Through the looking glass? China's rise as seen from Japan

Abstract

Coexisting with a powerful and assertive China as a neighbour is a new experience for modern Japan that has long considered itself the only powerful state in east Asia. Interacting with China under this new condition has brought out multiple and competing conceptions of China as it means to Japan. China is an historical rival, a security concern, an indispensable trading partner, an economic competitor and a regional power with competing as well as common interests all at the same time. Japan also sees images of its past self in the pattern of China's rapid development. These ideas of China act both positively and negatively in how Japan conceives and manages its relationship with China, but they also reflect Japan's lack of confidence and shaken sense of history, identity and place in the world. In order to find a way to meaningfully engage with China, Japan needs to recognize its own identity and strength objectively.

Keywords:

• Japan-China relations
• US-Japan alliance
• China's renaissance
• Yasukuni Shrine
• Senkaku/Daoyu incident
• 1947 constitution of Japan's Article 9

Notes

1. Tanaka (1991). ‘Of course, Nixon did not change everyone's views or behaviour as rapidly as he “changed the world” (with his surprise visit to Beijing). For Japan, 1972 was the year of power change. And, Sino–Japanese normalization was the first problem of domestic politics that the new cabinet had to tackle.’

2. Yoshihisa Komori of Sankei Shinbun criticized Eisuke Sakakibara, the former finance ministry official and ‘Mr. Yen’, when Sakakibara advocated, ‘strategic pragmatism of simultaneously pursuing pro-U.S., pro-China track, using the China card against the U.S., and the America card against China,’ in a piece for Sankei Shinbun (2 May 2004). Komori wrote: ‘[Sakakibara] is basically saying, “cosy up with China and don't be so close to America” … by this he is putting the U.S., which is Japan's ally, and China, which is an inherently enemy [italics by author], on the same boat … Moreover, he treats the free and democratic America and the single-party rule China as equals, which means that he has no conception of political values’ (Komori and Takubo 2005).

3. The DPJ won 306 out of 480 seats in parliament's lower house, the House of Representatives.

4. In the most recent Cabinet Office survey, 45.3% did not feel that Japan–China relations is on good terms and over 70% did not feel affinity towards China (http://www8.cao.go.jo/survey/h23/h23-gaiko/zh/z09.html and http://www8.cao.go.jo/survey/h23/h23-gaiko/zh/z11.html).

5. The curious decision to initially withhold the video footage of the incident did nothing to bolster Japan's bargaining position with China, and the decision became all the more perplexing after the footage was leaked by a coast-guard officer on YouTube.

6. Noda made his statement in talks with the Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, over the issue of the erection of a statue of a comfort woman in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul on 14 December in a symbolic protest against Japan's stated position that the issue was resolved in 1965. ‘Lee calls on Noda to take positive steps to resolve “comfort women” issue’, The Asahi Shimbun, 18 December 2011; http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201112180020.

7. See the works of the German–Polish Textbook Commission at: http://www.gei.de/en/research/the-european-schoolhouse/europe-and-the-national-factor/german-polish-textbook-commission.html.

8. The first phase of Japan–China joint research on history took place between 2006 and 2009. Each country's findings were published as separate reports in 2010. It appears that the effort was basically at the level of ‘comparing notes’ rather than arriving at a common interpretation of events, especially in the area of modern history. See http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/china/rekishi_kk.html.

9. Japanese philosopher Tetsuya Takahashi, who has written extensively on the Yasukuni controversy, makes it quite clear: ‘The nineteenth-century Meiji State created three essential institutions: the military, the Yasukuni shrine, and patriotic education’ (Takahashi 2007, pp. 105–124).

10. Although today's nationalists often argue that the constitution was forced upon the Japanese at the time, they tend to overlook the fact that Japanese Diet members debated and made amendments to the draft. Furthermore, the Diet debated the constitution again in 1956–1961. Article 9, in particular, was the subject of a heated debate, in which the Communist Party members also took issue. See Dore (1997).

11. See Wakamiya (1998). Wakamiya writes: ‘In its making, from conception to adoption, the resolution had allowed one politician after another to make public statements (without the speaker's ever realizing it) the conundrum: “When will the Japanese ever learn?” … I for one found the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war to be a shaky and ambiguous milestone.’

12. The official Yasukuni Shrine website explains: ‘[For] the worship of the divine spirits of those who sacrificed themselves for the country’ (http://www.yasukuni.or.jp).

13. Although the SDF had been participating in UN peace-keeping operations since the government passed peace-keeping law in 1992, it still cannot take part in collective military action overseas because the constitution's Article 9 forbids it. UN peace-keeping was deemed an exception, as not all operations required the SDF to be combat-ready. Both missions in the war against terror fell outside the realm of missions and situations permitted by the peace-keeping law; crucially, they did not have UN mandates.

14. Two Japanese prime ministers before Koizumi had met Chinese protest for visiting the Yasukuni shrine: Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1986 and Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1997.

15. Haruko Satoh.

16. For the latest trade figures, see the JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) website: http://www.jetro.go.jp/en/news/releases/20080229066-news.

17. Take, for example, the case of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, when Japan floated the idea of an ‘Asian Monetary Fund.’ The idea did not take off at the time because Japan could not win support from the United States and China.

18. The Japanese survey was conducted on 12–13 July; the Chinese survey on 11–16 July. 4 August 2008, The Yomiuri Shimbun.