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Chinese President Hu Jintao plays table tennis with Japanese teenage player Ai Fukuhara.
China and Japan Try to Repair Relations During Hu Visit
by
findingDulcinea Staff
by Josh Katz
Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting Japan May 6–10, the first time a Chinese president has made the trip in a decade.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting Japan May 6–10, the first time a Chinese president has made the trip in a decade.
30-Second Summary
Hu is only the second Chinese head of state to ever visit Japan, and the two nations have a long history of tense relations. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda visited China last fall in an effort to mend the relationship, and Hu is now responding in kind.
When Hu became President in 2002, he sought closer relations with Japan, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pursued a “nationalistic agenda,” according to Wenran Jiang in The Guardian, pushing China away. Japanese Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda, who followed Koizumi, have moved closer to China.
Relations between the two nations are still somewhat chilly. China and Japan are engaged in a conflict over the disputed ownership of islands in the East China Sea, potentially rich in oil and gas.
Japan has been wary of Chinese products after 10 people came down with food poisoning in January, allegedly from Chinese dumplings. China also continues to be aggravated by Japan’s attitude toward its wartime record.
But trade between the two countries is now closely linked, even though Japan and China continue to be circumspect of one another: Michael Auslin calls it a “balancing act,” in the International Herald Tribune.
On Hu’s visit, China has offered two pandas to Japan, and even engaged in a form of pingpong diplomacy.
Adding to the tension of Hu’s visit is the international uproar over China’s treatment of Tibet and the troubled journey of the Olympic torch. Protests have followed Hu to Japan.
When Hu became President in 2002, he sought closer relations with Japan, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pursued a “nationalistic agenda,” according to Wenran Jiang in The Guardian, pushing China away. Japanese Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda, who followed Koizumi, have moved closer to China.
Relations between the two nations are still somewhat chilly. China and Japan are engaged in a conflict over the disputed ownership of islands in the East China Sea, potentially rich in oil and gas.
Japan has been wary of Chinese products after 10 people came down with food poisoning in January, allegedly from Chinese dumplings. China also continues to be aggravated by Japan’s attitude toward its wartime record.
But trade between the two countries is now closely linked, even though Japan and China continue to be circumspect of one another: Michael Auslin calls it a “balancing act,” in the International Herald Tribune.
On Hu’s visit, China has offered two pandas to Japan, and even engaged in a form of pingpong diplomacy.
Adding to the tension of Hu’s visit is the international uproar over China’s treatment of Tibet and the troubled journey of the Olympic torch. Protests have followed Hu to Japan.
Headline Link: ‘Hu, Visiting Japan, Vows China Won’t Spark Arms Race’
During his Japanese tour, Hu Jintao vowed that China would not incite an arms race with nearby nations nor threaten “any country” militarily. Later on, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda turned down an offer to play pingpong against Hu, so Hu played with a former Japanese pingpong team player instead. “I’m glad I didn’t play,” said Fukuda. “He’s [Hu’s] a very strategic player.”
Source: Bloomberg.com
On May 7 China and Japan “agreed to hold regular summits and insisted their nations pose no threats to each other during a joint meeting,” according to The CBC. The two nations said they would meet once annually and work together to combat global warming. Hu also offered Japan two giant pandas.
Source: The CBC
Background: Hu’s trip to Japan
President Hu Jintao of China called the visit a “warm spring.” “Japan and China are both important countries in Asia and the world,” he said. “[This visit] will enhance friendship and cooperation in both countries.”
Source: The Guardian
The issue of Tibet looms over Hu’s trip to Japan. Some 4,000 pro-Tibet marchers greeted Hu when he arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday. “This has to be a nightmare for the Japanese government,” said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Tokyo’s Temple University. “They don’t want anything regarding Tibet to tarnish this visit because Hu and Fukuda need it to be a success.”
Source: Inter Press Service
Just before Hu’s visit a poll indicated that 51 percent of Japanese people felt Japan should be tougher with China. “The ratio was twice as large as the 26 percent who wanted Japan to be “more friendly” toward China, according to the May 1–2 telephone poll of 1,042 adults nationwide,” Agence France-Press reports.
Source: Agence France-Presse
Historical Context: China–Japan relations
China’s relationship with Japan has been tense for some time. Japan defeated China in the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War, and occupied the country from 1931 to 1945. The Chinese have charged Japan with abuses and war crimes. Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi caused outrage in China when he annually visited Yasukuni Shrine, which “includes the remains of convicted war criminals enshrined in a secret ceremony in the 1970s.” The Council on Foreign Relations also states that, “concrete territorial and economic issues also aggravate the relationship, including Japan’s close alliance with the United States, trade frictions, and ongoing disputes over ownership of various islands in the East China Sea.”
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
The BBC describes the rape of Nanking, an event that has scarred the relationship between China and Japan since 1937. According to The BBC, “Japanese troops captured the Chinese city of Nanjing and embarked on a campaign of murder, rape and looting.” Historians put the death toll between 250,000 and 300,000, though some Japanese officials say the number is much lower.
Source: The BBC
Opinion & Analysis: The significance of Hu’s visit
In an editorial, The Daily Yomiuri of Japan writes, “From now on, both Japan and China should recognize their responsibilities as major powers and expand their common interests through mutually beneficial cooperation.” But the paper also states that Japan should settle the dispute with China over gas field development in the East China Sea, and China should “more sincerely work on its investigations into the poisoning of frozen gyoza imported from China to Japan.”
Source: The Daily Yomiuri
Michael Auslin of the American Enterprise Institute states that Japan is faced with a “precarious balancing act, one that likely will grow more difficult over time. Tokyo understandably courts warmer relations with Beijing, but also seeks greater security assurances from Washington.”
Source: International Herald Tribune
In The Guardian, Wenran Jiang argues that, “Behind the smiles, the polite interactions, and the cautiously worded diplomatic language, strong undercurrents of suspicion remain,” and explains that, “after many rounds of talks, no resolution is in sight, and Hu’s visit is not expected to produce any breakthroughs.”
Source: The Guardian
Relatic Topic: Olympic torch greeted with protests
French President Nicholas Sarkozy sent representatives to China at the end of April to mend France’s relationship with the country after the disturbances from the Paris leg of the torch relay. The large protests in Paris against China’s treatment of Tibet were far from the only ones during the torch’s difficult trip around the world.
Source: findingDulcinea
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