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Views from Japan

March 2005

[International]

JAPAN-CHINA RELATIONS / "Cease ODA and Reexamine Policy on China"

In "Cease ODA and Reexamine Policy on China," Mineo Nakajima, president of Akita International University, says that China is trying to make its presence felt in the twenty-first century and is feverishly pursuing a foreign policy based on its national interest and its intention to become a superpower. He calls for the "immediate cessation" of Japan's official development assistance to China, which has totaled some ?7 trillion since it began. Nakajima asserts that the Chinese worldview is rooted in egocentric thought that should properly be called a "Chinese world order" in which the view of Japan as a tributary state is deeply entrenched. He emphasizes the differences between the two countries, noting that while Beijing has called on Tokyo to pay reparations for wartime aggression, Japan, by contrast, has not let its bitterness over the two atomic bombings it suffered develop into anti-American nationalism and has accepted its responsibility for World War II by devoting itself to being a pacifist country.

Nakajima adds that while the Japanese state has not killed a single individual since the end of the war, China has spilled blood in such tragedies as the Cultural Revolution, the subjugation of Tibet, and the Tiananmen incident, meaning that there is no reason for Japan to listen to complaints of war responsibility from Beijing. He claims that ODA to China violates the Four Principles of the ODA Charter: compatibility between preservation of the environment and development; avoidance of the use of ODA funds for military purposes; monitoring of development and production of weapons of mass destruction; and protection of basic human rights and freedoms. He condemns what he calls Japan's "penitence diplomacy" and "fainthearted diplomacy." ("ODA o toriyame tai-Chugoku gaiko no arikata mo minaose," Chuo Koron, March 2005.)