Q&A: The China-Japan Rift

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Q&A: The China-Japan Rift

Published: April 18, 2005 From the Council on Foreign Relations, April 18, 2005

What is behind the rift between China and Japan?

National pride and historical grievances rooted in a longstanding rivalry, most experts say. China, both economically and militarily, is outpacing Japan. The tensions date to 19th-century disputes and Japan's 1931-45 occupation of China. They play out in recurring cycles of Chinese anger over Japan's perceived lack of contrition for wartime crimes and ongoing disputes over islands in the East China Sea the Chinese call Diaoyutai and the Japanese refer to as the Senkaku.

What caused the latest flare-up?

In early April, Tokyo's Ministry of Education, traditionally a conservative body, approved a history textbook that air-brushed out details of Japanese wartime atrocities like the 1937 Nanking Massacre, the use of slave labor, and programs that forced females in occupied countries to act as so-called comfort women for Japanese troops. In response, thousands of Chinese demonstrators over the next three weekends poured into the streets of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities, pelting Japanese offices and restaurants with rocks and eggs in the largest anti-Japanese protests in China since the two countries normalized relations in 1972. Protesters also called for a boycott of Japanese goods.

Tomohiko Taniguchi, a Japanese scholar at the Brookings Institution, says the Chinese overreacted; only one Japanese junior high school adopted the textbook, he says. Eric Heginbotham, senior Asia studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that's not the point. Japanese textbooks, he says, have increasingly tended to put the most positive--and historically questionable--spin on Japanese history. The textbook at the center of the controversy, and others as well, he says, represents the Japanese troops who occupied China as if they "were liberating Asia from Western colonialism."

Who organized the protests?

It's unclear. There is no evidence the government organized them. On the other hand, the fact that control-conscious Chinese authorities allowed the protests to occur indicates to some experts that the rallies had the tacit approval of the communist leadership. Ian Buruma, an author who has written extensively about Asia, suggested in the Financial Times that, sometimes, the Chinese "authorities deliberately inflame anti-Japanese passions to deflect attention from their own shortcomings." But other experts argue that, faced with popular anti-Japanese protests, the government may have felt it had no choice but to allow them to go forward. They observe that the government arrested some of the most violent protestors and made efforts to contain the demonstrations.

What other issues have fueled Chinese-Japanese animosity?

- China bristles when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi makes his annual pilgrimage to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine to Japan's war dead, which includes convicted war criminals enshrined in a secret ceremony in the 1970s.

- China has recently sought to block Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told reporters on a recent trip to India, "Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history, and wins over the trust of peoples in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibilities in the international community."

- On February 19, Japan and the United States issued a joint agreement, the first of its kind, which said the status of Taiwan was a matter of mutual concern. Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade territory and objects to outside interference in what it views as a domestic matter.

- On April 13, Japan gave the go-ahead on a $1 billion project to drill for oil and gas in a disputed stretch of water west of Okinawa that both countries claim as their exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called Japan's decision "a serious provocation." Japan, in response, claims China has repeatedly violated its EEZ around the Ryukyu Islands. In 2003, China began drilling in the Chunxiao and Duangqiao gas fields, which extend into territory claimed by Japan. Beijing, Heginbotham says, offered to negotiate the joint exploitation of adjoining oil and gas fields, but Tokyo declined.

How have China and Japan dealt with Tokyo's wartime legacy?

Since 1972, Japan has made apologies and issued expressions of regret for its World War II conduct, including statements from past prime ministers and the emperor. China, however, has never fully accepted this contrition because Japanese words have conflicted with their deeds, Heginbotham says. "This is nothing compared to what Germany's done in Europe," he says. "It's like a German leader apologizing for World War II, and then going and visiting an S.S. museum." Heginbotham notes that South Korea, which was also occupied by Japan, and other Asian nations are also concerned by Tokyo's apparent sugarcoating of its wartime record.

What was Japan's reaction to the protests?

"There's a growing sense in Japan that they've apologized enough [for the past] and that it's time to get on with life," says Alan Romberg, director of the Henry L. Stimson Center's East Asia program. He notes that Chinese textbooks have their share of historical distortions. Japan, for its part, has refused to revise or remove the book and has asked for a formal apology from Beijing for the protests and compensation for damage.

What is the history of the Chinese-Japanese rivalry?

Both Japan and China were weak in the later part of the 19th century. Japan modernized its armies and defeated China in 1894-95, occupying part of the Chinese mainland and annexing Taiwan and, later, Korea. Japan capitalized on Chinese weakness in 1931 to carve off Manchuria as an "independent" puppet state and launched a full-scale invasion of China proper in 1937. Estimates of Chinese wartime casualties range as high as 20 million to 30 million, including up to 300,000 soldiers and civilians slaughtered during the "Rape of Nanking."

After World War II, China's communist economy lagged while Japan prospered. But commercial ties increased greatly after Premier Deng Xiaoping began to open China's economy in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s, China's economy surged while Japan's floundered because of stagnant growth and deflation (though the Japanese economy remains the third largest in the world, after the United States and China). Despite simmering disputes over territory and Japan's imperial past, trade between the two powers - $178 billion in 2004--has reached new highs. Last year, China surpassed the United States to become Japan's largest trading partner.

Are Chinese-Japanese relations in serious trouble?

Maybe, experts caution. Despite Sino-Japanese economic ties, the countries' leaders haven't held a summit meeting in three years. "The quality of the relationship is a lot worse than we've seen in a while," says Adam Segal of the Council on Foreign Relations. Heginbotham agrees, saying that in the past, problems have periodically emerged, but the two governments were able to manage them. "What makes the current downturn in relations different, however," he says, "is that leaders of both nations increasingly find it difficult to ignore public opinion." The immediate storm is likely to be calmed. "But it will only become more difficult in the longer term to ignore fundamental differences over the treatment of history."

John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation sees the rise of China as a threat to regional stability. "Beijing seems to think that now is the time to assert Chinese influence in Asia," he says. "China is looking for a fight. And it will push hard enough and sooner or later it will get a fight."

What does their dispute mean for U.S. foreign policy in the region?

The U.S.-Japanese alliance remains strong, experts say. China views this partnership with increasing suspicion, particularly Washington and Tokyo's decision last year to develop a missile defense system. "In theory, the shield is aimed at North Korea, but in practice, and in the eyes of the Chinese, it is aimed at China," Taniguchi says. Still, the United States wants to minimize regional tensions. "It's not in the U.S. interest to have China and Japan at each other's throats," Romberg says. "From a political, economic, and security point of view, it's in our interest that they get along." The Chinese-Japanese rift also tends to push South Korea closer to China, experts say. The two countries have found common cause on a number of issues recently, and the U.S.-South Korean relationship has been strained in recent years.

The United States, with naval bases in Singapore and security agreements with most of China's neighbors, is the dominant military regional power. It is unlikely that China could push the United States out of the region in the foreseeable future, argues former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in a recent Foreign Policy article, "but even if it could, I don't think it would want to live with the consequence: a powerful, nationalistic, and nuclear-armed Japan."

What are Japan's military ambitions?

It's unclear. Article 9 of Japan's constitution, written by U.S. occupation authorities in 1946, not only renounces war but forbids Japan from maintaining land, sea, or air forces. Still, Japan has a substantial military arsenal. Its $46.6 billion annual military budget is among the world's largest, yet accounts for less than 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). (By comparison, U.S. defense spending is around 4 percent of GDP.) Japan maintains 3,000 so-called "self-defense forces" in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 600 troops on a flotilla based in the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support and fuel to American forces in the region. There is growing support in Japan, including among parliamentarians, to amend Article 9, though there is no consensus about how.

What is the Chinese threat as perceived by Japan?

Japan fears China will use its growing economic leverage and military prowess to throw its weight around and dominate the region. Beijing's efforts to thwart Japan's U.N. Security Council membership bid exemplify this concern, experts say. China also continues to rapidly expand its military forces. "China is just beginning to look menacing," says John Mearsheimer, who teaches international relations at the University of Chicago, pointing to what he sees as an "Asian version of the Monroe Doctrine." Still, the Chinese economy, in per-capita terms, lags far behind Japan's. "The Chinese threat to the United States, Japan, and the world comes from an economically faltering China, not a prosperous, self-confident China," wrote Masaru Tamamoto, an analyst on Asia at the World Policy Institute, in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

What is the Japanese threat as perceived by China?

Japan does not pose a direct threat to China militarily, experts say. That said, what is seen as Japan's historical backsliding, combined with a more assertive diplomatic and military posture, worries China. Beijing is also concerned by Japan's alliance with the United States, and particularly what it perceives as its increased meddling in China's dispute with Taiwan.