Making Progress Between Beijing and Tokyo

A long-awaited China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit (to be held November 1 in Seoul) is evidence of how far the trilateral relationship has come – as well as a huge step for China-Japan ties. Throughout 2013 and much of 2014, it was almost unthinkable that top Chinese and Japanese leaders would meet. Ties were frayed thanks to the territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and remained chilly thanks to historical issues.

All that changed in November 2014, when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a brief meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Beijing. Just prior to that, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Japanese National Security Advisor Shotaro Yachi agreed on a “four-point consensus” that provided a blueprint for future ties. The consensus was a carefully crafted compromise that allowed China, which had set quite a high bar for renewed talks, to claim it was satisfied without actually requiring Japan to substantially change its positions.

The trilateral summit comes just under a year after the breakthroughs of November 2014, so it’s worth taking a look back at China-Japan relations. How well is the relationship actually functioning?

First and foremost, we need to acknowledge that serious progress has been made since 2013. For nearly two years, there was virtually no dialogue between China and Japan – this year, the two sides have restarted political, economic, financial, and security talks, in addition to planning a bilateral summit on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting in Seoul. In that sense, the relationship is already leaps and bounds ahead of where it was. But given how low the bar was set, that still doesn’t mean China-Japan ties are progressing smoothly.

As Satoru Mori, a professor in the Department of Global Politics at Hosei University, puts it, “Having meetings is a good thing… but are these meetings going to deliver something? That’s another question.”

The current China-Japan relationship is “all about appearance, not substance,” Tomohiko Taniguchi, a special advisor to the Japanese Cabinet, told The Diplomat. Still, from China’s perspective, appearances are sometimes more important than substance in diplomatic relationships. Beijing values the pomp and circumstance – simply having meetings – just as much as the actual agreements forged at those meetings. Thus, in China, the litany of media coverage of China-Japan meetings sends a markedly positive signal about the relationship – but then again, the continued emphasis on wartime atrocities by the Imperial Japanese Army threatens to overwhelm modern-day progress. So here again we have mixed signals.

In some ways, the China-Japan relationship is settling into an uneasy equilibrium that echoes the China-U.S. relationship. That is, the two countries have widely divergent priorities and visions for the Asia-Pacific region, but they realize the importance of maintaining a baseline of productivity in their relationship to address issues of mutual interest (particularly economic ties). The old adage about U.S.-China relations – that they will never be too bad, but will never be too good either – now seems to apply to China-Japan ties as well.

For starters, both countries view the other as a potential threat, though they are careful to hedge their language not to outright label each other “the enemy.” China looks at Japan through the lens of its military buildup and eventual invasion of the Chinese mainland in the 1930s, and is deeply concerned about Shinzo Abe’s moves to reduce restrictions on the Japan Self Defense Forces. Meanwhile, there’s the obvious dichotomy between Japan as a major ally of the United States and China’s quest to reduce U.S. influence in and control over the region, creating an “Asia for Asians” security framework.

In short, Japan and China are working at cross-purposes in Asia, and handshakes will not change that. The distrust between the two countries extends to their general publics as well. It’s tough to see the relationship improving markedly when, according to a 2015 poll by Pew Global, only 12 percent of Japanese think favorably of China – and only 9 percent of Chinese see Japan in a positive light. 

Japanese officials are not shy about saying that China is at the center of their long-term security planning. Shigeru Ishiba, formerly the secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and currently Japan’s regional revitalization minister, told The Diplomat that, while China is not a direct threat today, Japan must be prepared for the possibility that its intentions could change. That means the United States and Japan must make continued efforts to maintain the military balance in the region to keep China in check, Ishiba said.

Overall, there’s a clear sense of unease in Japan, which sees the current regional order as in flux due to China’s rise. China’s defense budget increases, assertive actions in the East and South China Seas, and its use of history to condemn modern Japan are all cited as major areas of concern by Japanese defense analysts. Meanwhile, Chinese analysts continue to see Japan as an obstacle to achieving Beijing’s goals, not a partner. Until a new equilibrium is reached, all parties (especially Beijing, Washington, and Tokyo) will be pushing for as much ground as they can get. That doesn’t exactly create a recipe for success in China-Japan relations.

So where does that leave the relationship? The trick will be to manage the tensions – which are not going away anytime soon – without letting the relationship return to the dangerous deep freeze of 2013-2014.

So far, things seem to be on the right track. Analysts are optimistic that a long-discussed defense hotline between China and Japan may be announced in the near future, although an even more important crisis management mechanism dealing with direct contact between vessels and aircraft seems to have stalled out. Meetings continue at both the top level and the working level, a far cry from 2013. 

Economic ties, meanwhile, are floundering a bit – trade statistics from the first half of 2015 showed double-digit drops in both China’s exports to and imports from Japan. Meanwhile, Japanese investment in China also dropped by 16 percent during the same six-month period. Here we have a rare opportunity for what China would call “win-win cooperation” between Tokyo and Beijing: With both governments worried about economic health, taking steps to boost trade and investment could be the easiest form of cooperation for China and Japan moving forward. After all, it was economics which helped convince Beijing that stonewalling Tokyo was not the right approach – why not start here to continue the forward progress of the past 12 months?