50 Years on, China-Japan Relations Face a Difficult Future

On September 29, the Japan Business Federation, better known as Keidanren, and groups dedicated to promoting China-Japan relations organized an event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the normalization of ties between the two countries. Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa and Chinese Ambassador to Japan Kong Xuanyou were in attendance at the event, where messages from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio were read aloud. Kishida was reportedly considering attending this event in person to foster good will between the two countries, but in a sign of the tensions plaguing the relationship he ultimately decided to stay away.

December 2019 is the last time in-person talks were held between the leaders of Japan and China. A summit could happen at the earliest in November on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Whenever a summit happens, and whether a summit happens in person, online, or via telephone, the two leaders will have much to discuss. Taiwan has been a constant source of tension between China and Japan ever since normalization. Even though the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands feels like it has been going on forever, it only really escalated after Japan nationalized the islands on September 11, 2012 – 10 years ago. Although the flare-up in the dispute is relatively young, it is thorny and intractable. The ending of Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) to China earlier this year, and the patriotic (and often anti-Japan) education campaign that Beijing started in the early 1990s, also severely limit Japan’s ability to mend ties with China.

Sino-Japanese normalization in September 1972 took place in the context of Japan agreeing to the Taiwan clause in the Nixon-Sato Joint Statement of November 1969: “The Prime Minister said that the maintenance of peace and security in the Taiwan area was also a most important factor for the security of Japan.” Since then, as Masaya Inoue of Keio University wrote, Japan’s position on Taiwan has remained “ambiguous” due to Japan’s “complex internal politics.”

While Japan’s quasi-commitment to Taiwan’s security precedes normalization, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has made concerns about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan more acute than ever. Taiwan was mentioned for the second time in the Biden-Kishida Joint Statement of May 2022: “Prime Minister Kishida and President Biden stated that their basic positions on Taiwan remain unchanged, and reiterated the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element in security and prosperity in the international community. They encouraged the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.” Kishida still faces a very difficult challenge in determining Japan’s role in Taiwan’s defense, though political and diplomatic options to restrain China remain on the table.

Tensions over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are a more recent phenomenon. Before Japan nationalized the islands, there had been almost no instances of Chinese ships entering Japanese territorial waters near the islands. Since nationalization of the islands 10 years ago, there have been 332 cases of official Chinese ships entering Japanese territorial waters near the islands, including 19 cases this year.

A bright spot in this dispute, and Sino-Japanese relations more broadly, is the establishment of a Maritime and Aerial Communication Mechanism in 2018 to avoid clashes. Such a mechanism was originally proposed and agreed to in 2007, so it was a long time coming. More recently, in December 2021, Japan and China agreed to set up a military hotline by the end of 2022. The hotline will be used an emergency communication mechanism to defuse potential crises over the disputed islands and the Taiwan Strait.

Unfortunately, Japan no longer has carrots to offer in the form of Official Development Assistance to China. Over the past 42 years, Japan has given 3.32 trillion yen in concessional yen loans (which China has repaid on time, along with interest accrued, and is scheduled to make the last payment of in 2047), 157.6 billion yen of grant aid (which China does not need to repay), and 185.8 billion yen’s worth of technical cooperation assistance (which China also does not need to repay). Grant aid was ended in 2006 and concessional yen loans in 2007, given that China was no longer a developing country and even capable of providing ODA of its own to other countries. Then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzo officially ended ODA to China in October 2018, with the last of the technical cooperation assistance programs coming to an end in March 2022.

When Japan’s ODA to China started in 1979, it was considered a quid pro quo for Beijing abandoning reparations claims stemming from abuses committed during World War II. From Japan’s perspective, ODA was also supposed to improve Sino-Japanese ties, but China’s unwillingness to publicize Japan’s role in facilitating China’s economic growth has blunted this desired effect.

The success of China’s patriotic education campaign will further complicate any Japanese- or Chinese-led effort at Sino-Japanese rapprochement. Even if the Chinese government were to have a change of heart and highlight post-war Japanese contributions to China rather than wartime Japanese atrocities against China, the Chinese people may not be receptive to such a message anymore.

A Kishida-Xi summit will be important for the sake of normalizing direct communication between leaders of Japan and China. However, expectations for the outcome of such a summit should be kept modest. From Taiwan to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and government-fostered, anti-Japanese Chinese nationalism, Japan and China have real conflicts of interest that cannot simply be papered over with ODA anymore.