India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU
Vol. 15 :: No. 26 :: Dec. 19, 1998 - Jan. 01, 1999
WORLD AFFAIRS
A guarded engagement
Japan's failure to tender a formal apology to China, during President Jiang Zemin's visit, for Japanese atrocities during the Second World War touches a raw nerve.
JOHN CHERIAN
JIANG ZEMIN'S visit to Japan, the first ever state visit to that country by a Chinese President since diplomatic ties were restored in 1972, was expected to give a healing touch to the troubled relations between the two countries. China had expected that during Jiang's six-day visit in the last week of November the Japanese Government would tender an unqualified apology for the atrocities the Japanese forces committed during their occupation of the Chinese mainland before and during the Second World War. China had even taken it for granted that such an apology would be of the kind that the Japanese Prime Minister and the Japanese Emperor tendered during the visit of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in October. However, nothing of that sort happened.
For the Japanese Government, it seems, there are two different yardsticks in this matter, one for the Korean peninsula and the other for China. In fact many historians are of the opinion that the atrocities that the Japanese imperialist forces committed in China dwarf their brutalities in Korea. More than 100,000 civilians were massacred in the "rape of Nanking" in 1937. Jiang himself lost many of his friends and relatives during the Japanese occupation.
A sincere apology from Tokyo would have gone a long way in assuaging the wounded Chinese psyche. But what Jiang got on arrival in Tokyo was the usual statement of "deep remorse" by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, echoing a statement by another Japanese Prime Minister, Tomiuchi Murayama, in 1995. Murayama, despite belonging to the progressive Japanese Socialist Party which then headed a coalition government, refused to incorporate the statement in the official joint statement.
The present right-wing government of Japan has further hardened the traditional Japanese position. During Jiang's visit, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said that Japan had apologised enough for the war in China, which he said was undertaken by a "small group of militarists".
It was, therefore, unsurprising that there was no signed joint communique issued at the end of the Chinese President's visit. In his public speeches in Japan, Jiang expressed his unhappiness with Japan's reluctance to apologise unequivocally for its aggression between 1937 and 1945. At a meeting with Japanese legislators, Jiang, referring to Japan's invasion of China, said that history was a mirror. "By making history a lesson for both China and Japan, and by preventing tragedy from being repeated, the two countries can develop long-lasting relationship for the first time," the Chinese President said. Even the leader of the Japanese Opposition in the Diet, Naoto Kan, said that his country was not "contrite enough" about the suffering it had caused the Chinese people.
Japan's refusal to apologise sincerely has reinforced Beijing's suspicion that Japan may be planning to revise its Constitution. Right-wing parties such as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Shinshinto are keen to amend the Constitution to allow for a bigger role for Japan in matters related to security in the region. The Japanese Constitution renounces war and also Japan's right to retain armed forces.
THE "apology" issue was not the only irritant. Beijing had expected Tokyo to voice openly its support for the "three Nos" that are part of official Chinese foreign policy. China is against independence for Taiwan, against Taiwan's membership in international organisations such as the United Nations, and recognition of Taiwan as an independent political entity. During his recent state visit to China, U.S. President Bill Clinton had endorsed the Chinese position. Japan, on the other hand, refused to endorse explicitly the Chinese position. China suspects that Japan may have a hidden agenda with regard to Taiwan.
Japan stuck to the position it enunciated in a 1972 joint communique - that it "respects" the Chinese position on Taiwan. Beijing had made it known that it preferred the word "recognise", instead. During his talks with the Japanese Prime Minister, Jiang said that Japan owed a debt to the Chinese people as it had annexed Taiwan by force and colonised it for more than five decades. There is a growing suspicion in Beijing that the "right-wing" forces in Japan would like to use the Taiwan issue to expand Japan's security role in the region.
KIMIMASA MAYAMA / POOL / AP
Chinese
President Jiang Zemin greets Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi at the
start of their meeting at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo on November 26.
Beijing has also officially expressed its misgivings on the new security arrangement that Japan has entered into with the U.S.: it believes that this could lead to Japanese involvement in places such as Taiwan. The U.S.-Japan alliance is the cornerstone of Washington's strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing feels that the alliance has "containing China" as its agenda. Resurgent right-wing tendencies in Japan-ese politics have heigh- tened Beijing's apprehensions. One of the most worrisome scenarios for Beijing is a joint U.S.-Japan military operation in case Beijing intervenes militarily in Taiwan.
The whole emphasis of the U.S.-Japan treaty has shifted from the defence of the Japanese archipelago towards dealing with the conflicts in the region surrounding Japan. Opposition parties in Japan have been protesting against government actions that increa-sed the possibility of Japan being drawn into conflicts that were of greater concern to the U.S. than to Japan itself.
Until a few years ago, influential policymakers in Beijing saw some positive aspects in the U.S.-Japan security tie-up, as it restrained the build-up of Japan's military strength and checked Japan's ambitions of establishing regional hegemony. In recent times, however, both Washington and Tokyo have laid a lot of emphasis on "human rights and democracy" in the region in the process of stepping up pressure on China to change its political system.
Chinese experts feel that the widened scope of the U.S.-Japan security cooperation covers an area that stretches from the Korean peninsula to the South China Sea, and its sole purpose is "checking" China. More troubling for China is the decision by the two countries to review the 1978 "Japan-U.S. Guidelines for Defence Cooperation", governing wartime U.S.-Japan cooperation under the security treaty. According to Chinese experts, the modification to the alliance means that if there is a conflict in the South China Sea, Japan will cooperate militarily with the U.S.
Many Chinese specialists assert that Japan is building a more extensive military capability than what is necessary for self-defence. One Chinese expert has said that "the steady reinforcement of the Japanese air and naval capabilities" will change the military balance in Asia and "produce new instability in the region". Experts are also of the opinion that one of the primary motivating factors for Japan to enhance its military capabilities is China's growing economic and military power. They also fear that Japan may use the bogey of "Chinese threat" and develop its own nuclear weapons. Japan already has its own high-tech weapons in place.
CHINESE displeasure has since manifested itself in Jiang's reluctance to support the Japanese bid for a permanent seat in a reconstituted United Nations Security Council. In fact, Jiang, during his visit to Moscow, seems to have convinced his Russian counterpart that only one state from East Asia need be represented in a revamped U.N. Security Council. All the same, Jiang's visit has ensured that the two countries remain engaged diplomatically.
During the visit it was announced that Japan would lend $3.2 billion to China in the next two fiscal years. New agreements involving law enforcement, the environment, agriculture, industry, and scientific and academic exchanges were also signed. The two sides have described their new relationship as "friendly cooperative partnership".
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