different angle, such as the various forms of international crime within the region, money laundering, and disease and health issues as illustrated by the outbreaks of SARS. Taking up issues that have not received the attention and cooperation they deserve because of the past turbulent state of Sino-Japanese relations serves to promote a more general cooperation among the nations of East Asia. This, I think, is what will make up the substance of a mutually reciprocal strategic relationship between the two countries.

While this may not be unique to East Asia, Japan, China, South Korea, and Taiwan are all experiencing a number of very similar domestic problems. One of these is income inequality. The problem is much more pronounced in China than in Japan, is a major issue in South Korea, and in Taiwan will probably be a central issue for next year's general elections. Income inequality is a global problem and a byproduct of globalization, as well as a major problem in need of solutions. Another problem is declining birthrates and aging, a problem that has come to assume particular urgency for China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan alike. It is also a problem that may have common social, cultural, and historical underpinnings, thus making it an important topic for joint research.

I mentioned a number of issues relevant to a mutually reciprocal strategic relationship, but naturally not all of these can be taken up at once and need to be carefully arranged in order of priority. At this point in time I think the item most in need of attention is the East China Sea. I have attended international conferences all over the world, and this is the problem that causes the most anxiety. Other countries worry that should Sino-Japanese relations deteriorate over historical disputes and other differences, the East China Sea is where the nationalism of the two countries will play out. Citizens of Japan and China may not see this as that critical an issue, but it has become a major concern elsewhere. This means we need to think about how to turn a potential crisis into an opportunity. Joint development is the key to achieving this. But I think the scenario for bringing this about poses problems of its own. It is just not that simple a matter because it involves sovereignty and other issues and is one that easily becomes entangled in the security issues always present in the background of the East China Sea dialogue.

I recently attended a major conference in the United Kingdom at which North Korea and Sino-Japanese relations were for the most part absent. In contrast, there was a remarkably sharp debate over problems in Africa, and the issues concerning Africa were essentially about energy, how to develop it, and China's presence in Africa in terms of its need for energy resources. I believe that China's energy problem is fundamental to the problems in Africa, and as such it is an issue of the gravest importance. Energy is the issue that will determine just how far China can sustain its economic growth. As everyone here is well aware, Japan is the most advanced country in the world in the area of energy conservation, and this makes energy conservation a potential focus for bilateral cooperation.

3. The direction of Sino-Japanese relations from here
I turn now to my third main theme, the course of Sino-Japanese relations and the course they need to take in order to be the most constructive for both sides. I can start by saying that 2008 stands to be a year of great significance. Besides the Beijing Olympics, the two countries have agreed that next year Japan’s ODA to China in a form that has been done for decades will end. Japan's ODA to China started around 1980 and has continued for nearly 30 years. There is a fair amount of scholarly research about how it started. As those researches show, China was a developing country at the time and one that had just embarked on a program of modernization, and Japan did not want China to go back to the state of turmoil such as it had experienced during the Great Cultural Revolution era. It was in this context that Japan began providing aid as a way to foster economic growth and draw China closer to Japan. Since China was a developing country and Japan an advanced country, the nature of the relationship at that time was essentially a North-South relationship.

This was evident in trade as well. From the initiation of ODA until perhaps about 10 years ago, China produced oil and had the role of a natural resource giant exporting oil to Japan. In turn, Japan exported technology to China. Thus trade between the two nations was structured within the framework of a North-South relationship. We cannot yet consider China a developed country, but the structure of the relationship, with the conclusion of ODA in 2008, will become essentially equal. In every sense, the relationship has become one of equals.

I think that this state of equality in Sino-Japanese relations is probably the first time in history. In broad historical terms, China has indeed been the dominant nation in the region, but from the late 19th century through the 20th, Japan was dominant. Today, at last, the Sino-Japanese relationship is one of equals in the true sense of the term. Probing the issue more deeply, we see that the 1980s was Japan's decade. During the 80s, the whole world focused its attention on Japan and debated how to respond to the problems Japan's success had raised. Now attention is shifting to China, and this means that the nature of Sino-Japanese relations will quite likely experience subtle change. This is an era in which the world is preoccupied with China in both the good and bad sense of the word, and I think this preoccupation is going to continue for a while. This means that, for China, Japan may not be the decisive factor that it once was. Though the relationship exists in the context of a relative dynamic, for China the importance of Japan will in its most fundamental aspects remain unchanged. Geographic proximity, economic prowess, and the structure of the relationship at present suggest that the importance of each country to the other is unlikely to decline very much.

The second item to consider is what form the communication between heads of state will assume. I think both countries will continue to work hard on developing this aspect of the relationship. To elaborate, compare today with the 1980s. In the ’80s, economic ties between Japan and China were not yet very strong. Indeed, compared with today the volume of investment and trade was so small as to be almost insignificant. Sino-Japanese relations were also rife with controversy in the ’80s, including the historical content of school textbooks, official visits to Yasukuni Shrine, controversial statements by cabinet members, the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands, and so on. Along with all these controversies there was also Taiwan, yet despite all this, relations somehow managed to be relatively cordial. As I mentioned earlier, this was because of a well developed network between top leadership that included conferences reaching up to the highest echelons of the bureaucracy and a personal relationship between then Prime Minister Nakasone and then Party Chairman Hu Yaobang. So despite weak social and economic ties the political elite had formed strong ties.

Indeed, a look at various researches on this period shows that whether the issue was textbooks, Yasukuni Shrine, or any other controversial issue, Chairman Hu Yaobang has moved very resolutely to restrain domestic reaction. Today, however, even though we have considerable economic, social, and cultural interaction between the two countries—Keio University, for example, has a number of outstanding students from China—relations between the two countries can be unstable once relations between the political leadership become tense, as we have seen. Sino-Japanese relations, in other words, still lack a solid foundation, and if the top leadership fails to establish strong ties society will not be able to marshal the strength needed to establish real stability. For this reason, summits between the two nations' leaders must continue—no matter the circumstances, no matter what problems may occur. In any event, a common issue going forward as far as the strategic relationship is concerned, and as I have already mentioned several times, is to not just talk but thoroughly think through the concrete actions to be taken as part of such a relationship. Going forward, Sino-Japanese relations means more than China and Japan thinking about their mutual interests; both sides must be keenly aware that they have the world’s attention and of the importance of regional stability. Moreover, the two countries have different systems, and the two sides need to search for ways to engage greater interest on the part of the society and youth of the two countries and make them aware of the unique appeal of each country. I think mutual cultural exchange is the only way to nurture this aspect of the relationship.

A recent media survey on Japan and China asking university students to name their favorite Japanese and Chinese revealed a fascinating phenomenon. Chinese students named Yasunari Kawabata as their favorite and included Haruki Murakami and other cultural figures among their favorite personages. Japanese university students on the other hand named Zhang Ziyi as their favorite followed by Jackie Chan and then Confucius. I think the results show that mutual cultural exchange has a constructive side.

I want to close with some observations about the most complicated issue of all: how do we overcome the problem of history and set the two countries on the path toward reconciliation? The current approach of doing joint research by means of government level committees is not the way to resolve this issue. But this is a way to search for a constructive approach to the issue. State relations are not meant to determine how historical research is done. That is, as we move forward, the problem will not be resolved if it is regarded as some sort of negotiation in which the two sides make tradeoffs over the potential profit to be derived from something. Put simply, historical research involves establishing the fundamental facts—that’s what scholars do. And in fact, there are countless examples of joint Japanese-Chinese research on the public level and research specialist level, they’re just not being reported by the media. The joint research carried out at universities and research facilities and by private individuals includes numerous examples of extremely brilliant and penetrating work on this very delicate topic. In the final analysis, scholars not governments should do historical research, and so I think it is important to privatize this research.

Within China considerably more research than in the past is carried out whenever possible free of a political agenda, but the situation is still troublesome because political pressure is constantly exerted on historical research. It is vital that research continue to shift to the public sphere where the potential is greatest for doing research in a controversy-free atmosphere. In any event, writing a nation’s history and the relation of that written account with those who encounter that written history is a problem shared by all nations. Nonetheless, in the future we will need to continue working on the issues of establishing the most basic historical facts and of history education. At the same time, our sole emphasis should not be dealing only with those problems posed by history—we also need to create opportunities that foster a mutual understanding of how the people of these two nations live today and of the various things that shape their lives.

I want to close with a few remarks from the perspective of my personal beliefs and philosophy. People holding high political office, people whose position places them in a role of responsibility toward the country, have a responsibility to promote the current established political stance of the government, which means that politicians have a duty to not express their personal feelings lightly. Recent statements by Japanese cabinet members have shown a considerable divergence from the official political stance of the government, and this is not at all a good thing. I think there should be some minimum consistent political stance that members of the government are committed to upholding in their public statements.

While I have kept my presentation today as brief as possible and have avoided going too in depth, I nonetheless wanted to take the unique opportunity of using this gathering to carefully present my views on the Sino-Japanese relations, especially in light of the fact that Japanese tend to do a poor job of explaining their viewpoints and opinions to the rest of the world.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q: What happens if Prime Minister Abe visits Yasukuni Shrine in August and fall of this year? Won’t that wipe out all the progress in relations over the past year and set things back to where they were when he first took office?

A: This is quite probably the worst case scenario. Right now he isn’t saying whether or not he will go or even if he did or did not go—the situation is that unclear. If I were to say what will happen if he publicly commits to going and then does so, I would say that the possibility is real that the mutual trust that has been built up between Prime Minister Abe and President Hu Jintao will completely collapse. It’s not inconceivable that relations could get even worse than they were before. And as I said earlier, Prime Minister Abe’s China foreign policy has been one of his biggest achievements and such an outcome would certainly greatly diminish the value of the achievement. I think the Prime Minister will do all he can to avoid saying whether or not he will go and whether or not he went. But I want to add one more thing: heads of state summits must continue no matter what the diplomatic atmosphere may be. That is, an even more important issue than maintaining Sino-Japanese relations is whether there are Sino-Japanese relations at all. In this sense, I think President Hu Jintao's profound decision to not broach the Yasukuni controversy and not make summit meetings contingent on a commitment by the Prime Minister to not attend Yasukuni is a real step forward.

Q: Is there a key word such as “containment”, for example - that you think characterizes Japan’s China foreign policy 5 years, 10 years from now? Also, how does this issue affect the issue of missile defense?

A: I think former Prime Minister Koizumi who was also Prime Minister Abe’s predecessor has been the most pro-Chinese of all the recent Prime Ministers, with the exception of the Yasukuni controversy. He never once characterized China as a menace, saying instead that China represented an opportunity not a threat. He was also fairly clear in his statements about historical issues, using words like "aggression" to describe events and even expressing a sincere apology to China by using the word owabi during his visit to the Marco Polo Bridge in 2001. No other Prime Minister has talked about historical issues as straightforwardly as Koizumi did during his time in office. The Yasukuni Shrine was his only point of controversy. So I think that when he said that China was an opportunity he was reflecting the government’s official stance toward China. Japan cannot expect a very bright future without adopting such a viewpoint. China, after all, is Japan’s neighbor and an emerging giant, and so we must learn to coexist with that country.

The great number of people who suffered financial repercussions from the recent collapse of the Shanghai stock exchange shows that the whole world benefits from a stable China. Recently, the US has seen a marked decrease in public discourse that casts China in a threatening light. The problems bound up in China are simply too vast and too numerous to deal with. China is a major power that no other country can effectively contain, so rather than containment the only choice is to foster healthy growth for the country. I did not touch at all today on the situation within China, but the health of the world economy now relies greatly on just how constructively it engages China. On its part, China needs to rely on its own capabilities as it transforms its system. The health of the world economy is linked to how successfully it can help China to a soft landing. One other crucial factor is inducing China to abide by the rules of the international system in the true sense of the term while simultaneously making the country more transparent. And achieving these things will benefit China as well.

Q: Looking at the agenda of the upcoming Sino-Japanese summit shows there will be no joint press conference or a signed Sino-Japanese joint declaration. Nor will they touch upon historical issues or political and diplomatic issues. What is your reaction to that?

A: The main objective and intended outcome of this trip is the simple fact of Premier Wen Jiabao coming to Japan. It is part of a larger process of working to sustain regular head of state summits. The summit is not intended to solve everything and is merely a way station in a longer process. As I said in my introduction, the state of Sino-Japanese relations is still quite fragile. And therein lies the real significance of continuing regular summit meetings between the two countries.
(END)

* Given on April 9, 2007, at the Foreign Press Center/Japan (FPCJ). This paper is reserved for internal use; any reproduction or quotation is forbidden without prior permission from the FPCJ. ©FPCJ 2007