Sino-japanese Relations: Rivals Or Partners In Regional Cooperation? 9789814383561, 9789814383554

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SINO–JAPANESE RELATIONS Rivals or Partners in Regional Cooperation?

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SINO–JAPANESE RELATIONS Rivals or Partners in Regional Cooperation?

Editors

Niklas Swanström Institute for Security and Development Policy, Sweden

Ryosei Kokubun National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan

World Scientific NEW JERSEY

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LONDON

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SINGAPORE

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BEIJING

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SHANGHAI

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HONG KONG

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TA I P E I

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CHENNAI

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Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

SINO–JAPANESE RELATIONS Rivals or Partners in Regional Cooperation? Copyright © 2013 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.

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Sino–Japanese Relations: Rivals or Partners in Regional Cooperation?

Preface

This book is part of a joint project on Sino–Japanese relations conducted by the Institute of East Asian Studies at Keio University and the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Stockholm. This is the second in a series of publications and it builds on the research that was done earlier. The first book dealt with the need for conflict prevention and conflict management mechanisms in Sino–Japanese relations1; this publication continues the attempt to understand the two countries’ bilateral relations and to examine their implications for regional security. After the first attempt to investigate Sino–Japanese relations, it was clearly noted that not only was there a deficit in bilateral relations (an issue that has also been analyzed in this volume by Takeuchi, Xiao and Gries), but at the regional level there was a significant lack of cooperation (as discussed in this volume by Takeda, Gui, Swanström and Aoyama). It is still problematic that Japan and China lack structures for conflict or crisis management in either bilateral or multilateral settings, and further research on this question is needed. How to get beyond the current impasse is one of the questions explored in this volume; both Kokubun and Shi examine the question of what progress is being made in forming such structures and look at what the future might hold in this regard. The genesis of this project was a scholarly visit by Professor Ryosei Kokubun to the ISDP in Sweden that was financed by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education. This visit sparked our interest in expanding our academic 1

Swanström, N. and Kokubun, R. (eds.) (2008). Sino–Japanese Relations: The Need for Conflict Prevention and Management. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne. v

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knowledge of the bilateral relationship and looking at its policy implications. We tried to put policy people and academics together to produce a product that meets high academic standards while having direct policy implications. We found that, while there is great interest in the idea of creating effective structures for managing tension and conflict in the bilateral relationship, in practice little has been done outside the area of economic cooperation, which tends to be driven by private business and is strikingly apolitical. We have taken an inclusive approach to examining what has been achieved and have attempted to shed some light on the underlying reasons why it has been difficult to achieve cooperation. Many people have had a hand in the making of this publication, among whom Martina Klimesova should be given particular recognition for her role in organizing the conference at which these papers were originally presented. David Mulrooney and Ebba Mårtensson both provided invaluable assistance with the language of the text. Stina Bergman deserves more than one mention for keeping us on track and harassing us when we did not deliver in time. There are many other people who played an essential role in the making of this book who are not mentioned here. We do know who you are! The authors would like to thank the Folke Bernadotte Academy and the Swedish Foreign Ministry for the financial support to organize the second conference. It should of course be said that the opinions and views presented in this publication do not in any way claim to represent those of the sponsors or anyone other than the authors themselves. Finally, we would like to dedicate the book to those brave and selfless individuals in both China and Japan who have participated in disaster relief missions in recent years. Niklas Swanström and Ryosei Kokubun Stockholm and Tokyo

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Contents

Preface

v

List of Abbreviations

ix

List of Contributors

xiii

Chapter 1

Part I Chapter 2

Part II

Introduction Niklas Swanström and Ryosei Kokubun Setting the Terminology Moving from Crisis Management to Regional Cooperation: Clarifying Concepts Martina Klimesova Current Bilateral Relations

1

11 13

35

Chapter 3

Sino–Japanese Relations: A Japanese Perspective Hiroki Takeuchi

37

Chapter 4

Sino–Japanese Relations: A Chinese Perspective Fu Xiao

57

Chapter 5

Sino–Japanese Relations: The American Factor Peter Gries

71

Part III Multilateral Structures Chapter 6

83

Sino–Japanese Strategic Relations in Multilateral Regional Frameworks Yasuhiro Takeda

85

vii

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viii

Contents

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part IV

Major Powers’ Policies toward North Korea and Implications for Sino–Japanese Relations Gui Yongtao

105

Regional Structures in Northeast Asia: Whither and What? Niklas Swanström

129

China, Japan and Asian Regional Integration: From Bilateral to Multilateral? Rumi Aoyama

145

Where Are We Moving?

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Sino–Japanese Relations: From the “1972 Framework” to the “2006 Framework” Ryosei Kokubun Power, Soft and Hard: The U.S., China and Northeast Asia in the Financial Crisis and the North Korea Problem Shi Yinhong

167 169

193

Selected Bibliography

211

Index

221

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List of Abbreviations

AMF APEC APT ARF ASEAN ASEAN PMC ASPC ASTOP BMD CBMs CCP CEPEA CLV CSCE DMZ DPJ DPRK EAC EAEC EAFTA EANET EAS ERIA ESCAP EU FPDA

Asian Monetary Fund Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ASEAN Plus Three ASEAN Regional Forum Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference ARF Security Policy Conference Asian Senior-Level Talks on Non-Proliferation ballistic missile defense confidence-building measures Chinese Communist Party Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe demilitarized zone Democratic Party of Japan Democratic People’s Republic of Korea East Asian Community East Asia Economic Caucus East Asia Free Trade Area Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia East Asia Summit Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, UN European Union Five Power Defense Arrangements ix

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FTA FTAAP GDP GMS GNP ISG JGSDF JMSDF JSDF KEDO LDP NATO NEAC NEASED NEASPEC NOWPAP ODA OECD OSCE PAC-3 PLA PLAN PRC PSI RATS ReCAAP ROK SCO SM-3 SPT TCOG TSD

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List of Abbreviations

free trade agreement Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific gross domestic product Greater Mekong Subregion gross national product Inter-Sessional Support Group, ARF Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Japan Self-Defense Forces Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization Liberal Democratic Party, Japan North Atlantic Treaty Organization Northeast Asian Conference on Environmental Cooperation Northeast Asia Security Dialogue North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation Northwest Pacific Action Plan official development assistance Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Patriot Advanced Capability-3 People’s Liberation Army People’s Liberation Army Navy People’s Republic of China Proliferation Security Initiative Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, SCO Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia Republic of Korea Shanghai Cooperation Organization Standard Missile-3 Six-Party Talks Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group Trilateral Strategic Dialogue

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List of Abbreviations

UN UNEP UNRCA WEF WMD WPNS

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United Nations United Nations Environment Programme United Nations Register of Conventional Arms World Economic Forum weapons of mass destruction Western Pacific Naval Symposium

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List of Contributors

Rumi Aoyama is a Professor in the Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences (School of Education) at Waseda University. Professor Aoyama holds a Ph.D. degree from Keio University, Japan. Professor Aoyama’s fields of specialization are international relations in East Asia and China’s foreign policy. Peter Gries is the Director of the Institute for U.S.–China Issues and holds the Harold J. & Ruth Newman Chair in U.S.–China Issues at the University of Oklahoma, United States. Dr. Gries holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University and an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado. Dr. Gries is the author of China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics and Diplomacy (University of California Press, 2004). Martina Klimesova is an Associated Fellow currently based at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan. She received her Ph.D. in International Relations from Charles University in Prague in April 2011. Her dissertation, entitled Using Carrots to Bring Peace? Negotiation and Third Party Involvement, discussed how external incentives affect peace negotiations in the context of internal armed conflicts. Dr. Klimesova’s research focus is on thirdparty involvement in peace negotiations, the conflict–development nexus and the employment of incentives in peace processes.

xiii

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List of Contributors

Ryosei Kokubun has been the President of the National Defense Academy of Japan since April 2012, after teaching at Keio University for 30 years. He is the former president of the Japan Association of International Relations and the Japan Association for Asian Studies. He received his Ph.D. from Keio University. Dr. Kokubun’s research focuses primarily on Chinese politics and international relations in East Asia. His main publications are Politics and Bureaucracy in Contemporary China (Keio University Press, 2004) and Rise of China and a Changing East Asian Order (eds.) (Japan Center for International Exchange, 2004). Niklas Swanström is the Director and co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP). He is the co-founder of the Silk Road Studies Program and the Editor of the quarterly publication, China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly. His main areas of expertise are conflict prevention, conflict management and regional cooperation; Chinese foreign policy and security in Northeast Asia; narcotics trafficking and its effect on regional and national security; and negotiation. Yasuhiro Takeda is a Professor of International Relations at the National Defense Academy of Japan. Professor Takeda holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of International Relations. He is the author of the book, Comparative Politics of Democratization: Regime Transitions in East Asia (Minerva, 2001, in Japanese), which was awarded the 18th Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. Hiroki Takeuchi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and a Fellow of the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at the Southern Methodist University, United States. In 2006, Dr. Takeuchi received his Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the University of California in Los Angeles with the dissertation, Rural Tax Reform and Authoritarian Rule in China. Some of his major areas of research interest are rural governance in China and Japan, regime type and taxation, Sino–Japanese relations and politics in authoritarian countries.

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Fu Xiao is an Associate Research Fellow at the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (CFISS) in Beijing. Shi Yinhong is a Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for American Studies at the Renmin University of China in Beijing. Professor Shi received a Ph.D. in International History from Nanjing University in 1988. He has published seven books, including Global Challenges and China (2010), Thirty Studies on Strategy: Reflections of China’s External Strategy (2008) and History of Modern International Relations: From the 16th Century to the End of the 20th (2006). Gui Yongtao is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the School of International Studies at Peking University. Gui received Ph.D.s in International Relations from both Waseda University and Peking University in 2005 through a double-degree doctoral program. His publications include “Nationalism and the Historical Conceptions in Modern China, Japan and Korea”, International Politics Quarterly, no. 2, 2007; “Edwin O. Reischauer and American Ideological Diplomacy toward Japan”, American Studies Quarterly, no. 4, 2005; and “The Japanese Conception of History”, Pacific Journal, no. 3, 2005.

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Niklas Swanström and Ryosei Kokubun

Sino–Japanese relations have been on the mend since Shinzo Abe assumed the Japanese Prime Minister’s office in September 2006. His visit to China in October 2006, along with the subsequent reciprocal visits of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in April 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in December 2007 and Chinese President Hu Jintao in May 2008, facilitated the further thawing of bilateral relations under the framework of “a mutually beneficial relationship based on a common strategic relationship.” This was a positive development, considering that China and Japan had clashed politically at the beginning of the 21st century over their maritime borders, albeit without serious military consequences. Despite the maritime tension, a substantial number of additional events have indicated the continuation of the positive trend in strengthening bilateral relations. To give one example, in an attempt to initiate debate on the issue of historical perceptions of 20th-century Sino–Japanese relations, a joint committee of Chinese and Japanese historians was established in an effort to reach a certain level of understanding of each side’s perspectives on their common history, particularly the atrocities of the Second World War. On the military side, the establishment of a hotline in November 2007 and reciprocal port visits by Chinese and Japanese fleets represented important confidence-building measures (CBMs). Furthermore, the Chinese and Japanese economies are sustaining the injured U.S. dollar economy during the current financial crisis. The financial crisis may in fact create a more positive environment for 1

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Niklas Swanström and Ryosei Kokubun

cooperation between the two countries, or at least a realization that they should work together. All of these bilateral efforts, and more, have contributed to an improvement in Sino–Japanese relations. Yet, on the other hand, several issues continue to pose obstacles to building long-term confidence between the two Asian giants. First, the images the people in each country have of those in the other have not improved significantly. In fact, according to an opinion poll conducted by Genron NPO and China Daily, there has been a modest decline in perceptions of the other side, even if there was some improvement in 2011 after a very sharp drop in 2010. Some opinion polls show that mutual images at the grassroots level have been worsening, even after recent improvements in relations between the two countries. The interpretation of their common history remains an unresolved and tense issue that usually emerges in discussions of bilateral relations. In many ways, the perceptions of various groups in China and Japan of the historical issues could very well be the biggest threat to improved relations; or perhaps more accurately, the greatest threat to bilateral relations is the political misuse of these issues. Additionally, territorial disputes such as those in the East China Sea, competition in the quest for energy resources, Japan’s bid to join the UN Security Council as a permanent member, the cross-Strait issue, the U.S.–Japan alliance, the development of a missile defense system in Japan, and the continuous increase in China’s military spending continue to pose obstacles to long-term stability and peace consolidation in Northeast Asia. The positive counterweight to these factors, however, is that economic relations between China and Japan have never been stronger than they are now, and that economic integration between the two states is now very deep, even if this is mostly done without governmental involvement and almost exclusively by private business on the free market. Unfortunately, security relations cannot — and should not — be as easily transferred to non-governmental actors. Despite the overall improvement in relations, there has been very little structural thinking about how to move Sino–Japanese relations to the next level and how to institutionalize security dialogues at the regional and international level. This is something that is badly needed to prevent tensions from erupting into serious political and even potentially military conflicts over time. The need to transform the relationship between

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China and Japan from a reactive to a proactive relationship with a more long-term focus and regional responsibility is under development, even if the end goal seems very far away at this point in time. The recent crisis on the Korean Peninsula shows that it is necessary to adopt additional measures that would address multilateral issues and bring the improved bilateral relationship beyond mere crisis management to focus more on measures to provide long-term stability and secure channels of information sharing and trust building. The cross-Strait issue is another potential crisis that will be further complicated by Sino–Japanese relations and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan. There is clearly a deficit here in regards to communication and preventive measures to decrease tensions over sensitive issues. On many, if not all, issues, closer cooperation between China and Japan would decrease bilateral and regional tensions. Bilateral relations seem to further exacerbate the problems in projecting Chinese and Japanese needs and in increasing trust at the regional level and on regional issues. As the region’s two most important actors and two major powers in international relations, the deficit in cooperation in regional structures impedes regional cooperation and integration to a large extent. This is a problem not only for regional cooperation, but also for the very core interests of Japan and China, as this decreases their economic growth as well as increases their national security costs due to the regional crises that keep developing. This book will provide an overview of how the current situation is holding together and what is needed to move beyond the current haphazard level of cooperation in Northeast Asia, especially as the Six-Party Talks seem to have broken down. The primary focus is on Chinese and Japanese perceptions of the bilateral situation and the potential of, and need for, multilateral structures.

Continued Tension in Bilateral Relations Three authors in this volume take a closer look at Sino–Japanese bilateral relations and the effect that the U.S. has on them. Takeuchi and Fu tend to be pessimistic, but at the same time both end their chapters on a positive note with good reasons for optimism. It is apparent that bilateral relations will suffer from continuing tension, but at the same time there are opportunities

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that could potentially reduce tension and even improve bilateral relations on a broader scale. This has been apparent in Northeast Asia as well as in Central Asia, where Sino–Japanese relations have been suboptimal. The authors take different views on why the relationship has suffered, and they also pick up on a number of different possibilities as to how the relationship can become more positive. In terms of the Sino–Japanese relationship, the U.S. has been an important actor and will continue to be one for many years to come; the chapter by Gries takes a much closer look at how the U.S. plays into the bilateral relationship between China and Japan. Even if Gries does not attribute a pivotal role in the Sino–Japanese relationship to the U.S., it is still evident that the U.S. plays a significant role, with both positive and negative effects. The U.S.–Japanese alliance in particular is a reason for concern on the part of China. Gries adopts a very positive attitude from the U.S. perspective and argues that a continuing strong alliance between the U.S. and Japan would in fact be very positive for bilateral Sino–Japanese relations. The U.S. presence in the region is not without its problems, which are accentuated by its weapons sales to Taiwan — this is a hot topic discussed in many of the chapters. The causes of the continued tensions are examined by all authors in one way or another, but a few themes continually recur, such as the historical issues, Taiwan, differences in political systems and territorial (maritime) conflicts. None of these issues seems likely to lead China and Japan into war with one another, but each of them is individually significant enough to sustain the current tension and reluctance to engage in greater depth. It is important not to underestimate the significance of these tensions: under the wrong circumstances, the issues could in different combinations directly or indirectly provoke misunderstandings and — in a worst-case scenario — mistakes in the military area. This is because there is a deficit of mechanisms to handle such scenarios in the region and bilaterally. The potential is there for any misunderstandings to be amplified by the negative public perceptions in each state of the other. Public opinion has proven to be a very important factor in the tensions and conflict in Sino–Japanese relations. Takeuchi examines this topic in close detail and explains why the perceptions each has of the other are so important to overall relations. Arguably, these negative perceptions play out

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Introduction

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at the multilateral level to a worrisome degree, and the failure to create an overarching regional structure has much to do with the negative perceptions at the level of public opinion. Therefore, there is a need to work on perceptions and on public opinion, a task that poses different challenges in the two different states. Cultural and educational exchanges are important long-term factors for change, but there is a need for more direct and short-term crisis management mechanisms to handle the current situation as well. Against the backdrop of poor relations between the peoples of the two countries and difficult bilateral political relations, there has nevertheless been an impressive level of economic exchange. The question is whether we can expect to see any spillover from the “hot” area of economic relations into the “cold” domain of political relations. Without more diversified political, economic and social interactions, Sino–Japanese relations will be severely restrained. It has been suggested that steps to build cooperation should therefore focus on operational and lower-level cooperation, rather than on high-level politics. Needless to say, the security sector here — not least in the maritime sector — is of fundamental importance.

The Need for Confidence Building in Bilateral and Multilateral Relations Despite the recently improved relations between China and Japan, the underlying tension and distrust is preventing further cooperation bilaterally and multilaterally in the region. There are currently very few institutionalized cooperative structures in Northeast Asia and none that deals effectively with security issues in the region. This is in spite of a very large number of organizations and degree of institutionalization and cooperation in the economic sector in Asia at large, even if this cooperation does not necessarily have much depth — a topic that is explored in Swanström’s chapter. Northeast Asia has the lowest degree of institutionalized cooperation in the world today, arguably lower than in Central Asia and South Asia. The issue is not that Northeast Asia does not have as many structures as other regions, but rather that the existing structures have little or no impact on the issues they have been created to oversee. The Six-Party Talks and summit meetings are cases in point here, where the structures

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have great potential but very little has been accomplished; in the case of the Six-Party Talks, the effect may in fact have been to significantly reduce trust rather than to contribute to any positive development. This failure cannot be entirely attributed to Sino–Japanese relations but, in the context of poor relations between the two major regional powers, it is increasingly difficult to manage regional multilateral relations. Coordination between Japan and China in the region, and beyond, could have very positive effects on their national as well as regional security. As noted in this book, there are quite a number of opportunities for increased cooperation (see the chapters by Aoyama, Gui and Takeda), but it is also noted that few of these opportunities are being taken at present. There are many reasons for this, but much of the tension is founded in the lack of confidence and trust between almost all states in the region, not least between China and Japan. We are looking at a “Catch-22” situation in which there is a need at the regional level to create functional multilateral structures to deal with the security situation (and increase trust), but there is too little trust among the states to create regional structures with any influence at present. Moreover, as Swanström notes, there is no consensus today as to what a regional mechanism should look like, and even less as to who should lead such a structure. The lack of trust in the region makes it virtually impossible for China and Japan to accept the leadership of the other states, even if they themselves do not necessarily want to take responsibility for leading. Therefore, there is a need for external leadership, in this case by ASEAN. Takeda, Gui, Swanström, Kokubun, Shi and Aoyama all look at different aspects of the multilateral structures in the region, or the lack thereof. Northeast Asia has a poor track record, compared to other regions in the world, in terms of regional structures. The lack of such structures has acted as a major limit to trust between China and Japan over the years, and there is still a lack of cooperation, especially in the security field. Many authors in this book provide an overview of how the current situation is holding together and what is needed to move beyond the current haphazard level of cooperation in Northeast Asia. This is especially needed now that the Six-Party Talks appear to have broken down, in spite of some recent improvements in bilateral relations between North and South Korea and a likely return to the Six-Party Talks in the future (albeit with little prospects

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Introduction

7

of achieving significant results). Throughout this volume, the authors look at Chinese and Japanese perceptions of their bilateral relationship and its limitations. There is also a realization that bilateral cooperation cannot elevate security cooperation to the level that would be possible in a multilateral framework. There is growing political consensus that the potential of, and need for, multilateral structures is high, but also that not much can be done to realize this in the short to medium term. The much-noted need for increased multilateral structures is analyzed in this volume, and several different suggestions are made as to how to move forward. Takeda suggests a focused form of multilateralism — so-called qualitative minilateralism — to push the cooperation further. Gui looks into strategic dialogues and trilateral forms of dialogue, and Kokubun looks at the 1972 and 2006 frameworks as points of departure for increased cooperation and multilateralism. There is no denying that Sino–Japanese cooperation in any multilateral structure at the regional level is crucial, as Aoyama points out. This seems to be a difficult thing to accomplish, as China and Japan would have major difficulties in deciding how such cooperation should be defined and who should lead. In this great power struggle, regional and historical issues quickly become all too apparent. Despite the fact that China and Japan share the same basic goals and principles for multilateralism, there are still considerable difficulties to overcome in forming any multilateral structure, as noted by Gui in his chapter.

Security Dialogues and Improved Military Openness Kokubun and Shi take on the issue of analyzing the long-term relationships at the multilateral level, but with a focus on bilateral relations and the Korean Peninsula. It has become apparent that security dialogues and, even more so, multilateral cooperation are far below optimal — or arguably even necessary — levels. Both authors call for better and more applicable security dialogues between China and Japan and also with the neighboring states in an effort to create stable security regimes. There is no doubt that without bilateral and multilateral dialogues, tensions will not only continue but could even get worse. Unfortunately, there seems to be little prospect of moving in a positive direction in the short term; rather, things appear to be getting worse, especially when it comes to the

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Niklas Swanström and Ryosei Kokubun

maritime tension between China and Japan and the echoing silence in the military-to-military dialogues. Without an improvement in Sino–Japanese relations, it is difficult to see how institutionalized cooperation on other issues can move forward. Central Asia, the Mekong River and the Korean Peninsula are three cases in point that are discussed in this book, but there are many other examples of areas in which Sino–Japanese collaboration or at least cooperation would be very beneficial for stability and development. It is difficult to imagine any significant regional cooperation without first having an improvement in relations between China and Japan; this has very much become an issue of concern, as the structure is there in the 1972 and 2006 frameworks, but not much has been used to improve bilateral relations. Greater focus on new structures for dialogue between Japan and China under the 2006 framework is proposed as a possibility by Kokubun. The reason for Kokubun’s argument is that Sino–Japanese relations have expanded and deepened much further than the 1972 framework can sustain, and so a new bold vision is needed. On the other hand, Shi takes the view that the 1972 framework already has what is needed and adjustments to it should be the focus rather than a new framework; in many ways, Shi treats the U.S. as the primary agent in strengthening regional security. What both chapters have in common is the realization that either way there is a growing need for communication within the political and military structures. There is not much communication today between the political and military structures that could be considered long-term cooperation. There are, on the other hand, significant exchanges going on between the two sides, but not in the “right” fields, such as the military, crisis communication, strategic cooperation, etc. There is a growing need to establish such interaction, both at the official level as well as at the informal level. There have been some military exchanges in the field of visits and student exchanges, but the scale is far below what is needed; long-term strategic cooperation in the region and beyond is virtually absent today.

Moving from Crisis Management to Prevention The problems in building structures for bilateral and multilateral cooperation between China and Japan mean that it is difficult to move beyond the

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Introduction

9

level of cooperation on crisis management to crisis prevention. In the long run, this is what is needed for lasting peace and stability in the region. History has shown that the approach to dealing with regional and bilateral crises has been haphazard and problematic. It is only a matter of time before we will see a situation that can no longer be saved by savvy diplomatic or skillful military maneuvers. Mistakes are increasingly likely to happen as interactions become more frequent and military positioning becomes more aggressive. The current management structures are negligible and need much more attention. They have received little attention because of the lack of trust, but in a situation in which trust is lacking there is all the more need for crisis management and communication mechanisms. It is not hard to see that it is in the national interest of all countries concerned to reduce insecurity on their borders or in the region. There are no regional hotlines, and even at the bilateral level there is nothing that could pass even the lowest expectations in a crisis situation, to say nothing about long-term crisis prevention. There are rudimentary links between the Japanese and Chinese military forces, but not to the extent that is needed, given the current levels of tension and the high stakes involved. Increased interaction and exchanges are needed, and port visits should be routine rather than an occasional curiosity to be celebrated. There is also a need for crisis communication to stabilize the region over time, and this will have to be established jointly between China and Japan. A factor that complicates any attempt to create such a structure is that the public in both China and Japan is increasingly calling on their respective governments to act in a tough and decisive manner when it comes to the political and military dimensions of the bilateral relationship. Dealing with the demands of the public not to appear soft on defense issues is undoubtedly going to add to the challenge of creating crisis communication and management mechanisms. In the early stages of building this mechanism, the focus should be not so much on trust (or the lack of it) as on its importance to all concerned. In the long term, trust and confidence building may be one of the results of cooperation in building crisis communication mechanisms, and eventually create a situation in which the focus can shift to crisis prevention, which will lead to real long-term gains in regional stability and security.

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Part I Setting the Terminology

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Chapter 2

Moving from Crisis Management to Regional Cooperation: Clarifying Concepts

Martina Klimesova

Sino–Japanese relations are bound to be the backbone of regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. They also serve as an indicator of prospects of enhancing multilateral cooperation in the region; the willingness to cooperate between Beijing and Tokyo positively impacts regional cooperation in Northeast Asia at large. This chapter seeks to analyze existing models of crisis management in Sino–Japanese relations, and assesses what is needed for a transition from an ad hoc mode of dealing with bilateral tensions and regional crises to setting the stage for a framework of dialogues on regional cooperation. Identity, interests and external incentives are identified as factors defining a region, and are further examined in the context of Northeast Asia. Furthermore, this chapter provides an overview of possible scenarios for regional cooperation and integration; the main argument is that some level of institutionalization is necessary to advance from the present ad hoc mode towards a long-term regional cooperation mechanism resistant to abrupt crises. And lastly, this chapter sets the stage for the following chapters by outlining the factors behind regional cooperation. Since the end of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi’s era in 2006, there has been a thawing of Sino–Japanese bilateral relations, but it has become 13

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increasingly evident that the region needs its own setting for regional cooperation, based on its specific needs and historical development.1 In September 2009, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama proposed the formation of an East Asian Community (EAC), built along lines similar to the European Union, during his first meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in New York.2 The proposal met with lukewarm comments in China; nevertheless, China has been in agreement with Japan that there is a need for discussion on developing a permanent framework for regional cooperation, but the two have to reach an agreement as to which countries should be included in the initiative and how wide the scope should be.3 For instance, the growing cooperation between Japan and China, and also South Korea, on environmental and energy issues can be viewed from a spillover perspective.4 A relevant question would then be whether the existing cooperation could evolve into a more complex regional mechanism or whether it would not exceed the current boundaries of the sectional cooperation. As stated previously, Sino–Japanese relations have seemed to be on the mend since Shinzo Abe became Prime Minister of Japan in September 2006; however, it remains to be seen whether longterm tensions have been lowered sufficiently to establish a lasting structure for regional cooperation, and whether the intentions of Japan’s current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to focus on the Trans-Pacific Partnership would overshadow the deepening of ties in Northeast Asia.

1

Sino–Japanese bilateral agreements include the Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China (1972), the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China (1978) and the Japan– China Joint Declaration (1998). 2 “Hatoyama Proposes Creating an ‘Asian EU’”. The Japan Times, 23 September, 2009. 3 Li, X. (2009). “China Open to Unified East Asia Proposal”. China Daily, 29 September. 4 For instance, the North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation (NEASPEC) was launched as a comprehensive inter-governmental mechanism in 1993. The initiative involves China, Japan, ROK, DPRK, Mongolia and the Russian Federation, and strives to provide a regional forum to discuss emerging environmental challenges in Northeast Asia. The decisions are made by consensus during annual meetings of senior officials from environmental ministries, where the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) functions as the Secretariat. Source: http:// www.neaspec.org/.

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Moreover, Hatoyama’s proposal from September 2009 could have been perceived as a golden window of opportunity for setting up a more permanent structure for regional cooperation. This did not however exceed cautious optimism, as there are still a number of pending bilateral issues, such as territorial disputes in the East China Sea, the interpretation of some historical events from the Second Sino–Japanese War, Chinese military build-up and Japanese rearmament. These issues have the potential to keep thwarting bilateral relations should nationalistic sentiments in either country strengthen again. Furthermore, some pending regional issues, such as the unresolved security situation on the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait issue and existing U.S. military alliances in the region, also need to be included in the discussion of future regional cooperation arrangements. It should also be noted that high expectations could put unwelcome pressure on resolving these pending issues, which would hinder the development of regional cooperation in the long run.

What Is Needed in the Debate on Prospects for Sino–Japanese Regional Cooperation? Main Objectives Prior to opening the debate on particular aspects of Sino–Japanese regional cooperation, it is necessary to first analyze the dynamics behind the transformation from crisis management mode to more structured regional cooperation; more specifically, to summarize what is behind the notion of moving from settling crises in an ad hoc manner to establishing a more permanent framework for settling unresolved and emerging issues. This is necessary, given how Sino–Japanese relations were impacted by past changes in leadership in both Japan and China (the Koizumi period in Japan, and previously the Jiang Zemin regime in China) and how relatively insignificant incidents (e.g. the Japanese student skit at Northwest University in Xi’an in October 2003, resulting in anti-Japanese riots the following month) can lead to large-scale public outrage.5 This can also indicate that a framework for dealing with pending and emerging issues would certainly

5

Jakes, S. (2003). “Pride and Prejudice”. Time, 10 November.

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mitigate the impact of similar incidents in the future. Added to this, bilateral relations with high levels of mutual trust are immune to acts of cultural and national insensitivity; but such acts can serve as a litmus test for regional sensitivity. For instance, there are quite a number of culturally disgraceful jokes among different European nations, but with few exceptions they generally do not lead to public or official protests.6 More recently, anti-Japanese protests in China, including mass cancellation of tourist trips to Japan, were triggered by the detention of a captain of a Chinese fishing trawler by Japanese coastal guards for allegedly ramming the Japanese vessel in the close vicinity of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea in September 2010. This incident also hampered Sino–Japanese cooperation on joint exploration of gas fields in the disputed territory. The fact that the Chinese captain was released only after four Japanese nationals were arrested in China for allegedly illegally entering a Chinese military facility and after China cut off diplomatic communication with Japan again confirms that Sino–Japanese relations can still display a great level of fragility when exposed to crises. It should be noted that there are a number of existing cooperative initiatives between China and Japan; these include the Japan–China Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (October 2008, which entails cooperation in criminal and justice matters), the Japan–China Policy Dialogue on the Mekong Region, enhanced people-to-people exchanges with Japan’s introduction of individual sightseeing visas for Chinese nationals starting

6

One exception is Bulgaria depicted as a Turkish squat toilet in the sculpture Entropa by Czech artist David Černý, displayed in Brussels in January 2009 on the occasion of the initiation of the Czech Republic’s presidency of the EU Council. The Czech government ordered an art piece from artist Černý, who had won a tender promising a sculpture that would be a joint project of 27 artists representing each EU member state. Just a few hours before the ceremonial opening, it was revealed that not only had David Černý bamboozled the Czech government and the sculpture Entropa was created by only him and his colleagues, but that the depictions of some of the EU member states were derogatory. The strongest reaction came from the Bulgarian government sending an official protest note to the Czech government for depicting Bulgaria as a Turkish squat toilet in the shape of Bulgaria, according to some making a reference to the sensitive issue of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. Needless to say, the sculpture was negatively received by the Bulgarian public but did not spark any open anti-Czech protests in the country.

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from July 2011, and relaxation of some import restrictions between the countries (mostly on imports from Japan to China related to fishery and agriculture products). Notwithstanding this, there is not yet an allencompassing umbrella structure with more general aims beyond cooperation on specific thematic issues, such as the environment, energy or trade. The ultimate question in this context is how to change perceptions of Sino–Japanese relations from a rival relationship to a greater partnership for regional cooperation. A distinction should be made between the grassroots and the elite level when answering this question. Perception of bilateral relations at the elite level has already shifted towards cooperation; however, mutual perceptions at the grassroots level are still more inclined towards a relationship of competition and are more sensitive to signs of cultural and political irreverence. The important question that needs to be asked when discussing the institutionalization of regional cooperation is what level of sovereignty the involved states are willing to give up in favor of joint institutions or what decision-making powers they are willing to delegate to them. Additionally, there should be an inquiry into what is the driving force behind regional cooperation, what is the modus operandi that brings the cooperation forward, and which factors and events are triggering the transition from bilateral relations dominated by crisis management to more institutionalized regional cooperation. In sum, the overall aim of this publication is to analyze the factors that could lead to the transformation of Sino–Japanese relations from crisis management mode to an established regional cooperation. I argue that to secure stable regional cooperation built on steady Sino–Japanese bilateral relations and to establish a firm basis for extended regional cooperation, it is necessary to build mutual consensus on establishing a regional institution that would be a functional platform for dialogue on emerging regional issues as well as for long-term regional development.

From Crisis Management to Regional Cooperation Mitigating crises and tensions in crisis management mode is characterized by lack of sufficient information, disinformation and malfunctioning or nonexistent channels of communication. Moreover, informal communication

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channels gain more importance, as they are less subjected to public scrutiny and also more efficient in collecting information in a high-tension environment. On the other hand, informal information channels are often based on personal contacts and can be difficult to institutionalize. Furthermore, information distribution under crisis management differs from the elite to the grassroots level, whereby information at the grassroots level is often insufficient or not properly distributed. For example, the so-called “dumpling incident” and its presentation in the Japanese media aggravated anti-Chinese public sentiment, but according to policy-makers and advisors, its actual effect on elite relations was marginal.7 With regard to the transformation from crisis management to regional cooperation mode, there is a certain contradiction: some argue that once a set framework for regional cooperation has been established, the level of confidence and cooperation between actors is already so high that there will be no need for crisis management and mutual tensions will already have been reduced.8 However, the question remains as to which mechanisms could facilitate such a transition. It can also be argued that although there may not be a need for crisis management on a bilateral level, the actors can face crises at the regional level (e.g. the security of the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait issue, territorial disputes in the South China Sea) or global issues (e.g. a financial crisis, a global economic downturn, the spread of pandemic biological threats) that may require more sensitive handling and exert greater pressure on the actors. Following this reasoning, there is a need to establish a permanent structure for regional cooperation, as has been acknowledged by both Japan 7

In January 2008, Japanese authorities announced that 10 Japanese citizens experienced food poisoning after consuming gyoza dumplings imported from China. The announcement triggered anti-Chinese sentiments throughout Japan, which was further enforced by comments of the Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura about loose safety awareness on the Chinese side. In addition, the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Minister, Yoichi Masuzoe, speculated that the dumplings could have been deliberately contaminated with pesticides. Source: Sieg, L. (2008). “Japan: China Dumpling Poisoning May Be Deliberate”. Reuters AlertNet, 5 February. 8 Swanström, N. and Weissmann, M. (2005). “Conflict, Conflict Prevention and Conflict Management and Beyond: A Conceptual Exploration”. Concept Paper, Central Asia– Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program.

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and China. As stated previously, I argue that the only structure that could be permanent in this context is an institution that would be resistant to temporary political changes and implications resulting from incidents fostering nationalist sentiments. There is a wide range of different types of regional institutions with different levels of power-sharing mechanisms and responsibilities delegated to them by member states. In the case of Sino–Japanese relations and subsequently Northeast Asian regional arrangements, it is important to focus on finding a structure that would be strong enough to be effective, that would carry out decisions when needed that would be respected by all member states, and that at the same time would not compete with traditional national sovereignty. As demonstrated on a number of occasions, the main impediment thwarting the further transformation of Sino–Japanese relations into a more cooperative mode is the prevailing lack of mutual trust, which to a great extent results from insufficient reflection upon some regional historical issues. This is — together with other issues — further elucidated in the following sections. There are a number of historical examples of crisis management initiatives that later acquired a permanent institutional structure. These include predecessors of the current European Union: the European Coal and Steel Community (1952), the European Atomic Energy Community (1957), and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) (1973) and later the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) (1995). Europe has the most experience in advancing from crisis management mode to regional cooperation; one should, however, be cautious before deriving any general lessons from the European experience. Which lessons from European multilateralism can then be employed in Northeast Asia? It has been pointed out that the existing trade links in Northeast Asia distinguish the current situation from the Cold War environment in which, for example, the initial CSCE meetings were held.9 Different political systems thus should not be an obstacle to initiating a dialogue on security cooperation in the region. Moreover, the CSCE/ OSCE members shared the same principles, on which mutual 9

de Crombrugghe, B. (2008). “OSCE, Multilateral Security Cooperation, and Lessons for Northeast Asia”. In Peace and Prosperity in Northeast Asia: Exploring the European Experience, Jeju Peace Institute and East Asia Foundation.

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understanding was built: the search for stability and regional security.10 Similarly, both China and Japan have reached consensus on the need to enhance regional security confidence-building measures (CBMs); however, due to the prevailing mistrust, they are unable to initiate discussions on relevant implementation mechanisms. Many of the theoretical approaches to regional integration and regionalism refer to the process of European integration and were also developed in conjunction with the European experience. The process of European integration was initiated in a particular historical setting: in the aftermath of World War II when facing the expansion of another totalitarian ideology in the East as well as initial economic dependency on the United States. Furthermore, European countries had some historical experience with regional alliances and also shared the Christian heritage. As pointed out later in this chapter, expressing a shared European identity was not in conflict with expressing different national identities. On the contrary, when reviewing the evolvement of Sino–Japanese relations, the situation differs from the European example. Not only is the historical context different, but also the number of regional actors and potential member states is significantly lower. Building upon this, it allows unresolved bilateral issues to become dominant — even in the debate on regional integration — which poses a greater risk of stalemate.

From Crisis Management to Regional Cooperation in Northeast Asia: Background Factors The question of the interpretation of common history, especially of some events from the time of the Second Sino–Japanese War as well as World War II, is an issue that has given rise to a great deal of nationalist sentiment in the past in both China and Japan. In December 2006, the Chinese and Japanese governments established a Japan–China Joint History 10

The OSCE is a platform for dialogue but, as demonstrated during several previous crises in the region, it fails to generate decisions or firm statements on divisive issues, since decisions are adopted only by consensus. For example, in the aftermath of the Georgia crisis in August 2008 which challenged regional security within the organization’s domain, the OSCE was unable to contribute to the successful resolution of the crisis.

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Research Committee to broaden understanding of their shared history and narrow the gap between China’s and Japan’s perception of past events. The controversy was chiefly about the interpretation of regional history in some high school history textbooks. It was noted that the information on regional events differs greatly in some private schools in Japan, but also in schools in China and South Korea. A proposal for a long-term aim to produce a joint history textbook for all three countries also appeared.11 The joint committee’s results presented in January 2010 included acknowledgment from both sides that this effort had facilitated better understanding of each other’s interpretation of the contested historical events. Furthermore, the researchers reached an agreement that certain Japanese actions during the Second Sino–Japanese War were acts of aggression, but there was a further need to tackle these complex historical realities to avoid oversimplification. Some Chinese and Korean scholars have also suggested that Japan has not dealt with its war history (the Second Sino–Japanese War and the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula) to the same extent as Germany, pointing out that Japan has not undergone the same process of reflection upon its own history. Nevertheless, with regard to the textbook issue, it should also be mentioned that schools in Japan can decide which textbook they will use; the government does not provide any guidelines to schools as to which textbook publisher to choose and cannot control which information appears in privately published textbooks. Only in some history textbooks is the interpretation of Japanese war history regarded as controversial, omitting certain historical events (e.g. the issue of so-called “comfort women”) and portraying some contested events in a different light (e.g. the events in Nanjing in 1937). This, again, demonstrates that the problem often lies at a level other than the strictly governmental; the

11

During a visit to South Korea (October 2009), the Japanese Foreign Minister, Katsuya Okada, made a historic comment when saying “it would be ideal if the three neighboring nations (China, Japan, South Korea) published a common history book to clear up controversies over the interpretation of historical regional events.” Source: Cazzaniga, P. (2009). “Japan and South Korea Increasingly Closer”. AsiaNews.it, 13 October. Later, in February 2010, Okada apologized to South Korea for Japanese rule in the first half of the 20th century, calling it a “tragic incident.”

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rebuilding of mutual trust is a long process that entails processes at both vertical and horizontal levels. In sum, mutual negative perceptions resulting from certain historical grievances and the way in which some historical events are interpreted by some institutions (e.g. Yushukan, the military and war museum located within the Yasukuni Shrine), even though they may be non-governmental, hinder the development of good mutual relations. On the contrary, it can be debated to what extent these controversies reflect the actual historical issues and to what extent they reflect the currently prevailing mistrust between the nations, fueled by more recent demonstrations of nationalism.

Prospects for Regional Cooperation in Northeast Asia Talking about crisis management in Northeast Asia inevitably raises the questions of third-party involvement, of tools to facilitate communications between the parties and of alternative avenues for cooperation. In the context of Sino–Japanese relations, however, the use of an external facilitator is not that common. Aside from informal Track II processes, the existing ties between China and Japan suggest that third-party involvement is not necessary; on the contrary, neither country is interested in availing of external assistance to resolve their rivalry. This book is focused on Sino–Japanese relations and this chapter recognizes them as the backbone of regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. Nevertheless, South Korea, as the third most developed country in the region and a participant in both the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Plus Three, is a factor that has to be considered and included in discussions of future arrangements for regional cooperation. South Korea occupies a special position due to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, in which both China and Japan have stakes. South Korea is also the originator of a number of regional integration and cooperation initiatives. In 1994, South Korea proposed a Northeast Asian regional dialogue in the Northeast Asia Security Dialogue (NEASED) to strengthen regional confidence. The proposal was, however, rejected by China and the DPRK; in 1995, South

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Korea proposed the establishment of the Northeast Asian Security Cooperation.

Factors behind Regionalism China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Mongolia and the Russian Far East constitute the Northeast Asian region, in which Sino–Japanese relations are the foundation of any possible regional cooperation. But what defines a region? Identity, interests and incentives are all factors conducive to regional cooperation. However, for mutual perceptions to be transformed, their mere presence does not guarantee well-functioning regional cooperation; political will is necessary for the crucial political decisions to be taken.

Identity A shared identity can be conducive to regional integration, as shown in regions with an intensive and developed network of regional cooperation. For instance, in the aftermath of World War II, the European identity was not affected by the conflict, in contrast to the different national identities. While the perception of the German national identity remained tinted by its Nazi past for many years after the war, the European identity did not come into question, and all countries still shared a common European identity. Additionally, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the motto of post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe was to “return to Europe,” aiming at reinforcing their European identity as a uniting factor with the countries of Western Europe, which were perceived as the “real” Europe. It is unquestionable that the European identity is very strong and is one of the factors that have fostered the European integration process. Shared identity on its own, however, does not necessarily mean that regional cooperation will prosper. South American and Caribbean countries share a common Latin identity, yet Mercosur is only a regional trade organization that has not developed into a wider platform. The sense of a common regional identity in Northeast Asia is very weak, while national identities in both China and Japan remain strong,

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with great value attached to national pride. Hurrell argues that regional awareness and regional identity are the most important factors in regional building processes.12 Wunderlich lists two aspects of regional identity: first, that the region is perceived from the outside as a coherent actor; and second, that it has internally shared norms and values.13 Externally, Northeast Asia is perceived as a region when it comes to trade and economics; regional economic relations have become more institutionalized and, during the global financial crises of 1997 and 2008, the countries introduced effective regional mechanisms as a response to the crisis.14 On the other hand, in political and security matters, Northeast Asia is identified as a region that does not often speak with one voice and where security issues are framed in terms of rivalry. China and Japan also do not always cooperate extensively in the Six-Party Talks, where China is focusing on its hosting role and does not want to support Japan in including some DPRK–Japan bilateral issues on the agenda, namely regarding the abduction issue. Internally, when defining the region against other localities, there are some cultural similarities; however, internally shared values are not sturdy enough to galvanize any significant change in attitudes towards regional cooperation. Another important concept of identity and regionalization is perception of a common enemy or, as argued by David Campbell15 in his theory of the development of U.S. foreign policy, a nation’s identity is defined by interpreting external danger and defining one’s own identity against it. Perceptions of a common enemy, or defining oneself against a common danger, foster an understanding of a region as a single entity. The common threat can be both in a material sense (e.g. an economic crisis, economic competition from other regions, competition for natural resources with 12

Hurrell, A. (1995). “Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective”. In L. Fawcett and A. Hurrell (eds.), Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order, Oxford University Press, New York. 13 Wunderlich, J.U. (2007). Regionalism, Globalisation and International Order: Europe and Southeast Asia. Ashgate, Aldershot, p. 138. 14 Pempel, T.J. (2007). “Northeast Asian Economic Integration: A Region in Flux”. AsiaPacific Review, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 45–61. 15 Campbell, D. (1998). Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

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other regions) and in the non-material sense of values (e.g. competing ideologies, or the threat posed to the common culture by an influx of immigrants). These factors can foster regional cooperation; more specifically, they can create a sense of the need for cooperation on certain aspects that threaten the region as such. When relating the same concept to the situation in Europe at the beginning of the European integration process, the threat of Soviet expansion as well as the reality of U.S. economic global hegemony served as factors against which Europeans could define themselves and their policies. When reviewing the current situation in Northeast Asia, it remains unlikely that the region would face an external threat that would be strong enough to serve as an integration agent. The countries proved that they are capable of cooperating efficiently during economic crises; however, the cooperation is limited to non-political and non-security aspects.

Interests The collective benefits or prospects for mutual gain are the second factor that can stimulate governments to seek avenues to overcome differences in position and turn them into shared interests. Both governments in China and Japan are aware of the need to unite some of their interests, which was declared in May 2008 by the signing of a Joint Statement on strategic, mutually beneficial ties. As stated after the signing of the document, both countries are interested in maintaining stability and prosperity in the AsiaPacific region and their cooperation should further stimulate development in the region; however, no specific form of cooperation has yet been adopted. Sino–Japanese shared interests result largely from their complementary economies. For instance, a dearth of natural resources — namely oil and raw materials — gives both the need to secure not only the resources but also energy transportation routes (both tankers and pipelines). Moreover, in June 2008, China and Japan reached an agreement on joint gas field exploration in the waters around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, which however did not bring any tangible results and was halted after the detention of a Chinese fisherman by Japanese coast guards in 2010. Aside from energy cooperation, there is also mutual

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understanding on the benefits of environmental cooperation.16 Despite the existing political differences and lack of mutual trust, both countries are pragmatic in economic cooperation. In contrast to the economic disparity in Southeast Asia and the immense development gaps between ASEAN member states, there is relative economic parity between China and Japan and also South Korea. However, there are no clear indications that the existing energy, trade and environmental cooperation will spill over into the political and security sectors. There is interest in cooperating on combating non-traditional security threats (e.g. pandemic biological threats), but cooperation within the field of justice and home affairs on issues such as combating narcotics and organized crime is lagging significantly.17 Furthermore, with regard to the negative population growth in Japan and the soon-to-start-diminishing population in China, both countries are facing challenges in domestic social issues related to social and employment policies.18 Net population loss combined with one of the highest life expectancies in the world in Japan will result in certain challenges. I believe that it is inevitable for Japan to open its labor market to the foreign workforce.19 It would thus serve both China and Japan to create a regional

16

As Gurtov notes, China and Japan “reached a basic understanding on global warming, with Japan agreeing to provide China with technological assistance to help cut greenhouse gas emissions.” See Gurtov, M. (2008). “Reconciling Japan and China”. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 5 January. 17 Interestingly, in 2004 during the ASEAN Plus Three meeting in Bangkok, representatives agreed to justice and home affairs cooperation in combating non-traditional threats such as organized crime, narcotics and trafficking of human beings. This, however, did not produce any specific tangible results in the establishment of joint committees or institutions. 18 Projections indicate that due to accelerated aging, the declining birth rate and aging of the first baby-boomer population, by 2030 31% of the Japanese population will be over 65 years old. Source: Kaneko, R. et al. (2008). “Population Projections for Japan: 2006–2055 — Outline of Results, Methods, and Assumptions”. The Japanese Journal of Population, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 76–114. 19 In 2008, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Diet member group submitted a report proposing a drastic increase of immigrants allowed into Japan, up to 10 million (which would account for up to 10% of the total population by 2050), which was flatly rebuffed by the majority of the Japanese population in subsequent opinion polls. The proposal was not realized following Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s resignation in September 2008.

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labor market and promote workforce mobility.20 In Europe, the opening of the community labor market in 1986 by the adoption of the Single European Act triggered integration and advanced regional cooperation in fields like justice and home affairs as well as social affairs. This, however, has to be preceded by enhancing mutual trust and addressing mutual negative perceptions among the grassroots. At the grassroots level in Japan, there must be a readiness to face an influx of immigrant workers in the future — besides immigrants from South America of Japanese descent (second- and third-generation) — and these immigrants may come from China.

Incentives: External Factors Incentives, positive rewards and conditions are defined here as external inputs that have the potential to impact regional relations and trigger a need for greater cooperation. These could also be external rewards that motivate countries with strained relations to increase their cooperation. For instance, after World War II, the United States urged both Great Britain and France to cooperate with post-war Germany and also promoted European integration.21 In light of the aforementioned factors, incentives and interests may seem identical. It should, however, be noted that interests are primarily generated within states (actors), while incentives reflect external realities. Unlike the countries of post-war Western Europe, Northeast Asia as a region does not face eminent external security threats and does not share an external patron. External incentives that could motivate greater cooperation are mostly events. For example, the global financial crisis constituted an incentive to cooperate. While there was no cooperation among Northeast Asian countries after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, China, Japan and South Korea learned from the experience and 20

As Lee et al. note, China will also start facing a decline in its working-age population after 2015 due to its restrictive one-child policy. See: Lee, S. et al. (2008). “Northeast Asia”. In N. Swanström (ed.), Asia 2018–2028: Development Scenarios, Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. 21 Lundestad, G. (2003). The United States and Western Europe Since 1945: From “Empire” by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift. Oxford University Press, New York.

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initiated cooperation on managing the impact of the most recent crisis by concluding an agreement on cross-currency swaps in Fukuoka in December 2008.22 Other types of external factors are natural disasters (earthquakes, typhoons, floods, tsunamis), during which China and Japan cooperate. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Sichuan Province in China in May 2008, Japan’s Disaster Relief Rescue Team was the first international group to arrive. Positive experiences from joint cooperation on resolving small events can gradually lead to eradicating some of the existing prevailing regional grievances at the grassroots level. Nonetheless, these have only a supplementary effect; political will is necessary in order to create more permanent structures.

Possible Scenarios for Institutionalizing Cooperation in Northeast Asia As argued in the beginning of this chapter, the establishment of an overarching and more permanent joint institutional structure for cooperation would be conducive to enhancing regional stability in Northeast Asia. Both China and Japan have made positive though cautious comments about extending existing regional cooperation. It is yet to be seen what form this institutionalization would take; whether it would be achieved through cultivating existing Sino–Japanese bilateral relations or whether it would depart from existing multilateral frameworks in Northeast Asia. Building upon frameworks for regional cooperation in the past ten years, there are several processes that could possibly be a point of departure for regional institutionalization. In light of this, Wunderlich argues that East Asian regionalism may have a stabilizing effect on Sino–Japanese relations.23 It is evident that both countries recognize the need to cooperate on issues such as regional economic stability, combating non-traditional 22

“China, Japan, S Korea to Promote Co-op on Disaster Management”. XinhuaNet, 13 December, 2008. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/13/content_10499644.htm/ [accessed November 17, 2009]. 23 Wunderlich, J.U. (2007). Regionalism, Globalisation and International Order: Europe and Southeast Asia. Ashgate, Aldershot, p. 159.

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security threats and regional security; however, they have different views and preferences as to how such cooperation should be realized. Theoretical evidence suggests that existing cooperation in some fields can lead to the initiation of contacts in other areas as well. The so-called spillover effect24 has, however, not been demonstrated in the case of Sino– Japanese relations, or indeed in Northeast Asian regional cooperation. Table 1 shows the existing institutionalized cooperative mechanisms in Sino–Japanese relations. It is evident that cooperation in non-political technical and sectional areas is significantly stronger than cooperation in the political area, and cooperation in security matters also remains limited. When reviewing existing cooperation in the region that has not necessarily yet been formally institutionalized, the following scenarios for possible future cooperation emerge.

Scenario 1: Enhancing Economic Cooperation Leading to a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Between China, Japan and South Korea This scenario could mean creating a special regional group within the international financial institutions, pre-discussing issues at the regional level and forming joint statements, based on the complementary nature of the Chinese and Japanese economies, with prospects of creating a common economic space similar to the EU. A joint currency is highly unlikely and is not mentioned frequently. This again only reflects pragmatic decision making based on the economic needs of Japan and China. Trade cooperation could be hindered by repeating incidents similar to the socalled dumpling incident of January 2008. On the other hand, should existing trade relations continue to flourish and if the interdependence of regional economies becomes more evident, it could have some effect on the further institutionalization of regional relations, limited though this

24

Moravcsik, A. (1993). “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach”. Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 473–524.

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Existing Cooperative Institutions between China and Japan Health

Global Organizations/ Structures

BIS, G20, IBRC, IDA, IFC, IFUD, IMF, LAIA (China is only an observer), MIGA, UNCTAD, WCO, WFTU, WTO

FAO, IAEA, ICAO, ICC, ICRM, IFAD, IHO, IHP, ILO, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOM (China is only an observer), ISO, ITSO, ITU, NGS, OPCW, PCA, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNITAR, UPU, WIPO, WMO, Zangger Committee

IFRCS, WHO

Regional Organizations/ Frameworks

ADB, AfDB (nonregional members), APEC, EAFTA (FTA proposal between 3 countries in the process of negotiation)

APT, NEASPEC

Bilateral Agreements

Trade agreements (North Asia Summit, 2008), negotiations on FTA, agreements on currency swaps

Agreements on energy, climate, clean cars; mutual legal assistance on criminal matters

Culture/Sports IOC, UNESCO, UNWTO, WIPO

Political/Security/ General IPU, UN

APT, ARF, ASEAN (dialogue partners), EAS (highest level), OAS (observers), PIF (partners), SAARC (observers), China–Japan–South Korea Summit Japan–China Youth Friendship Exchange Year (2008)

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Economics/Trade

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Table 1.

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may be. China is in favor of enhancing bilateral trade relations with Japan, but also supports economic and trade cooperation at the multilateral level.

Scenario 2: Deepening ASEAN Plus Three (APT)25 Further development of the ASEAN Plus Three structure is preferred by China, since it has been tested over time and is a “mature mechanism.” On the other hand, Japan has historically preferred the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to the APT structure. ASEAN Plus Three agreed during the 9th APT Summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2005 to extend its cooperation to political and security issues; however, such cooperation remains underdeveloped, in addition to cooperation on social issues, for instance. Certain limitations thus prevail, hindering further development of the APT structure. First, consensus between China, Japan and South Korea on their own integration and level of cooperation is needed before deepening cooperation based on the APT platform. And second, ASEAN is a very diverse entity, with very low socio-economic cohesion and diverse political systems. Its actual role is to serve merely as a platform for discussion and its evolvement into a more integrated structure is highly unlikely.

Scenario 3: Developing the East Asia Summit (EAS) This scenario envisages development of the East Asia Summit into a permanent regional organization with a firm structure. Unlike the APT setting, combining the 18 East Asian states, EAS focuses on greater regional integration among the big three. Japan is more in favor of this; however, China indicates that it is too early for this type of integration, as it is necessary to solve some pending regional issues and enhance the level of mutual trust before institutionalizing the EAS. China also prefers regional integration in a larger multilateral setting, as opposed to establishing closer regional cooperation with Japan, before solving some of the pending bilateral issues. Moreover, Japan is leaning towards economic 25

ASEAN Plus Three (APT) is cooperation between Japan, China, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), established in 1997.

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integration, but China prefers solving mutual political issues first prior to deeper institutionalization of economic cooperation in Northeast Asia. There is clearly a need to unite these views before proposing any specific steps towards creating a regional institution.

Scenario 4: Institutionalizing the Six-Party Talks (SPT) The Six-Party Talks, currently halted, were created as a platform for discussing the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula; nevertheless, there has been the possibility of eventually developing the initiative into an institutionalized regional forum that would have regional security issues on its agenda. The framework would not be only security cooperation in the existing format, but a set platform for security-related questions with a permanent joint secretariat including other regional actors that are not part of the SPT framework (e.g. Mongolia). Of the SPT participants, China is most interested in such a setting, given its position in the SPT framework as the host country. It can be assumed that China’s position in a structure taking the SPT as a point of departure would be strong. However, Japan is more cautious for a number of reasons. Japan still has a number of pending bilateral issues with the DPRK, such as the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s by DPRK agents, missiles and also non-existent diplomatic relations. Japan would hence prefer to solve these bilateral issues before joining a regional organization that would include the DPRK. Moreover, Japan is also aware of China’s special position and leverage in the SPT and some concerns could arise about the balance of power in the new forum. Furthermore, it can be expected that the United States would raise suspicions about regional security arrangements in which China would have a leading position. Russia, on the other hand, does not have significant ambitions in the region and is significantly more active in Europe and security questions involving the European neighborhood. Nonetheless, Russia is keen on maintaining its presence in an emerging regional security structure in Northeast Asia. With regard to the historical and current developments, this cooperation involves the most sensitive issues and its institutionalization is least likely to emerge.

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Conclusion: Impediments to the Transition from Rivalry to Partnership This chapter has detailed the factors behind changing mutual perceptions in Sino–Japanese relations from a relationship based on rivalry to a greater partnership for regional cooperation. The assessment was that institutionalization would be instrumental in transforming the relations from rivalry to partnership. This is because mutual perceptions in Sino–Japanese relations, particularly at the grassroots level, remain prone to ad hoc displays of nationalistic sentiment. The argument has built on the assumption that permanent institutional structures would mitigate tensions. Nevertheless, it is evident that there is still a lack of political will and consensus on what shape and role such regional institutions should take. There are also a number of contributing factors that hinder such a transition and establishment of a regional institution. While both the Japanese and Chinese administrations argued that there is a need for a set structure, they are both reluctant to initiate cooperation that would encompass a broader scope of regional issues rather than limited sectors (e.g. financial cooperation). June Dreyer recalls a traditional Chinese saying — “a mountain does not accommodate two tigers” — when citing Senior Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, that “the region has never experienced at the same time a strong China and a strong Japan.”26 Building upon this, I argue that, viewing this argument in light of a global economic perspective, both China and Japan are experiencing a period of relative economic stability and have pragmatically decided to cooperate on issues that are beneficial to their own development. Furthermore, such cooperation works on different levels, both at the elite (government) level but also in the civil society sector. It should again be repeated that enhancing cooperation at the grassroots level and promoting contacts among groups in different, not necessarily political, sectors is essential to building a long-term regional structure with a well-established network of relations between different entities. Existing regional frameworks (Six-Party Talks, East Asia Summit, ASEAN Plus Three) have a very limited impact at the grassroots level. 26

Dreyer, J.T. (2006). “Sino–Japanese Rivalry and Its Implications for Developing Nations”. Asian Survey, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 538–557.

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There are nonetheless a number of reasons why regional cooperation is minimized to specific pragmatic decisions and does not advance further. First, it is the prevailing lack of mutual trust, insufficient regional dialogue and negative mutual perceptions at the grassroots level that make the situation difficult to change, combined with a weak sense of regional identity and lack of consensus as to which countries should be involved in this institutionalization process. Different views are projected in China and Japan, while the transformation of Sino–Japanese relations towards further reconciliation is necessary prior to greater regional integration. Consensus therefore first needs to be reached at the bilateral level before a regional institution is created. There is also no significant external leverage that would stimulate the environment for the change. Despite all of this, both China and Japan will continue working together towards regional stability, which in turn will have a positive impact on the bilateral relationship.

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Chapter 3

Sino–Japanese Relations: A Japanese Perspective

Hiroki Takeuchi

Despite the deepening of economic interdependence, Sino–Japanese relations are one of the tensest among the most important international relations in the world.1 In April 2005, the largest anti-Japanese demonstrations occurred in Beijing and other Chinese cities. While the demonstrations drew the attention of and provoked discussions by scholars, journalists and officials for many reasons, the following comment from a Japanese journalist reporting on the demonstrations is particularly interesting. In May 2005, he told me: “I understand why many Chinese people have negative views on Japan. But I don’t understand why the Chinese public opinion on Japan is so monolithic. Isn’t it because of the government’s

1

For example, Gries and Yahuda both start their discussions by pointing out the puzzling deterioration of relations despite the deepening economic interdependence between the two countries. See Gries, P.H. (2005). “China’s ‘New Thinking’ on Japan”. China Quarterly, vol. 184, pp. 831–850; Yahuda, M. (2006). “The Limits of Economic Interdependence: Sino–Japanese Relations”. In A.I. Johnston and R.S. Ross (eds.), New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. On how economic interdependence might bring cooperative international relations, see Keohane, R.O. and Nye, J.S. (1977). Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition. Little, Brown and Co., Boston. For a pioneering work on this puzzle and Sino– Japanese relations in general, see Whiting, A.S. (1989). China Eyes Japan. University of California Press, Berkeley. 37

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‘education’? Doesn’t the Chinese government manipulate public opinion? The Chinese government should be able to manipulate public opinion because China is not a democracy.” In this chapter, I argue that the key to understanding the deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations is the perception of each other’s public opinion, especially the Japanese perception of Chinese public opinion toward Japan. As the Japanese journalist I mentioned above explicitly said, the Japanese often perceive that Chinese public opinion toward Japan is monolithically negative. The reasons for the Chinese public’s negative views on Japan are not very surprising. With examples such as the lingering “history issue” (rekishi mondai), Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, repeated textbook conflicts, Japan’s pursuit of permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council, and frictions over the development of oil fields in the East China Sea, Sino–Japanese relations have more than enough sources of tension, even though economic interdependence between these two countries has deepened over the last three decades. However, the lack of a single positive voice for Japan among the Chinese public is puzzling. Using the observations about the anti-Japanese demonstrations in 2005 as a backdrop, I discuss the following puzzles. First, why is public opinion on Japan so monolithic in China? More accurately, why do the Japanese perceive Chinese public opinion toward Japan as monolithically negative? If it is because of the Chinese government’s manipulation, why is the Chinese government successful in its manipulation in this case while it is not successful in other cases (for example, public views on the U.S. or on domestic issues such as income inequality)? Second, does anti-Japanese public opinion benefit the Chinese government? If not, why does the Chinese government keep public opinion on Japan monolithically negative? Third, while Chinese elites (such as scholars and officials) have plural views on Japan, why is public opinion considered monolithic? Or, more accurately, why do the Japanese perceive Chinese public opinion on Japan to be monolithically negative even though Chinese elite views on Japan are more plural? In this chapter, I extend a theoretical argument about why Sino– Japanese relations have deteriorated, focusing on how the Japanese perceive (and misperceive) the formation of Chinese public opinion. Public

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opinion is formed by the diffusion of news and political arguments through large populations and by individual evaluation of the information. I argue that the process of public opinion formation is different in an authoritarian regime than in a democratic one, and that the Japanese misperceive this difference. While the journalist’s view introduced above reflects a common perception that an authoritarian regime can influence, and even manipulate, public opinion more easily than a democratic regime can, my argument suggests a more mixed conclusion. Many studies on democratic politics have shown that in a democracy leaders are not necessarily responsive to public opinion although they are influenced by it. Foreign policy issues are not tangible for the public, so the public has to depend on elite cues in order to evaluate information about policy, to form their political arguments, and to make decisions for voting or for using other channels of political participation. As a result, leaders can guide public opinion in a democratic regime by persuading the policy-making elites. By contrast, it is difficult for an authoritarian regime to introduce plural views on foreign policy to the public. Even if plural views exist among the policy-making elites, the regime has to publicize a single official view, and the public may then jump on the bandwagon. As a result, leaders find it more difficult to influence public opinion in an authoritarian regime than in a democratic one, because leaders in an authoritarian regime have to persuade the whole public directly in order to influence public opinion. In this chapter, I first discuss the theoretical background of how public opinion is formed and how it influences foreign policy-making in a democratic regime. I then explore the recent history of Sino–Japanese relations from the perspective of the Japanese perception of Chinese public opinion toward Japan. Finally, I compare my argument with another explanation for the deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations from the perspective of the power-transition theory. I conclude this chapter by discussing a liberal theory from the perspective of economic interdependence and by providing some hope for the pessimistic future of Sino–Japanese relations. I do not claim that my argument can replace explanations from the power-transition or economic interdependence theories. As shown in the last sections of this chapter, they are indeed not contradictory but complementary to my argument. I argue that the Japanese perception of Chinese

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public opinion toward Japan is the key to understanding the development of Sino–Japanese relations and arguably the direction in which Sino– Japanese relations will go in the future. Moreover, I do not claim that Chinese public opinion toward Japan is in reality monolithically negative. Given the lack of reliable comprehensive survey data on Chinese public opinion toward Japan, one cannot have a definitive answer to the question of how monolithic Chinese public opinion toward Japan is. Nor do I intend to speculate on how monolithic public opinion is in reality. My focus is instead on why the Japanese tend to perceive Chinese public opinion toward Japan as monolithically negative — even if Chinese public opinion might not be so monolithically negative — and how that misperception has affected Sino–Japanese relations.

Theoretical Background: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy-Making in Democracies More than ten years ago, Zaller stated: Evidence from a half a century of polling in the United States supports the proposition that the more citizens know about politics and public affairs, the more firmly they are wedded to elite and media perspectives on foreign policy issues. When elites are united in support of a foreign policy, politically aware Americans support that policy more strongly than any other part of the public. When elites divide along partisan or ideological lines, politically attentive citizens are more likely than the inattentive to align their opinions with that segment of the elite which shares their party or ideology. And when elite opinion changes, political awareness is a major determinant of which members of the public follow the elite lead.2

Zaller’s statement is perhaps the best summary of the argument that policy-making elites lead public opinion on foreign policy in a democratic regime, as opposed to the assertion that democratic leaders are responsive 2

Zaller, J.R. (1994). “Elite Leadership of Mass Opinion: New Evidence from the Gulf War”. In W.L. Bennett and D.L. Paletz (eds.), Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

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to public opinion. In his analysis of the formation of American public opinion on foreign policy, Zaller identifies two paths to public opinion formation: the mainstream effect and the polarization effect.3 The mainstream effect occurs when elites are unified; the public receives a unified message and evaluates news and political arguments based on the unified elites’ framework. As a result, elite unification leads to a high level of public support for the policy. Meanwhile, the polarization effect occurs when elites are divided; the public receives contradictory messages and evaluates news and political arguments in the context of the division among elites. As a result, elite division leads to a low level of public support for the policy, particularly among those most aware of the debate. de Tocqueville once said that democracy was a liability for making good foreign policy, even though his overall evaluation of American democracy was very positive: “As for me, I shall have no difficulty in saying that it is in the direction of the external [foreign] interests of society that democratic governments appear to me decidedly inferior to others. . . . External [foreign] policy requires the use of almost none of the qualities that are proper to democracy, and demands, on the contrary, the development of almost those it lacks.”4 Morgenthau agreed, saying that “the rational requirements of good foreign policy cannot from the outset count upon the support of a public opinion whose preferences are emotional rather than rational.”5 More than 50 years ago, Lippmann argued that public opinion on foreign policy tends to be inattentive, uninformed, unstructured, volatile and moody, because the public finds foreign policy intangible compared with domestic policy such as taxation.6 Thus, it was conventional wisdom that the public would misguide foreign policy. However, more than three decades after Lippmann’s assertion had been published, Shapiro and Page 3

Zaller, J.R. (1992). The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge University Press, New York, chapter 6. 4 de Tocqueville, A. (1835, 1840). Democracy in America. Edited and translated by H. Mansfield and D. Winthrop (2000), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, p. 219. 5 Morgenthau, H.J. (1954). Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 2nd ed. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, p. 532. 6 Lippmann, W. (1955). Essays in the Public Philosophy. Little, Brown and Co., Boston, MA, chapter II. For a similar view, see Almond, G.A. (1960). The American People and Foreign Policy. Praeger, New York.

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found that American public opinion on foreign policy was neither moody nor unstructured, although it was undeniable that the public was uninformed and inattentive.7 While suggesting that the previous finding of unstable public opinion was influenced by the wording of the survey questions, they argued that American public opinion on foreign policy was rational and changed in reasonable ways. Then a naturally arising question is: why is the public able to respond reasonably to events with respect to foreign policy, even though it lacks the information about international and domestic events that influences such policy? Combining the insights of cognitive science, economics, political science and psychology, Lupia and McCubbins show how people could make reasoned choices with limited information.8 They argue that the public “can use a wide range of simple cues as substitutes for complex information.”9 As a result, the public can collectively make decisions “as if” they have sufficient information to make reasoned choices.10 In other words, complete information is not needed to make reasoned choices. Public opinion, especially regarding foreign policy, relies on elite cues. Lupia and McCubbins say that while people can acquire knowledge by drawing on personal experience or by learning from others, in many political settings personal experience is not sufficient but learning from others is necessary.11 Learning from others is even more inevitable for ordinary people to make reasoned choices on foreign policy, because foreign policy is much less tangible than domestic policy. On the issue of how people learn from others, psychologists have found that who the sender of the message is greatly affects how recipients judge the message.12 7

Shapiro, R.Y. and Page, B.I. (1992). The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. 8 Lupia, A. and McCubbins, M.D. (1998). The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? Cambridge University Press, New York. 9 Ibid., p. 5. 10 Bartels, L.M. (1996). “Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections”. American Journal of Political Science, vol. 40, p. 198. 11 Lupia, A. and McCubbins, M.D. (1998). The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? Cambridge University Press, New York, p. 7. 12 McGuire, W.J. (1968). “The Nature of Attitude Change”. In G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology, 2nd ed., Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

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In sum, few members (if any) of the general public can engage in forming opinions or analyses of foreign policy independent of elite perspectives. Moreover, the public will choose elite cues among competing messages based on the credibility of the senders of the messages if multiple competing messages are available. As a result, Zaller summarizes: “even the best-informed members of the public cannot engage in independent analysis but can only evaluate competing news messages on the basis of ideology or partisanship, and . . . much of the rest of the public pays too little attention to know what elites are discussing.”13

Public Opinion and Sino–Japanese Relations: An Inference From these theoretical insights about the nature of public opinion in a democratic regime, what can we infer about the influence of public opinion on Sino–Japanese relations? One inference is that the polarization effect will be unlikely to occur in an authoritarian regime, where official media does not report plural views, even if different views exist among the policy-making elites. More likely, an effect similar to the mainstream effect occurs: the public will be likely to support the official view monolithically. In other words, the public will be likely to jump on the bandwagon with an official view in an authoritarian regime. Thus, an authoritarian regime will find it difficult to generate plurality in public opinion on foreign policy when it wants to lead public opinion to reflect more plural views. This inference suggests the following ironic implication. It is conventional wisdom that an authoritarian regime has an advantage in influencing — or even manipulating — public opinion compared with a democratic regime. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the inference posed here suggests that an authoritarian regime is at a disadvantage in influencing public opinion. In a democratic regime, leaders can guide the public by persuading policy-making elites and creating elite unification, 13

Zaller, J.R. (1994). “Elite Leadership of Mass Opinion: New Evidence from the Gulf War”. In W.L. Bennett and D.L. Paletz (eds.), Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, p. 188.

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taking advantage of the mainstream effect. In an authoritarian regime, leaders can guide the public to a single official view but cannot introduce plural views to public opinion, because they cannot allow the public to be exposed to the plural views that might exist among policy-making elites. When observing the lack of plurality in public opinion on foreign policy in an authoritarian regime, the foreign public might perceive it as a consequence of the government’s manipulation and of the leadership’s strong preference for unified public opinion. This perception is not problematic if the authoritarian regime really has a strong preference for the officially announced view with which the public jumps on the bandwagon. However, this misperception will be problematic if the authoritarian regime wants to have plurality in public opinion on foreign policy. My argument suggests that monolithic public opinion would occur even if the authoritarian regime prefers having plurality in public opinion. “All kinds of policymaking, not just trade policy, are increasingly reactive to Internet opinion,” argues Victor Shih, a political scientist of Northwestern University and specialist in China’s economic policymaking, on why China decided to retaliate against U.S. tire tariffs in September 2009.14 The U.S. government’s decision to levy additional tariffs on tires from China led to nationalistic voices on the Internet in China. The Chinese government’s incentive to listen to public opinion is not very puzzling. Recent studies on authoritarian politics have increasingly shown that even authoritarian governments need popular support for the regime’s survival even though they are not necessarily exposed to the risk of being ousted from office by elections,15 and China is not an exception.16 Nonetheless, it remains surprising why the Chinese government is responsive to the nationalistic public opinion expressed on the Internet. The views expressed on the Internet often include extreme voices, such 14

Quoted in Bradsher, K. (2009). “China Moves to Retaliate against U.S. Tire Tariff”. New York Times, 13 September. 15 For example, see Lust-Okar, E. (2005). Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions. Cambridge University Press, New York; Magaloni, B. (2006). Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its Demise in Mexico. Cambridge University Press, New York. 16 Takeuchi, H. (2009). “Participation, Taxation, and Authoritarian Rule in Rural China”. Manuscript, Southern Methodist University.

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as: “The U.S. is shameless. . . . Why did our government purchase so much U.S. government debt? . . . We should get rid of all such U.S. investments.”17 A democratic government would not be responsive to extreme voices because they usually are not influential on electoral outcomes. However, an authoritarian government would be responsive to extreme voices because they might lead to social uprisings and cause political instability. Therefore, the Chinese government has to be reactive to Internet opinions, even if they are often extreme. A series of events affecting Sino–Japanese relations in the first half of the 21st century predated the anti-Japanese protests across China in April 2005, the largest anti-Japanese demonstrations since China and Japan normalized their diplomatic relationship in 1972. Gries explores the events that occurred in 2002–2004 and draws a pessimistic prediction for further deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations.18 Public opinion expressed on the Internet during the period was overwhelmingly negative towards Japan. Note that I do not argue that Chinese public opinion was in reality overwhelmingly negative. Rather, I argue that the views expressed on the Internet were almost monolithically negative. Positive views on Japan or attempts to balance negative views existed, but were not reflected in the public opinion expressed on the Internet. They were always from scholars. In other words, positive and negative views on Japan were never balanced but negative views were dominant among the Internet public. Gries starts his discussion of the events of 2002–2004 with the publication of a provocative article by Ma Licheng, a Chinese liberal intellectual, “New Thinking on Relations with Japan” (published in 2002), in which Ma had criticized anti-Japanese popular nationalism and argued that the Chinese government should make more efforts to improve Sino–Japanese relations.19 Once Ma published this view, he was immediately “cursed as a ‘traitor’ in Internet chat rooms for being soft on Japan.”20 When

17

Quoted in Bradsher, K. (2009). “China Moves to Retaliate against U.S. Tire Tariff”. New York Times, 13 September. 18 Gries, P.H. (2005). “China’s ‘New Thinking’ on Japan”. China Quarterly, vol. 184, pp. 831–850. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., p. 831.

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Shi Yinhong, another Chinese intellectual and a political scientist, defended Ma’s position from the perspective that China should improve Sino–Japanese relations in order to balance U.S. hegemonic power, he was also universally criticized by the public on the Internet. Ma’s and Shi’s arguments generated intense debates among scholars and experts, which suggested that plurality existed among the elites on Chinese views toward Japan.21 However, despite the plurality of elite views, public opinion as shown on the Internet was monolithically negative. Thus, as the policy of the Chinese government was “taken up with a passion by both academic experts and popular nationalists,”22 the government was facing plural views from academic experts and a monolithic view from popular nationalists. The overall trend of Chinese public opinion toward Japan expressed on the Internet deteriorated through 2002–2004, while at the same time scholars and experts intensively debated various views of Sino–Japanese relations.23 In June 2003, Internet activists organized a trip to the Diaoyu/ Senkaku Islands — the territory claimed by both China and Japan and currently administered by Japan. In July, an Internet-based petition was organized to oppose the Japanese contract for the Beijing–Shanghai highspeed railway project. In August, over a million Chinese signed an Internet petition drive against Japan over the mustard gas incident — toxic gas leaking from the chemical weapons that the Japanese military had left in China during World War II, which killed one and hospitalized dozens in Heilongjiang Province. In September, a group of 400 Japanese businessmen hired hundreds of Chinese prostitutes for a sex party in Zhuhai in Guangdong Province, causing a furious outburst on the Internet. And in October, a lewd skit performance by Japanese students at a university in Xi’an in Shaanxi Province caused street demonstrations and a rampage against the Japanese on the Internet. Perhaps the events that occurred in 2003 were not as shocking for the Japanese public as the attitudes of the Chinese audience during the Asian Cup soccer tournament held in various cities in China in August 2004. 21

Ibid., pp. 840–842. Ibid., p. 831. 23 Ibid., pp. 843–847. 22

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The Japanese public does not have direct access to the Chinese Internet, but many of the Asian Cup soccer games were broadcast in Japan, and the scenes of the Chinese audience were delivered directly to the Japanese public. While the Japanese could understand the intense attitude of the Chinese fans against the Japanese team when China faced Japan in the Cup final, they were shocked to see the Chinese fans always root overwhelmingly for Japan’s opponents in earlier matches. Japan’s opponents were Oman, Thailand, Iran, Jordan and Bahrain — clearly, the Chinese audience supported those teams not because of positive feelings for these countries but because of negative feelings against Japan. Why do the Japanese perceive Chinese public opinion towards Japan to be monolithically negative? One explanation is that the Chinese government has deliberately mobilized, and even manipulated, public opinion in an anti-Japanese direction. The Chinese government might have an incentive to do so because nationalism could help strengthen the regime’s legitimacy. For example, Gries argues that with “the decline of communist ideology as a source of legitimacy for the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], it [China] depends even more on nationalism to legitimize its rule.”24 However, this perspective does not explain whether the possible positive effect of anti-Japanese nationalism is worth pursuing at the cost of friendly Sino–Japanese relations. If pursuing the benefits of anti-Japanese nationalism was the Chinese government’s choice, then the Chinese government’s choice to risk worsening Sino–Japanese relations and sacrificing the benefits of economic interdependence would remain puzzling. Another explanation is that the Chinese government simply followed public opinion.25 By this interpretation, the Chinese government would be, as Morgenthau warned, a slave of public opinion.26 Though better Sino–Japanese relations would benefit Chinese national interests overall, 24

Ibid., p. 848. For example, see Jin, X. (2006). “Higashi Ajia no Keizai Kyo-ryoku to Chugoku no Senryaku: Nit-Chu Kankei no Shiten Kara [Economic Cooperation in East Asia and Chinese Strategies: From the Perspective of Sino–Japanese Relations]”. In N. Kiyokatsu and X. Gang (eds.), Higashi Ajia Kyo-do-tai no Ko-chiku [Construction of the East Asian Community], Minerva Shobo, Kyoto. 26 Morgenthau, H.J. (1954). Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 2nd ed. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, p. 532. 25

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the Chinese government would have to follow public opinion even if it contradicts those national interests. Even an authoritarian regime is not immune from public opinion in its policy-making. Thus, the Chinese government has to face certain constraints of public opinion on its policymaking toward Japan. However, this explanation does not solve the puzzle of why the Chinese government cannot lead public opinion but simply has to follow it, while democratic governments can lead public opinion. Building on a body of literature on how democratic governments might lead public opinion through elite consensus making, I suggest another explanation for the Chinese government’s reaction to the seemingly monolithic anti-Japanese public opinion. In a sense, an authoritarian regime would find it more difficult to influence or lead public opinion than a democratic regime. When leaders in a democratic regime need to guide public opinion, they might do so by persuading policy-making elites to create a unified elite view. However, when leaders in an authoritarian regime need to introduce plurality in public opinion, they cannot do so by introducing the plural views that might exist among the policymaking elites, because an authoritarian regime has to publicize a single official view. Even if there were intense debates among policy-making elites, in an authoritarian regime the public would not be exposed to the plurality of the elite views in the debates. Whether in an authoritarian regime or a democratic regime, the public relies on elite cues to evaluate information and develop preferences on foreign policy because of its intangible characteristics. The public in a democratic regime would be exposed to unified elite cues if policy-making elites were unified and exposed to contradictory elite cues if elites were divided. Meanwhile, the public in an authoritarian regime would always be exposed to unified elite cues irrespective of elite unification or division. In other words, the government in an authoritarian regime is unable to introduce plurality to public opinion on foreign policy even if plurality exists among policymaking elites. Theoretically, it would be possible for an authoritarian regime to lead public opinion in another direction by replacing the official view, with which the public could then jump on the bandwagon. In the case of Sino–Japanese relations, however, it would be hard to imagine the Chinese government sending pro-Japanese elite cues clear enough to replace the monolithic anti-Japanese public opinion with a monolithic pro-Japanese

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public opinion.27 Arguably, a collectively moderate public opinion on Japan would be optimal for the Chinese government and perhaps for national interests. However, a collectively moderate public opinion would not be achieved unless the Chinese government allowed the public to be exposed to the debates among policy-making elites, and it would be difficult to make policy debates open to the public under the authoritarian regime. In sum, I argue that understanding the formation of public opinion in authoritarian regimes helps to explain the recent deterioration in Sino– Japanese relations, because the Japanese perception that Chinese monolithically negative public opinion toward Japan is a result of the Chinese government’s manipulation of public opinion has exacerbated tensions in Sino–Japanese relations. Now I will turn to comparing my argument with two propositions based on international theories: the power-transition theory and the liberal theory focusing on economic interdependence.

Power-Transition Theory: Rising China and Declining Japan From the perspective of the power-transition theory, the deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations is a necessary consequence of the rise of China. The rise of China will lower Japan’s relative power, and the Japanese would feel fear due to the relative decline in their power. Japan’s defensive response to the rise of China might be taken as offensive by China, which would make Sino–Japanese relations even more tense.28 Thus, it would be inevitable for a rising power and a declining power to be in conflict, exacerbating the tension in their relations. Sino–Japanese relations would be no exception. 27

Perhaps the attempt for the Chinese government to lead Chinese public opinion in the direction of more pro-Japanese views has started under the Hu Jintao administration, which took power in 2002. I will discuss this point more in detail in the last section of this chapter, referring to what Kokubun in this volume calls the “2006 Framework.” 28 The negative spirals of tension caused by defensive strategies taken as offensive are called the security dilemma, which might occur because “in an uncertain and anarchic international system, mistrust between two or more potential adversaries can lead each side to take precautionary and defensively motivated measures that are perceived as offensive threats”; see Christensen, T.J. (2003). “China, the U.S.–Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia”. In G.J. Ikenberry and M. Mastanduno (eds.), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific, Columbia University Press, New York, p. 25.

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Gilpin introduces hegemonic war theory to warn that war might occur when a hegemonic power declines and a challenger rises in the regional power balance.29 Gilpin’s theory suggests the following: a stable system would be maintained with a single dominant state (a “hegemon”); the relative growth of a subordinate state would upset this stable system; a declining hegemon and a rising challenger would struggle for preeminence; and this struggle might escalate into war, which should be called hegemonic war. Gilpin develops his idea based on Thucydides’ argument that the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta was made inevitable by the rise in power of Athens and the fear this caused in Sparta.30 Another example is the conflict between rising Germany and declining Britain, which arguably escalated into World War I.31 The “fear” that a declining hegemon might feel from the rise of a challenger is the key for a conflict escalating into a hegemonic war. For example, in the case of World War I, on January 1, 1907, the British Foreign Minister, Sir Eyre Crowe, expressed the fear that the rise of Germany caused in Britain: [If] Germany believes that greater relative preponderance of material power, wider extent of territory, inviolable frontiers and supremacy at sea are necessary and preliminary possessions without which any aspirations to such leadership must end in failure, then England must expect that Germany will surely seek to diminish the power of any rivals, to enhance her own by extending her dominion, to hinder the co-operation of other States, and ultimately to break up and supplant the British Empire.32

The fear that a declining hegemon might feel towards a rising challenger is dangerous because it might cause a preventive war according to 29

Gilpin, R. (1988). “The Theory of Hegemonic War”. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 18, pp. 591–613. 30 Ibid. 31 I say “arguably” because there have been many debates about whether World War I was a hegemonic war. Reviewing these debates is, of course, beyond the scope of this chapter. For such a review, see Geiss, I. (1984). “Origins of the First World War”. In H.W. Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, 2nd ed., Macmillan, London. 32 Quoted in Geiss, I. (1984). “Origins of the First World War”. In H.W. Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, 2nd ed., Macmillan, London, pp. 59–60.

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the following logic: when the relative power of one side is expected to grow rapidly, the declining country may have an incentive to fight today on favorable terms rather than face greater threats tomorrow on unfavorable terms.33 This logic assumes that by fighting today, it is possible to prevent or slow the power shift. It corresponds with the logic of the containment view in the debate about the U.S. response to the rise of China.34 The containment view argues that China’s power is inherently threatening and needs to be checked, and hence the U.S. should contain China through regional alliances and slow China’s growth by denying it favorable trading terms. In sum, the power-transition theory implies that the Japanese should naturally feel fear from the rise of China because Japanese power is declining along with the rise of China, at least in relative terms. The policy that the Japanese government takes as a result of this fear would aim to slow China’s economic growth and contain China’s military power by allying with the U.S. and its allies in East Asia such as South Korea. To what extent does the power-transition theory explain the deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations in the 21st century? The results of surveys of the Japanese show a steep decline in positive images of China, apparently following the theory’s prediction that a declining hegemon will feel fear from the emergence of a rising challenger. Figure 1 shows that 66.6% of those surveyed in 2008 answered that they had a negative feeling (shitashimi o kanjinai) about China, while 31.8% answered that they had a positive feeling (shitashimi o kanjiru). More importantly, in 2008 the ratio of those who had negative feelings about China was the highest, and the ratio of those who had a positive feeling was the lowest, since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started conducting this survey in 1978. Moreover, the ratio of those who had negative feelings about China 33

This logic comes from Fearon’s argument that war is a result of the failure to resolve disputes through negotiations; see Fearon, J.D. (1995). “Rationalist Explanations for War”. International Organization, vol. 49, pp. 379–414. For historical examples of how power shifts have contributed to major wars, see Van Evera, S. (1999). Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. 34 The counterargument against the containment view is called the engagement view. For a review of the debate between the containment view and the engagement view, see Christensen, T.J. (2006). “Fostering Stability or Creating a Monster? The Rise of China and U.S. Policy toward East Asia”. International Security, vol. 31, pp. 81–126.

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Hiroki Takeuchi 80 70 60 50 % 40 30 20 Positive

10 0 1975

Figure 1.

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

Negative

2005

2010

Japanese Attitudes toward China, 1978–2008

increased sharply in 2004. The increase (decrease) in negative (positive) feelings in 2004 compared to the previous year was the second largest, next to 1989. One can easily understand the increase in negative feelings in 1989. The Tiananmen Incident occurred in 1989 and the suppression of democratization movements by the Chinese government disappointed international society and had a huge negative impact on the Japanese impression of China. Therefore, the increase in negative feelings in 1989 is not surprising, but the rise in 2004 remains puzzling. Though the power-transition theory might explain the deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations to a significant extent, it is not sufficient. Historically, a declining power’s fear of the emergence of a rising power does not always escalate the conflict between them. For example, during World War I it was not Britain (a declining hegemon) but Germany (a rising challenger) that initiated a preventive war.35 Germany started preparing for a war with Russia because of its fear of the rise of Russian industrial and military power. At the same time, Germany started preparing for a preemptive war with France to avoid fighting wars with Russia and France at the same time. To fight a war with France, Germany invaded Belgium, which triggered British participation in World War I because Britain was a guarantor of the Belgian neutrality. In sum, Britain’s fear 35

To see how prevention and preemption led to World War I, see Van Evera, S. (1984). “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War”. International Security, vol. 9, pp. 58–107.

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about Germany’s rise did not directly cause World War I, although Germany and Britain fought with each other. While the Japanese fear of the rise of China might exacerbate tensions in Sino–Japanese relations, we need to think about the factors that might mediate the mechanism for a declining power’s fear to escalate the conflict. The Japanese perception that the Chinese government is manipulating public opinion towards Japan increases the Japanese fear of the rise of China. As I have discussed, an authoritarian regime is not in an advantageous position to influence or manipulate public opinion compared with a democratic regime. However, misperception by the Japanese public of the formation of Chinese public opinion undermines the mutual trust between these two countries, exacerbates the fear that the Japanese might feel from the rise of China, and therefore leads to deterioration in Sino–Japanese relations.

Conclusion: A Liberal’s Hopes? So far, I have developed a pessimistic argument that might explain the deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations in the 21st century. To conclude this chapter, I focus on an optimistic aspect of the relationship: the institutionalization of the relationship based on economic interdependence. In a sense, the current deterioration of Sino–Japanese relations is a consequence of the widening and deepening of interactions and interdependence. In other words, the worsening relationship is a victim of its own success. Deepening interaction and interdependence have disillusioned each country regarding the romantic images of the other and brought the real images of each to ordinary people in the other. To conclude, I argue that negative public opinion based on reality is still better than positive public opinion based on romanticized images. Liberal theories of international relations have argued that institutionalization should bring cooperation and eventually peace to the relationship.36 36

Note that liberal theories of international relations are not directly related to liberal ideas in American politics. Actually, liberal theories focusing on economic interdependence, called liberal pacifism or commercial liberalism, are more directly related to conservative ideas (economic conservatism) in American politics. See the discussion about liberalism in international relations in Doyle, M.W. (1986). “Liberalism and World Politics”. American Political Science Review, vol. 80, pp. 1152–1155.

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Theoretically, institutionalization should change the structure of incentives in international exchange by creating the expectation of repeated interactions across time (the “shadow of the future” cooperation), by defining standards of acceptable behavior, by providing information about each other’s activities, and by creating linkages across issues.37 Under the condition of anarchy (absence of world government), the degree of formality of institutionalization is not of primary importance. Even if nations conclude a treaty (formal institutionalization), no international institution would have the means to enforce punishment. However, repeated interactions with the same partners can prevent one another from defecting or free riding in any given interaction.38 Thus, institutionalization would occur if both nations perceive their relationship as repeated interactions. In other words, iteration or the perception of iteration is more important than formality in evaluating the institutionalization of international relations. What would create the perception of iteration in exchange and of linkages across issues in international relations? What would play the role of “glue,” which would connect a current interaction with a future interaction, link various issues in the relationship, and give the public of each nation the perception that international cooperation between the two countries — in this case, China and Japan — is sustainable? One liberal theory, commercial liberalism, argues that economic interdependence should create a common interest, because interdependence would cause prosperity in both nations and prosperity is a major interest for any nation. Then why did Sino–Japanese relations deteriorate in the 21st century despite the deepening of economic interdependence? As indicated in Figure 1, the ratio of the Japanese respondents that had a positive image of China was at its lowest ever in 2008. But when was this ratio at its highest? Figure 1 shows that the ratio of Japanese respondents with a positive image of China reached its peak in 1980, 37

See, for example, Axelrod, R. and Keohane, R.O. (1985). “Achieving Cooperation under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions”. World Politics, vol. 38, pp. 226–254; Keohane, R.O. (1984). After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ; Voten, E. (2005). “The Political Origins of the UN Security Council’s Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force”. International Organization, vol. 59, pp. 527–557. 38 Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. Basic Books, New York.

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when 78.6% of the respondents had a positive image of China while only 14.7% had a negative image. This was the time of “China fever” in Japan when “many contracts in the steel and chemical industries were signed and . . . [the Japanese had] the prospect of market development [of China].”39 Because Japan had already normalized the diplomatic relationship with China in 1972, business interactions had already started when the U.S. normalized the diplomatic relationship with China in 1979. Moreover, a romanticized image of China emerged among the Japanese public then, because a very popular Japanese documentary entitled “Silk Road” “gave a considerable boost to the romantic feelings of Japanese” toward China.40 In short, the “China fever” in 1980 was due to a romantic image of China and hopes for the prospect of China’s development, which was not based on a tangible understanding of China. In contrast to the “China fever” of 1980, the deterioration of Sino– Japanese relations during the deepening of economic interdependence in the 21st century was called “cold politics and hot economy” in both China (zhengleng jingre) and Japan (seirei keinetsu). Why did the “hot economy” not warm up the “cold politics”? To conclude this chapter, I tentatively argue that the process of warming up “cold politics” with the “hot economy” has just started with political initiatives from both China and Japan. In 2006, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe chose China as his first foreign visit after assuming office. Abe’s China visit was followed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Japan in 2007 and President Hu Jintao’s visit in 2008. Kokubun’s chapter in this volume defines a series of joint statements issued through these summit meetings as the “2006 Framework.”41 It contrasts the “2006 Framework” with the “1972 Framework,” which had characterized the basis of Sino–Japanese relations since the normalization of the diplomatic relationship in 1972. The 1972 Framework was represented 39

Kokubun, R. (2007). “Changing Japanese Strategic Thinking toward China”. In G. Rozman, K. Togo and J.P. Ferguson (eds.), Japanese Strategic Thought toward Asia, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 147–148. 40 Ibid., p. 148. 41 Kokubun, R. (2009). “Sino–Japanese Relations: From the 1972 Framework to the 2006 Framework”. Paper presented at the Conference on Sino–Japanese Relations: Rival or Partner for Regional Cooperation?, Tokyo, December.

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by the Japanese commitment to the history issue (rekishi mondai) and to the “one China” principle on the Taiwan issue. Since Abe’s visit to China in 2006, the joint statements have been much briefer on the history issue and sometimes do not mention the Taiwan issue at all. Instead, they have focused more on the future and have mentioned appreciation of Japan’s peaceful behavior since World War II.42 In this chapter, I have suggested that an authoritarian regime needs to send a clearer signal to influence public opinion on foreign policy than a democratic regime does. While a democratic regime can influence public opinion by persuading policy-making elites, an authoritarian regime must persuade the public directly. As a result, the signal the authoritarian regime sends must be unambiguous enough for the public to be able to understand it. Though we cannot go beyond speculation, the Hu Jintao administration seems to have started sending a clear signal once the Japanese administration was ready to respond to that signal. In this sense, economic interdependence has not been a sufficient condition but a necessary one to improve Sino–Japanese relations. Political initiatives from both sides were needed for interdependence to lead to the improvement of relations. Now that the administrations of China and Japan are both ready to take political initiatives to move Sino–Japanese relations one step forward, the conditions are right for economic interdependence to promote cooperation and peace.

42

For a more detailed discussion, see Kokubun, R. (2009). “Sino–Japanese Relations: From the 1972 Framework to the 2006 Framework”. Paper presented at the Conference on Sino–Japanese Relations: Rival or Partner for Regional Cooperation?, Tokyo, December. Each joint statement is accessible on the webpage of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (http://www.mofa.go.jp).

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Chapter 4

Sino–Japanese Relations: A Chinese Perspective

Fu Xiao

After a decade of ups and downs and nearly four years of recovery since the end of the Cold War, Sino–Japanese relations now stand at a new historical starting point. Whether the two East Asian powers can continue promoting a mutually beneficial strategic relationship and realize friendly cooperation over generations has a bearing not only on the destinies of these two countries, but also on the future of this region and the world at large.

China–Japan Relations Develop into a New Stage China and Japan normalized their relations in 1972. Remarkable progress was made in their relationship over the following two decades. Although there were differences and friction, friendly cooperation was the norm. However, due to profound changes in the international situation and in the two countries, their relationship entered into long-term volatility in the mid-1990s. Differences and friction escalated and intensified. In particular, during the beginning of the 21st century, disputes broke out over a series of issues ranging from history to Taiwan, from territorial and maritime interests to military trust. Strategic suspicions were on the rise and the political security relationship was stalemated or moving backwards. With the complete interruption of high-level contacts at the end of 2005, bilateral relations sank to their lowest point since 1972. 57

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These questions were never serious obstacles to the development of the bilateral relationship when diplomatic relations were established in the first place. Why did they suddenly become acute in the 1990s? This was closely linked to the series of major changes in the international situation and the two countries’ domestic political and economic situations. The end of the Cold War led to profound changes in the international situation. Domestically, the two countries also experienced major changes. The Chinese economy had enjoyed sustained and rapid growth, leading to an increase in overall national strength, whereas the Japanese economy had been mired in a decade of economic stagnation. Such a reversal of momentum had a strong impact on Japan.1 Furthermore, against the backdrop of the passing away of older leaders and rising nationalism in both countries, modern media also played the negative role of amplifying bilateral frictions. Neither country was well prepared for the co-existence of two powers in East Asia for the first time in history and each was sensitive to the future of the other.2 In Japan, a new wave of nationalism appeared in both the ruling and opposition camps, with conservative tendencies deepening3 and arguments for guarding against and containing China gaining ground. The shortage of effective means to control and resolve differences in the new situation led to a worsening atmosphere, an increase in friction and an all-round deterioration of the political and security relationship. This sustained deterioration not only undermined the strategic interests of both China and Japan, but also exerted a major negative impact on the stability and development of East Asia, causing serious international concern. With the setbacks and twists and turns of over a decade, leaders of the two countries gradually came to appreciate the need to readjust and restore bilateral relations. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited China in October 2006, reversing the downward spiral in the bilateral relationship. Since then, China–Japan relations have developed steadily.

1

Wan, M. (2006). Sino–Japanese Relations: Interaction, Logic and Transformation. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 219–220. 2 Masahiro, K. (2009). Riben Zouxiang Hefang? [Which Direction Is Japan Heading for?] China CITIC Press, Beijing, p. 147. 3 Matthews, E. (2003). “Japan’s New Nationalism”. Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, pp. 158–172.

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When Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Japan in May 2008, the two sides signed the fourth political document between them, ushering bilateral relations into a new historical stage. When Japanese Prime Minister Abe visited China in October 2006, the two countries agreed to build a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests. The political relationship between China and Japan was brought back to the right track. The following April, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan, which was the first Chinese Premier’s visit in seven years. The two sides further agreed to properly handle major differences between them and reached agreement on the basic spirit, content and practical steps for a mutually beneficial strategic relationship.4 Premier Wen’s visit consolidated the achievements of improved China–Japan relations, and marked a solid step forward towards the right direction of establishing a strategic and mutually beneficial relationship. In September 2007, Yasuo Fukuda succeeded to the Japanese Prime Minister’s office and broke with convention to visit China in December the same year. Leaders of the two countries expressed the political will to strengthen their strategic relationship and jointly open up a new situation for good-neighborly, friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between them. Then Chinese President Hu Jintao paid a state visit to Japan during May 6–10, 2008. On May 7, the Joint Statement between China and Japan on Fully Promoting a Mutually Beneficial Strategic Relationship was published. It was the fourth important document guiding and regulating the development of China–Japan relations since 1972. The statement confirmed that the two sides would comprehensively promote a strategic relationship of mutual benefit so as to achieve peaceful co-existence, long-term friendship, mutually beneficial cooperation and common development at higher levels and in wider areas. Although seeking strategic mutual benefit had already become a common understanding of China and Japan since Abe’s visit, it was for the first time formalized in the form of a joint statement, with richer contents and more explicit directions for further bilateral relations. The statement further stressed the need to face history squarely and be future-oriented; pursue peaceful development as partners rather than threaten one another; enhance political mutual trust, 4

See the China–Japan Joint Press Communiqué, 9 April, 2007.

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friendly sentiments of the peoples and mutually beneficial cooperation; and work together for the development of the Asia-Pacific region and deal with global problems. At the same time, the two governments reached extensive agreement on bilateral and multilateral cooperation, with over 70 items of cooperation and detailed planning for exchanges and collaboration in the political, military, economic, cultural, people-to-people and international fields. The top Chinese leader showed a friendly and pragmatic attitude in his extensive contacts with Japanese people from various circles, which was well received by the Japanese public and was very positive for improving the two sides’ perceptions of each other. After the visit, Japan’s China experts generally praised this visit for exceeding the expectations of observers and achieving fruitful results.5 By then, China–Japan relations had finally moved out of the difficult situation of stalemate on tough issues and constant shocks to national sentiments, and had opened up a new situation of sound interaction in which friendly sentiments are strengthened and common interests are promoted. The relationship developed from problem solving to developing interests. On the basis of the recovery since Prime Minister Abe’s visit to China, bilateral relations have entered into a period of substantive growth since President Hu’s visit to Japan. In September 2008, Taro Aso was elected as Prime Minister of Japan. In his less-than-one-year term, China–Japan relations did not experience the setback many people had feared, but rather continued to move forward. After the 2009 election, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) became the ruling party. Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan have successively served as Prime Minister. Generally speaking, the DPJ government has shown a fairly positive attitude towards China and has already stated its desire to develop relations with China within the framework of friendly cooperation that has formed in recent years and to materialize the agreements reached.6

5

Takahara, A. (2009). “Hu Jintao’s Visit to Japan and Future Bilateral Relations”. Yueyang Jujiao: Riben Luntan [Overseas Focus: Japan Forum], vol. 7, p. 3, Chinese version. 6 Li, G. and Wang, Y. (2009). “Minzhudang Jueqi Ji Dui Zhongri Guanxi de Yingxiang [The Rise of DPJ and Its Influence on Sino–Japanese Relations]”. Riben Yanjiu [Japan Studies], vol. 3, pp. 14–17.

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Frequent high-level dialogue and interaction is an important foundation for the stable development of bilateral relations. The extensive exchanges through various channels have also played an indispensible role in gradually improving China–Japan relations. The results of the 6th public opinion poll on China–Japan relations, published in August 2010, showed that people in both countries are optimistic. The Chinese poll revealed that around 60% of the public (60.2%) and students (59.8%) believed that China–Japan relations would be better, 9 and 3.3 percentage points higher than the previous year, respectively. For Japan, people holding similar views accounted for 40.6% of the public and 61.8% of people of vision, 9.5 and 11.4 percentage points higher, respectively.7

Content of the China–Japan Mutually Beneficial Strategic Relationship A mutually beneficial strategic relationship is not only a high-sounding slogan but also a direction for joint efforts. The consensus directed the basis of bilateral relations back to common interests. As early as 1998, in a joint declaration the two sides explicitly expressed the desire to work together to establish a friendly and cooperative partnership of peace and development oriented towards the 21st century. Unfortunately, such a desire was not realized in the then-historical conditions. Since Prime Minister Abe’s visit to China in 2006, development of a mutually beneficial strategic relationship has become the common understanding of both sides. Confirming it in the form of a joint statement marked a repositioning of China–Japan relations and a major shift in the two countries’ mindsets, with the two powers making up their minds to give up the obsolete idea of “two tigers never coexisting on the same mountain” and cooperating for a win–win situation. Cooperation and “win–win” are the main features of this new stage in China–Japan relations and should be understood as such: cooperation is preconditioned by friendship rather than collaboration in its general sense, and “win–win” is not restricted to China and Japan but rather a situation that will benefit the region and even the world at large. 7

The poll was conducted jointly by China Daily and Genron NPO. For details, see http:// world.people.com.cn/GB/12441113.html/.

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In terms of the bilateral relationship, the three major differences between China and Japan — i.e. history, Taiwan, and territorial and maritime rights and interests — have been put under relatively good control and friction is decreasing. Although their differences on questions of history will not disappear soon, they are less likely to become a dominant factor in the bilateral relations. China is determined to adopt a pragmatic and forward-looking attitude on this issue, and the Japanese mainstream does not want to cause international disputes again on the question of paying tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine. Self-restraint on the question of history allows China and Japan to cooperate, which benefits other areas. The two countries still differ on the question of Taiwan. Although Japan will not easily change its “one China” principle, i.e. the policy of not supporting Taiwan’s independence, the relaxation of the situation across the Taiwan Strait since spring 2008 has greatly reduced the likelihood of serious friction between China and Japan. However, the question of East China Sea boundary demarcation and disputes over maritime rights and interests is unlikely to be fully resolved soon. The most realistic choice for now remains to shelve disputes and engage in joint development. The two countries reached a consensus on the joint development of oil and gas fields in the East China Sea in 2007, which marked a major breakthrough in bilateral relations in recent years. Although there is still a gap between the desire for joint development and actual progress, the two sides have made it clear that they will seek negotiated solutions to the problem. At present, China–Japan relations are in a historic period of readjustment. China, the political power, is rapidly gaining more economic strength. Japan, the economic power, is continuously improving its international political position. Their respective overall national strengths are unprecedentedly balanced and both are powers in the East Asian region. Since the end of the Cold War, Japan has been increasingly on its guard against China and has demonstrated a tendency to misgivings towards and resentment against China’s development.8 As a result, Japan is rather ambivalent towards China: it wants to strengthen cooperation with China 8

See Jin, X. (2003). “Miandui Jueqi de Zhongguo — 21 Shiji Riben Waijiao Jiben Zhanlue [In Face of a Rising China — On Basic Diplomatic Strategies of Japan in the 21st Century]”. http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/ch-yuwai/264390.htm/.

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and maintain the latter’s stability, while at the same time it worries about China becoming strong. Japan wishes to see more dialogue and cooperation between China’s mainland and Taiwan, and at the same time wants to prevent China from dominating such a process. Furthermore, Japan desires to integrate China into the world community so as to restrain China with multilateral cooperation, but at the same time Japan worries about China’s increased international influence. While China increases its overall national strength, patriotic and nationalistic sentiments have also grown. The Chinese public is quite unhappy with Japan when Japan distorts history, spreads the “China threat” fallacy, connives with Taiwanese secessionists, and engages in disputes with China over territorial and maritime interests. The appearance of these factors and the related fluctuations actually proves that the China–Japan relationship is entering into a period of strategic coordination and development.9 In light of the structural change in China–Japan relations, the Japanese Institute for International Policy Studies pointed out in its April 2008 report that “the two countries should establish a good-neighborly and friendly relationship between big countries that they have never experienced in history and that proceeds from the overall interests of bilateral relations.”10 In his speech at the East Asia Summit in January 2007, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated that the two countries should “form a new type of community with a common destiny in which they develop together in peace and respond together to crises.”11 Cooperation between China and Japan in the economic field has fueled the development of their relations. Being at different stages of modernization, the two economies are complementary to each other and such complementarities greatly exceed their competition. Chinese economic growth has provided a stable foundation and sustained power to the development of China–Japan relations. China became Japan’s largest trade 9

Gao, L. (2009). Lengzhan Hou Riben Duihua Waijiao de Sixiang yu Shijian [Japanese Diplomatic Thoughts and Practices towards China since the End of the Cold War]. Xinhua Publishing House, Beijing, p. 15. 10 Institute for International Policy Studies (2008). “A New Chapter in Japan–China Relations — Seeking Co-existence and Development beyond Historical Problems”. April, p. 1. http://www.iips.org/jcr/jcr-c.pdf/. 11 http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1024/5284767.html/.

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partner in 2008, and the second quarter of 2010 witnessed China surpassing Japan to become the world’s second largest economy. The economic growth of China will not be a barrier to the development of the Japanese economy, and there is still room for economic cooperation and trade between them. China can make use of and learn from Japan’s industrial technologies and experience to speed up its modernization drive. Japan, on the other hand, can make use of China’s advantages in labor, energy and land, and rejuvenate its own economy by benefiting from Chinese economic growth.12 In the aftermath of the financial crisis, while maintaining stable trade, the two sides should take the initiative to readjust their trade structure, strengthen cooperation in information, finance, environmental protection and hi-tech fields, and cultivate new growth points. In recent years, the areas of cooperation between China and Japan have expanded. Collaboration in non-traditional security fields has become a point of converging interests between them. They have also deepened cooperation in anti-terrorism, prevention of maritime smuggling, combating crime, energy, environmental protection and public health. Apart from actively promoting bilateral relations, the two countries should also put their mutually beneficial strategic relationship into the development framework of East Asia and the world at large so as to generate more new demand to sustain its growth. The combined GDP of China and Japan accounts for about 80% of the East Asian total; their population, 70% of East Asia; and their import and export trade volumes, 60%.13 Against the backdrop of economic globalization, the bilateral economic interaction has been interwoven with the global and regional economies. In this regard, China and Japan can play an even bigger role in East Asian regional cooperation. In East Asia, the sound development of China–Japan relations bears directly on the further growth of their respective political and economic strength and influences cultural exchanges, economic cooperation and regional security in the whole Asia-Pacific region. It is therefore a key 12

Zhang, J. (2008). The 30th Anniversary of China–Japan Relations: Economy (1978–2008). China Social Science Academic Press, Beijing, pp. 29–33. 13 Gao, H. (2008). “Jiedu Zhongri Guanxi de Disige Zhengzhi Wenjian [Perception on the 4th Political Document in China–Japan Relations]”. Riben Yanjiu [Japan Studies], vol. 2, p. 2.

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factor to the realization of an East Asian community with a common destiny. Both countries should not contend for dominance, but share their wisdom. The peace and prosperity of the two countries can only be achieved through their cooperation in East Asia. The process is conducive to their common interests and can be a strategic bond for bilateral cooperation. If an FTA or other type of regional economic cooperation can be achieved, it will further promote the development of the region. For example, China and Japan have jointly supported the efforts of regional countries to deal with the impact of the international financial crisis, promoted the creation and build-up of an East Asian free trade area, expanded the common market, and pushed forward regional economic and financial cooperation. On the question of the DPRK nuclear issue, in order to maintain peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, China has actively conducted multilateral diplomacy and made an important contribution to the conduct of the Six-Party Talks, which are also regarded by Japan as an important platform for diplomacy with the DPRK. In regional environmental protection, climate change, disease control and many other fields, China and Japan are also conducting fruitful collaboration. For instance, in the area of environmental protection, the current bilateral cooperation is mainly focusing on the Clean Development Mechanism within the Kyoto Protocol. In this regard, Japan continues to provide financial and technical assistance to China, whereas China provides a huge market for Japan’s environmental protection industry.14 As countries to the west of the Pacific, both China and Japan should be able to jointly draft plans to explore and develop the deep oceans of the Western Pacific. In recent years, Japan has actively promoted the worthy deed of cooperative development of the Mekong River basin. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are also China’s neighbors, and China is happy to provide assistance to their economic development. In this connection, China and Japan can also cooperate in the region and support together the sustainable development of natural resources in these countries. 14

Zhou, Y. (2009). “Japan’s Environment Diplomacy and the Cooperation between China and Japan”. In J. Liu (ed.), Contemporary Japan Foreign Relations, World Knowledge Press, Beijing, p. 108.

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China currently hosts a China–Africa Forum, and Japan hosts the Tokyo International Conference on African Development. If the two countries can host such activities together, the results will be even better in benefiting all parties involved. China and Japan are also rapidly expanding their cooperation in non-traditional security fields such as finance, energy, environment, climate change, communicable diseases, food and terrorism. Compared with traditional security issues, there is huge potential for the two countries to collaborate with each other on these questions. Strengthened cooperation will not only create new bonds for the two to consolidate and further develop their relations, but also make more historic contributions to the international community. In short, only when China and Japan — two of the most important countries in East Asia, Asia and even the whole world — further increase their common interests and align themselves with the common regional and global interests, can they truly achieve strategic reconciliation. The spirit of strategic and mutually beneficial relationship transcends differences and gives priority to mutual benefit and expanding common interests. It also transcends bilateral cooperation by expanding the basis of China–Japan relations to the more extensive areas of regional and global cooperation. To develop a relationship of strategic mutual benefit, China and Japan have a lot to do and they must have a great vision and make substantial efforts; otherwise, the mutual benefit will be general rather than strategic. As President Hu Jintao pointed out, China–Japan relations now have a solid foundation for growth to a higher level and stand at a new historical starting point.

Main Obstacles to the Development of China–Japan Relations We must be sober-minded in acknowledging that there are still multiple difficulties and uncertainties in China–Japan relations. Development of China–Japan relations will not be all smooth sailing. Moving towards strategic reconciliation and cooperation, the two countries will need to make readjustments where their interests conflict and commit to eliminating emotional and psychological barriers.

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First, although leaders of the two countries have in recent years regularly met each other, furthering China–Japan relations, the institutional setup and accumulation is far from adequate. This is despite the two governments’ efforts to launch various dialogue mechanisms, such as the China–Japan Strategic Dialogue, High-Level Economic Dialogue, consultation on issues related to the East China Sea, and defense and security consultation, which have played an important role in promoting the institutions of dialogue and cooperation. For example, the China–Japan Strategic Dialogue should have focused on crisis management and planning for the future; however, due to the intertwining issues of history, existing disputes and future development, the purpose and contents of the dialogue are yet to be well defined and bilateral problems and historical views have been its main contents.15 There is currently no crisis management mechanism between China and Japan. Although the three major friction points or sensitive issues have been under fairly good control, they will continue to exist for a long time. On these questions, there is still a large gap between the two sides in terms of perception, policy, desired solution and expectations of each other. The possibility of any of the above issues regaining prominence under certain conditions cannot be completely excluded. Moreover, differences regarding the Japan–U.S. military alliance, modernization of the Chinese military force, Japan’s pursuit of permanent membership in the UN Security Council and China’s full market economy status are hardly going to be resolved soon. In this situation, the two governments should consider establishing a crisis management mechanism that can be activated when necessary to facilitate them acting jointly to prevent crisis escalation, prevent misunderstandings and increase mutual trust. Second, the seriously confrontational popular sentiments that were formed during the period of deteriorating relations will take time to change. With bilateral relations warming up, the sentiments of the two peoples towards each other are undergoing positive changes. However, on the whole, these changes still lag behind the improvements in and development 15

Wang, Y. (2006). “Zhongri yu Zhongmei Zhanlue Duihua de Yitong [Differences and Commonalities between the China–Japan Strategic Dialogue and the China–US Strategic Dialogue]”. International Finance News, 17 February.

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of state-to-state relations and have in fact acted as a restraint on bilateral relations. Examples include the radical reaction of Japanese public opinion on the poisonous dumpling incident,16 as well as the playing up of the Tibetan incident17 and Xinjiang incident18 by some Japanese media. Other examples are the negative reactions of some Chinese netizens to the initiated shipment of earthquake relief materials by Japanese military aircraft and to the agreement on principles guiding the joint development of oil and gas fields in the East China Sea. These suggest that the foundations of China–Japan relations remain very fragile, which, with the addition of irresponsible reporting and playing up in the media, has resulted in deep feelings of estrangement between the two peoples. This is of no good to the building of political mutual trust between the two countries. Therefore, making great efforts to cultivate friendly sentiments between the peoples is an important and long-term task that cannot be delayed. Emotions matter in the Sino–Japanese relationship to the extent that they make it harder to resolve disputes and, more importantly, to seek common strategic objectives. At the same time, though emotional historical animosity is an obvious constraining factor on the bilateral relationship, it is often a reflection rather than a cause of bilateral relations.19 As observed by Fujihara Osuke, a correspondent from the Tokyo Broadcasting System, unlike trust between the top leaders of two countries, public opinion cannot be formed quickly. However, with limited personnel exchanges promoted by both governments, it is hard to make 16

In January 2008, a number of Japanese consumers were reported to have fallen ill after eating the frozen dumplings imported from Tianyang Food Company in Hebei Province of China. After the investigation, Chinese police arrested Lu Yueting, a 36-year-old worker, on the suspicion of injecting the poison in the dumplings. He acted out of revenge because he was dissatisfied with his pay and did not get along with colleagues while working at Tianyang. 17 On March 14, 2008, a serious criminal act of violence involving beating, destruction of property, looting and arson took place in Lhasa, the capital city of the Tibet Autonomous Region in China. It was perpetrated by the separatist forces for Tibetan independence both in and outside China. 18 A series of violent riots over several days broke out on July 5, 2009 in Urumqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China. 19 Wan, M. (2006). Sino–Japanese Relations: Interaction, Logic and Transformation. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, D.C., p. 335.

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fundamental changes. For a period of time, emotion will be the keyword in China–Japan relations. Moreover, the blueprints described by the leaders of both sides could turn to waste paper in the end without the support of public opinion. His remarks might be too sharp but are quite representative. It demonstrates the importance of public diplomacy.20 Third, with the above two points plus the two countries’ differences in social systems and ideology, the deeper strategic misgivings between the two countries will not disappear just because of the new positioning of bilateral relations in formal documents. For a fairly long period of time, such strategic misgivings will continue to exist and stand out from time to time among the general public, strategic research community and government departments, exerting an imperceptible negative influence on the development of bilateral relations. Only in the process of sound interactions through strategic dialogue and extensive exchanges will China and Japan feel relaxed enough to resolve the series of specific issues in a more relaxed domestic public opinion environment. And a resolution of specific issues will in turn help reduce strategic suspicions, enhance friendship and transform the posture of strategic risk control into a structure for strategic cooperation between the two countries. Fourth, the unstable Japanese political situation is still a fairly big uncertainty. Since 2008, Japan has experienced persistent political turbulence, with frequent changes of Prime Minister. Within the brief period of four years, there have already been five Prime Ministers. In August 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) became the ruling party, putting an end to the 55-year history of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rule. If the Japanese political situation remains unstable, it may well delay the process of China and Japan strengthening cooperation and resolving differences, or even bring in major variables to Japan’s foreign policy and China’s policy. The DPJ has stressed the need for greater attention to Asia and China. During the 2007 election of the House of Councillors, it flagged the idea of strengthening cooperation with Asian countries. Then the party put forward various policy ideas, such as an East Asian Community and a Northeast Asia nuclear-weapons-free zone. It is expected that during the 20

Quoted in Liu, J. (ed.) (2009). Dangdai Riben Duiwai Guanxi [Current Japan’s Foreign Relations]. World Knowledge Press, Beijing, p. 9.

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DPJ rule, disputes over history with neighboring countries will weaken and China–Japan relations will not be dragged to stalemate by events such as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi insisting on paying tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine. Up to now, all key figures in the DPJ have made it clear that they will not pay tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine, which is good news for China. Nonetheless, there are also DPJ members taking a great interest in so-called “issues of realistic interests.” For example, Akihisa Nagashima, a key representative of the Young Turks, claimed that the trend of China focusing on the South China Sea in the 1970s and 1980s, and then turning to the East China Sea and even the Western Pacific to include Japan in its enclosed sea in the 1990s, represents “a scary threat” and “a fact that Japan has to face squarely.”21

Conclusions To sum up, prospects for the future of China–Japan relations appear relatively stable, which does not, however, mean that they will be tranquil. Dialogue and cooperation are constantly accumulating and strengthening; differences continue to exist or even grow one after another, but remain controllable; and misunderstandings are gradually decreasing and political trust is gradually increasing. Against a backdrop of further economic globalization and regional integration, China–Japan relations are now more strategic and global than at any time in history. The two sides must work together to bring their relations to a higher level of development. When their relations enter into a historic period of readjustment, the two countries should seize the opportunity with a long-term strategic vision and an open mind to find a path to strategic mutual benefit and win–win situations. As President Hu Jintao pointed out during his visit to Japan, “China–Japan friendship is the common undertaking of both peoples and requires the unremitting efforts of both peoples.”22 21

Quoted in Yang, B. (2009). “Yingdui Bianju: Quebao Zhongri Guanxi Pingwen Jiankang [Dealing with a Changing Situation: Ensuring Healthy and Stable Development of China–Japan Relations]”. Dangdai Shijie [Contemporary World], vol. 9, p. 19. 22 “Senior Legislator Hopes Youth Exchanges to Promote China–Japan Ties”. XinhuaNet, 21 December, 2008. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/21/content_10531397.htm/.

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Chapter 5

Sino–Japanese Relations: The American Factor

Peter Gries

The fundamental American national interest in Sino–Japanese relations is that the U.S. does not get drawn into a war with China stemming from a Sino–Japanese conflict. This interest is thus the same as the American national interest in not getting drawn into a war with China based on tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Indeed, unlike power transitions and other neorealist international relations (IR) theorists who view conflict between the U.S. and China as the inevitable outcome of structural and material factors — China’s military and economic rise leading inexorably to a direct conflict with the U.S. — I view a U.S.–China conflict as most likely stemming from the U.S. being drawn into a conflict between China and either Japan or Taiwan. Furthermore, such a conflict is most likely to stem not from clashes of material interest — the economic and security interdependence between both Beijing and Tokyo and Beijing and Taipei is a force more for cooperation than for conflict — but from the clash of histories and identities. This chapter, therefore, will urge both China and Japan to work hard to overcome the domestic political dynamics that securitize the issue of Sino–Japanese relations and turn it into a zero-sum game of identity politics. Instead, both sides should work to desecuritize the relationship in domestic discourses by reframing the bilateral relationship as one of

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mutual security interdependence and positive-sum economic complementarities. Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done. Secondarily, this chapter will urge both Beijing and Tokyo not to seek to play the Washington card as the third wheel in a romantic triangle. Seeking to use relations with Washington as a weapon in their bilateral relations can only lead to disappointment. Washington cannot and should not play a central role in Sino–Japanese relations. The experience in the Taiwan Strait is instructive: both Beijing and Taipei have frequently been disappointed by Washington’s failure to discipline the other side according to its wishes. Instead, I argue that the primary U.S. role in Sino–Japanese relations should be to maintain and improve U.S.–China and U.S.–Japan relations to serve as a bedrock upon which China and Japan can work on resolving their differences. First, the U.S. should work on overcoming the domestic American political and ideological dynamics that add unnecessary volatility to U.S.–China relations.1 Second, the U.S. should seek to maintain a healthy U.S.–Japan alliance through substantive continuity but procedural flexibility. In other words, the Obama administration needs to maintain robust military cooperation with Japan, but it must reassure the Japanese public, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) that the U.S. neither looks down on Japan nor takes the Japanese alliance for granted. U.S. President Barack Obama’s bow to the Japanese Emperor during his 2009 visit to Japan was a good first step in this direction. Successful resolution of the Okinawa base issue is the next major step. A robust U.S.–Japan military alliance serves all three players: Washington benefits by maintaining a vital forward presence in East Asia, Tokyo benefits through external balancing in Northeast Asia where anti-Japanese sentiment is high among all of its near neighbors, and Beijing benefits as the U.S.–Japan alliance serves as a check on Japan further developing its military or pursuing other internal balancing measures such as going nuclear.

1

Gries, P.H., Crowson, H.M. and Cai, H. (2012). “God, Guns, and . . . China? How Ideology Impacts American Attitudes and Policy Preferences toward China”. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1–40; Gries, P.H. and Crowson, H.M. (2010). “Political Orientation, Party Affiliation, and American Attitudes towards China”. Journal of Chinese Political Science, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 219–244.

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Desecuritizing Sino–Japanese Relations: History and Identity in the 21st Century Historical disputes clearly underlie much of the mutual suspicion and hostility that plagues Northeast Asian international relations today.2 Indeed, history appears to be an endless source of friction in the region. As Gerrit W. Gong notes, “The Cold War’s thaw brought not an end of history [à la Francis Fukuyama] but its resurgence. Conflicts about the past now shape the future. In East Asia … the battleground will be issues of ‘remembering and forgetting.’”3 Gong goes so far as to argue that “strategic alignments” in East Asia “will increasingly turn on history.”4 Sino–Japanese relations present a clear case of the return of history and identity as powerful drivers of East Asian bilateral relations with the end of the Cold War. As He Yinan has persuasively argued, both Chinese and Japanese “national mythmaking” has contributed to a downward spiral in Sino–Japanese relations since the mid-1990s.5 On the Chinese side, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elite responded to international ostracism and domestic delegitimation following the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre by implementing a “Patriotic Education Campaign” beginning in 1991.6 The campaign involved a rewriting of the “War of Resistance against 2

Gries, P.H., Zhang, Q., Masui, Y. and Lee, Y.W. (2009). “Historical Beliefs and the Perception of Threat in Northeast Asia: Colonialism, the Tributary System, and China– Japan–Korea Relations in the Twenty-First Century”. International Relations of the AsiaPacific, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 245–265. 3 Gong, G.W. (2001). “A Clash of Histories: ‘Remembering and Forgetting’ Issues, Structures, and Strategic Implications”. In G.W. Gong (ed.), Memory and History in East and Southeast Asia: Issues of Identity in International Relations, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., p. 26. 4 Ibid., p. 32. 5 He, Y. (2007). “Remembering and Forgetting the War: Elite Mythmaking, Mass Reaction, and Sino–Japanese Relations, 1950–2006”. History and Memory, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 43–74; He, Y. (2008). “Ripe for Cooperation or Rivalry? Commerce, Realpolitik, and War Memory in Contemporary Sino–Japanese Relations”. Asian Security, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 162–197; He, Y. (2009). The Search for Reconciliation: Sino–Japanese and German– Polish Relations since World War II. Cambridge University Press, New York. 6 Zhao, S. (2004). A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.

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Japan” (‫ݼ‬ʳֲʳ㬞ʳ㢫) from just one of many conflicts in modern Chinese revolutionary history to become the single most important conflict of the period because the CCP could claim nationalist legitimacy on the basis of having led the Chinese people in their successful resistance against Japan. The 1995 commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war were a key moment in the emergence of this new anti-Japanese narrative.7 Chris Hughes is certainly right that Chinese political elites have often attempted to utilize popular anti-Japanese sentiment in their factional infighting.8 On the Japanese side, conservative political elites have utilized the history issue to advance their domestic political agendas. Although socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama sought to apologize for the war in 1995, conservative opposition in the Diet led to some watering down of the language of the apology, leading to a backlash in China. Jennifer Lind is correct that Japanese contrition, which generally emanates from the left, can become counterproductive, as Japanese nationalists on the right protest vocally, confirming Chinese nationalists’ fears.9 Indeed, Japanese conservatives subsequently sought to dilute Japan’s wartime responsibility in history textbooks, further inflaming Chinese nationalists. And in 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi began visiting the Yasukuni Shrine on an annual basis as part of his populist politics. Constrained by popular nationalist opinion, the Chinese elite was then impotent to improve Sino–Japanese relations during the Koizumi administration — a situation comparable to Beijing’s relations with Taipei during the Chen Shui-bian presidency in Taiwan. At the popular level, the last 20 years have witnessed a notable increase in mutual animosity. On the Chinese side, popular anti-Japanese sentiment hit a first high tide in the second half of 2003, when a string of nationalist incidents occurred on a monthly basis, and was inflamed by the 7

Gries, P.H. (2004). China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. University of California Press, Berkeley. 8 Hughes, C.R. (2008). “Japan in the Politics of Chinese Leadership Legitimacy: Recent Developments in Historical Perspective”. Japan Forum, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 245–266. 9 Lind, J.M. (2009). “The Perils of Apology”. Foreign Affairs, vol. 88, no. 3, pp. 132–146; Lind, J.M. (2008). Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

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emergence of the Internet as a new forum for popular nationalist discourse and practice. In June, Chinese Internet activists organized the first ever mainland Chinese trip to the contested Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands east of China. In July, nationalists organized a web-based petition to deny Japan a Beijing–Shanghai high-speed rail link contract. In August, rather than celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1978 Sino–Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Chinese and Japanese diplomats spent much of the month trying to control the damage done by the “August 4 mustard gas incident” in which one Chinese died and dozens were injured in Qiqihar in China’s northeast. Over a million Chinese then signed a second online petition demanding that Japan resolve the chemical weapons issue. In September, the revelation of a sex party involving hundreds of Japanese businessmen and Chinese prostitutes in the southeastern city of Zhuhai sparked another flurry of anti-Japanese invective in Chinese cyberspace, and a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman publicly rebuked the Japanese government for the barbaric behavior of its citizens. And in October, a risqué skit by three Japanese students and one of their teachers at Northwest University in Xi’an led to a 7,000-strong demonstration on campus and nationwide condemnation.10 Two years later, in April 2005, three successive weekends of anti-Japanese street demonstrations involving tens of thousands of Chinese in cities as diverse as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu rocked China and Japan. The protests were organized almost exclusively by e-mail, text messaging and online chatrooms, and were notable for their lack of a clear leadership.11 On the Japanese side, the Tiananmen Massacre marked a turning point in popular perceptions of China. As Mike Mochizuki has noted, prior to 1989, the Japanese public held a largely positive view of China, and the Japanese government engaged in “friendship diplomacy” with China.12 Those positive attitudes began declining after the Japanese people watched

10

Gries, P.H. (2005). “China’s ‘New Thinking’ on Japan”. China Quarterly, vol. 184, pp. 831–850. 11 Gries, P.H. (2005). “Chinese Nationalism: Challenging the State?”. Current History, vol. 104, pp. 251–256. 12 Mochizuki, M. (2007). “Japan’s Shifting Strategy toward the Rise of China”. Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 30, no. 4/5, pp. 739–776.

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the brutality of the PRC regime on their television sets in 1989, and only accelerated after the Japanese people were directly exposed via media coverage to the April 2005 anti-Japanese protests across China. Most fundamentally, the involvement of elite and popular actors transforms Sino–Japanese relations into a domestic political issue with implications for the legitimacy of the ruling parties of both countries. In China, as Shogo Suzuki has noted, Japan plays the vital role of an “Other” against whom Chinese understand themselves as victims of 19thand 20th-century Western and Japanese imperialism.13 The modern history of Sino–Japanese relations is thus firmly linked to Chinese national identity today.14 Furthermore, because communism has largely been discredited as a legitimating ideology since the Cultural Revolution, nationalism has become more central to the CCP’s claim to legitimacy. Popular nationalists therefore have much greater room to turn this grammar of nationalist legitimation back on the CCP.15 Nationalism has become a central terrain for state–society legitimacy dynamics in China today.16 As He Yinan and Jennifer Lind have noted, the same is true in Japan.17 The history question is not simply — or perhaps even primarily — one between Japan and its neighbors in China and Korea, but rather one between opposing groups within Japanese politics. Most frequently, the history contest is fought between apologists on the left and revisionists on the right. 13

Suzuki, S. (2007). “The Importance of ‘Othering’ in China’s National Identity: Sino– Japanese Relations as a Stage of Identity Conflicts”. Pacific Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 23–47. 14 Gries, P.H. (2004). China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. University of California Press, Berkeley, chapter 5. 15 Shue, V. (2004). “Legitimacy Crisis in China?”. In P.H. Gries and S. Rosen (eds.), State and Society in 21st-Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation, Routledge Curzon, New York. 16 Gries, P.H. (2005). “Chinese Nationalism: Challenging the State?”. Current History, vol. 104, pp. 251–256. 17 He, Y. (2008). “Ripe for Cooperation or Rivalry? Commerce, Realpolitik, and War Memory in Contemporary Sino–Japanese Relations”. Asian Security, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 162–197; He, Y. (2009). The Search for Reconciliation: Sino–Japanese and German– Polish Relations since World War II. Cambridge University Press, New York; Lind, J.M. (2009). “The Perils of Apology”. Foreign Affairs, vol. 88, no. 3, pp. 132–146; Lind, J.M. (2008). Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

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It is thus clear that history and domestic politics contribute to the securitization of Sino–Japanese relations. What can Chinese and Japanese who seek to improve their bilateral relations do to desecuritize their bilateral relationship in domestic discourses? On the Chinese side, at a deeper level one key will be whether elites can slowly shift the basis upon which they claim legitimacy away from nationalism and more towards economic development and good governance. Unfortunately, in today’s highly nationalistic atmosphere in China, it is hard to imagine this happening in the short to medium term. As a result, any member of the Chinese elite who publicly takes a “soft” position on Japan, especially at a time of nationalist sensitivities, such as the next time a dispute of any kind emerges between China and Japan, exposes themselves to nationalist attack. This does not bode well for the management of future Sino– Japanese crises. On the Japanese side, one issue concerns the consolidation and deepening of improvements in China–Japan relations since the end of the Koizumi administration in 2006. Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda, Taro Aso, Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan did not visit the Yasukuni Shrine in their capacities as Prime Minister. The current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has continued this new trend. Preventing China policy from becoming too re-politicized within Japanese politics will be vital. At the bilateral level, one key issue affects how the two sides handle the perceived power transition that is occurring between them. China and Japan tend to view their bilateral relationship — whether past, present or future — in predominantly hierarchical terms, with the only question being who was superior (i.e. “elder brother” or “father”) and who was inferior (i.e. “younger brother” or “son”) when. As Ryosei Kokubun notes in his chapter in this volume, although the “1972 Framework” that structured China–Japan relations for over three decades featured rhetoric of “friendship” and “equality,” Japan’s substantial official development assistance (ODA) to China points to the reality of Japan as an advanced industrialized economy and China as a developing economy during this period. Chinese and Japanese perceptions of China’s rise and Japan’s relative decline over the last few years raise the question of whether the new post-Koizumi “2006 Framework” for China–Japan relations is generally perceived as simply inverting the hierarchy. If such a perception is

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widespread, I fear it could be destabilizing, as it would likely generate excessive anxieties among the Japanese right, and excessive demands for tougher Japan policies among Chinese nationalists. If a power transition is indeed occurring, it strikes me that some transition period of perceived relative equality would be more stabilizing. But it seems that few Chinese or Japanese are accustomed to thinking about their bilateral relations in such a fashion.

An American Pivot? The Beijing–Tokyo–Washington Triangle Postwar Sino–Japanese relations have never been purely bilateral: the looming presence of the United States during and after the Cold War has always made them fundamentally trilateral in nature. Furthermore, despite the rise of China, elite political changes in Japan, and recent challenges to the U.S.–Japan alliance, we can expect the fundamentally trilateral nature of Sino–Japanese relations to persist. Nevertheless, change can be stressful. As the Obama administration seeks to deepen its relationship with China, Japanese fears of abandonment naturally arise. And as the DPJ and the new Noda government seeks to distance itself from the standard operating procedures of the old Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) by questioning elements of the U.S.–Japanese alliance, some American feathers naturally become ruffled. The Okinawa military base controversy is a case in point. Under such circumstances, China may be tempted to try to play the U.S. card in Sino–Japanese relations. For instance, Fudan University’s Fan Yongming is certainly correct that “there is a tremendous lack of trust between the two governments, which view each other with suspicion and anxiety.” He likely goes too far, however, when he imagines that “Japan has mixed feelings about improving Sino–U.S. relations, and feels jealousy and secret resentment” towards the U.S. Indeed, he later contends that “The Japanese people . . . have fallen into a sense of dejection and frustration, and even into an unhealthy sense of crisis and panic.”18 That even an optimist about Sino– 18

Fan, Y. (2008). “Searching for Common Interests between China and Japan: A Chinese View”. Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 17, no. 55, pp. 375, 378–379.

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Japanese relations like Fan Yongming would project onto the Japanese people such sentiments bespeaks a worrying tendency in the relationship to see it in zero-sum trilateral terms. Seeking to play the U.S. card, in the end, only contributes to the securitization of Sino–Japanese relations. The danger of a security dilemma between China and Japan is real. If Japan fears American abandonment, or if China feels that the U.S.–Japan alliance is increasingly targeting it, then both sides could increasingly engage in internal balancing for self-defense. One side, however, is likely to view the other side’s militarization as hostile in nature, spurring an arms race. Indeed, this tragic outcome may already be occurring. As Leszek Buszynski has noted, a naval rivalry may have already begun, and “mutual concern about sea-lane protection has the potential to extend Sino–Japanese rivalry into Southeast Asia and beyond.”19

The U.S. Role: Stabilizing U.S.–China and U.S.–Japan Relations If Beijing or Tokyo seeks to play the “Washington card” against one another, or even if China or Japan simply fears that the other side is doing so, it is likely to destabilize Sino–Japanese relations. Therefore, the best thing that Washington can do for Sino–Japanese relations is to improve and stabilize both U.S.–China and U.S.–Japan relations. Under conditions of stable U.S.–China and U.S.–Japan relations, Japan should be less likely to fear American abandonment and China less likely to view the U.S.–Japan alliance with suspicion. In this way, the U.S. factor becomes a stabilizer rather than a destabilizer in Sino–Japanese relations. It takes two to tango. American policies alone do not guarantee improvements in either U.S.–China or U.S.–Japan relations. However, steady American policies of reassurance towards China and Japan increase the odds that they will be reciprocated by Beijing and Tokyo, leading to improvements in bilateral relations with each.

19

Buszynski, L. (2009). “Sino–Japanese Relations: Interdependence, Rivalry and Regional Security”. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International & Strategic Affairs, vol. 31, no. 1, p. 161.

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On China policy, American elites need to continue to reassure Beijing that its growing needs for both resources and respect can be accommodated within the extant world system. At the same time, American elites need to do a better job of managing the impact of domestic American political and ideological dynamics that add unnecessary volatility to U.S.–China relations.20 On Japan policy, the U.S. should seek to maintain a healthy U.S.–Japan alliance through substantive continuity but procedural flexibility. Substantively, the Obama administration needs to maintain the robust military cooperation with Japan at the heart of an alliance that has served both American and Japanese security interests well for over 60 years. At a process level, however, American elites must reassure the Japanese public, Prime Minister Noda and the DPJ that the U.S. neither looks down on Japan nor takes the Japanese alliance for granted. As mentioned previously, U.S. President Barack Obama’s bow to the Japanese Emperor during his 2009 visit to Japan was a good first step in this direction and the next major step is successful resolution of the Okinawa base issue. While many in Beijing may disagree, I believe that a robust U.S.–Japan military alliance actually serves all three countries. America benefits by maintaining a vital forward presence in Northeast Asia, a region home to three of the world’s most dangerous hotspots: the Korean Peninsula with its nuclear issue, Sino–Japanese relations and the Taiwan Strait. Any of these three issues could draw the U.S. into war, so it is in the U.S. national interest to maintain an active military and diplomatic presence in the region. Japan benefits from a robust U.S.–Japan military alliance through external balancing in Northeast Asia, where anti-Japanese sentiment is high among its near neighbors China, North Korea and South Korea. The U.S.–Japan alliance allows Japan to devote fewer resources to self-defense than it otherwise would, freeing resources for economic

20

Gries, P.H., Crowson, H.M. and Cai, H. (2012). “God, Guns, and . . . China? How Ideology Impacts American Attitudes and Policy Preferences toward China”. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1–40; Gries, P.H. and Crowson, H.M. (2010). “Political Orientation, Party Affiliation, and American Attitudes towards China”. Journal of Chinese Political Science, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 219–244.

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development. It also comes at a relatively low cost: while the U.S. is bound by the alliance to come to Japan’s defense, Japan is not bound by the alliance to come to America’s defense. In my view, Beijing also benefits from a stable U.S.–Japan alliance that reassures Japan, keeping it from further developing its military. A weakening U.S.–Japan alliance, by contrast, is likely to lead to a Japanese shift from external to internal balancing, contributing to the emerging arms race in Northeast Asia and thus undermining Chinese security. In a worst-case scenario, a faltering U.S.–Japan alliance could prompt Japan to go nuclear, which would present a serious security threat to China.

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Chapter 6

Sino–Japanese Strategic Relations in Multilateral Regional Frameworks

Yasuhiro Takeda

Peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region rest largely upon the stability of strategic relations between Japan and China. However, there is severe mistrust over strategic interests and intentions between the two countries, in addition to territorial disputes over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and the East China Sea as well as the history textbook and Yasukuni Shrine issues. In particular, as the national power gap between Japan and China has narrowed rapidly since the end of the Cold War,1 increasing uncertainty has amplified concerns about the strategic consequences of gaps in mutual cooperation. As a result, Japan and China have both become much more sensitive to either the benefit of relative gains or the danger of relative losses, which are directly linked to their own strategic position and national security. With uncertainty about motives, considerations of relative gains or losses create serious impediments to bilateral cooperation between the two nations. It has often been suggested that a viable and attractive alternative for managing Sino–Japanese strategic relations is to design a multilateral

1

For example, the 2007 Global Economics Paper by Goldman Sachs predicted that China could become the world’s largest economy, surpassing the U.S. in 2027 and Japan in 2010. See Wilson, D. and Stupnytska, A. (2007). “The N-11: More Than an Acronym”. Global Economics Paper, no. 153, 28 March. 85

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mechanism for promoting bilateral cooperation.2 This is because the notion of relative gains (or losses) becomes ambiguous with more than two players, whereas Japan and China under a bilateral framework are likely to define their mutual relations by the logic of zero-sum games in which cooperation is not viable. Certainly, the number of players is important. The negative impact of relative gains (or losses) upon mutual cooperation is likely to decline as the number of players increases.3 Furthermore, a multilateral mechanism tends to be widely favored as the appropriate institution for not only Sino–Japanese strategic relations but also regional security. Such a positive assessment arises from the argument that multilateralism is not just a question of the number of parties so much as the kind of relations among the parties. In other words, the concept of multilateralism is not necessarily neutral with regard to its qualitative nature. John Ruggie defines multilateralism as coordination “on the basis of generalized principles.”4 If the generalized principles reflect the collective interests of all the parties, multilateralism will be more desirable and legitimate than other forms of cooperation among parties in which each advances its own specific interests. However, things are not so simple. First, in order to achieve relative gains collectively versus others, Japan and China have separately embarked on seeking “defensive cooperation”5 with their own allies or like-minded partners. On the one hand, Japan decided not only to strengthen the U.S.–Japan alliance based on the new U.S.–Japan Defense Guidelines in 1997, but also to expand bilateral security cooperation with Australia in 2007 and India in 2008. On the other hand, in 2001 China founded its first international multilateral organization, the Shanghai 2

Cossa, R.A. (1996). “Multilateralism, Regional Security, and the Prospects for Track II in East Asia”. NBR Analysis, December, pp. 25–38; Van Ness, P. (2008). “Designing a Mechanism for Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia”. Asian Perspective, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 107–126. 3 Snidal, D. (1991). “International Cooperation among Relative Gains Maximizers”. International Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, p. 396. 4 Ruggie, J.G. (ed.) (1993). Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 3–14. 5 Snidal, op. cit., pp. 399–401.

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Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose predecessor, the Shanghai Five, was formed in 1996, comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Such a dangerous cycle of mutual hedging may hinder the stability of Sino–Japan strategic relations. Second, there is no guarantee that multilateralism can actually promote Sino–Japanese security cooperation. If multilateralism takes just a quantitative form of negotiation among more than two players, it may be more inefficient at preventing defections than bilateral negotiations because of the difficulty of reaching agreement on punishment for defections in multilateral institutions. Even if multilateralism takes a qualitative form as Ruggie argues, it may also inhibit mechanisms that foster cooperation because the strong norms may rule out side payments and effective enforcement to punish defections.6 Whether multilateral institutions can be effective in fostering cooperation would depend very much on the domain and scope of cooperation.7 The main objective of this paper is to review the effectiveness of a variety of multilateral security institutions for advancing Sino–Japanese strategic relations. The first section examines the basic nature of the existing multilateral structures in the Asia-Pacific region and the choice of multilateral institutions by Japan and China. The second section analyzes the effects of qualitative multilateral institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on Sino–Japanese confidence building. The third section discusses the optimistic assumption inherent in the ad hoc approach and the relative utility between ad hoc coalitions against common threats and ad hoc multilaterals with potential threats. The fourth section examines the advantages and disadvantages of minilateralism for Sino–Japanese strategic relations. 6

Ball, C.L. (2006). “What’s So Great about Multilateralism? The Limitations of Multilateral Cooperation”. Draft for 2006 International Studies Association Annual Convention, p. 9. 7 Lisa Martin argues that the effectiveness of multilateral institutions depends on “the stage of cooperation (negotiation or enforcement) and the scope of cooperation (coordination or collaboration).” See Martin, L.L. (1993). “The Rational State Choice of Multilateralism”. In J.G. Ruggie (ed.), Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 91–121; see also Ball, op. cit.

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The Basic Nature of Multilateral Security Structures in the Asia-Pacific Region Two types of multilateral frameworks for regional security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific multi-layered security order coexist. One is a cooperative security type of arrangement, like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Plus Three (APT), the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (ASEAN PMC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). In addition, the Six-Party Talks (SPT) on the Korean Peninsula, the Asian Senior-Level Talks on Non-Proliferation (ASTOP) and the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS)8 are recognized as ad hoc versions of the cooperative security framework. Cooperative security is essentially inclusive in that it is a framework for coordination with potential threats. The other is a collective defense type of arrangement. Collective defense is exclusive in that it is a framework for collaboration among likeminded partners directed against clear threats. In the Asia-Pacific region, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-style multilateral alliance has not emerged, but a “hub-and-spoke” alliance system centering on the United States has functioned in parallel with various types of multilateral institutions, such as the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) between Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, and the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) among Japan, the U.S. and Australia. Ad hoc versions include the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP). Figure 1 illustrates the typology of multilateral institutions in the Asia-Pacific region by cross-tabulating variations in stance towards threats (domain) and variations in function (scope). On the horizontal axis, we can

8

The WPNS was established in 1988 as a forum for discussion of maritime issues to promote mutual understanding and naval cooperation in the Western Pacific region. The WPNS comprises 20 members and 4 observers as of 2010, including Japan, China, Russia, Australia, the United States and so on. See http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/news_and_ events/nr/2011/mar/25mar11_nr/25mar11_fs.html/.

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General [Minilateralism]

*APT *ASEAN PMC *ARF

Security against

Security with *SPT *WPNS *ASTOP

PSI *ReCAAP [Ad Hoc Coalitions]

[Cooperative Security]

[Collective Defense]

FPDA TSD TCOG SCO

[Qualitative Multilateralism]

[Ad Hoc Multilaterals] Ad Hoc

Figure 1.

Multilateral Institutions in the Asia-Pacific

Note: * indicates the common institutions in which both Japan and China participate.

distinguish security cooperation with threats from security cooperation against threats. On the vertical axis, functions of institutions vary along a continuum from general to ad hoc. As a result, four ideal types of multilateral institutions emerge: qualitative multilateralism, ad hoc multilaterals, minilateralism and ad hoc coalitions. The asterisk in Figure 1 indicates the common institutions in which both Japan and China participate. First, the important feature of qualitative multilateral institutions in the Asia-Pacific region has been its concentric circles structure, putting ASEAN at the core of these circles. The first meeting of the ARF on July 25, 1994 “agreed to endorse the purposes and principles of ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, as a code of conduct governing relations between states and a unique diplomatic instrument.”9 As a result, ASEAN remains the driving force for the ARF in that the ARF is to be managed under ASEAN’s leadership. In particular, the ARF follows the so-called “ASEAN Way” in terms of its norms (non-interference, renunciation of force, cooperative spirit) and rules (consensus and dialogue) for the institution. The ARF also emphasizes informal dialogue over formal agreement and concerted action, and moving “at a pace 9

http://www.aseansec.org/3621.htm/ [accessed September 12, 2011].

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comfortable to all participants.”10 Since the most cautious member can set the pace of its development, the role of the ARF still remains at the early stage of confidence building and preventive diplomacy. Second, ad hoc multilaterals and coalitions share a similarity in aiming to achieve issue-based cooperation. On the other hand, ad hoc multilaterals take a “security with” approach to promoting cooperative security in the region, while ad hoc coalitions bring like-minded countries together to maintain “security against” common threats. However, it has become increasingly difficult to identify clear and specific threats in the post-Cold War era. As a result, the targets of ad hoc coalitions tend to be nontraditional threats such as piracy, maritime terrorism, trafficking in illegal drugs and even national disasters. Third, the distinctive feature of minilateralism is characterized as collaborative behavior by selected membership rather than merely being small-sized.11 Common security concerns as well as shared values and norms lead to minilateralism. Unlike the collective defense model, minilateralism tends to be a framework for security against any contingency caused by unspecified threats, as the structural uncertainty of the regional system increases. Nevertheless, it is also true that consideration of the relevant external actor, i.e. China and the United States, came into play in the formation of the TSD and the SCO, respectively. While the TSD shares democratic values, the SCO shares authoritarian values. The TSD has emphasized that it is not directed against any country. Indeed, the joint statement on March 16, 2006 for the first ministerial meeting of the TSD stated that “we welcomed China’s constructive engagement in the region.” In addition, the statement focused the particular attention of Australia, Japan and the United States as “longstanding democracies and developed economies upon supporting the emergence and consolidation of democracies and strengthening cooperative frameworks in the Asia-Pacific region.”12 Although none of the parties regard the TSD as a containment 10

http://aseanregionalforum.asean.org/files/library/Terms%20of%20References%20 and%20Concept%20Papers/Concept%20Paper%20of%20ARF.pdf/ [accessed July 21, 2012]. 11 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/5/3/1/1/ pages253117/p253117-4.php/ [accessed January 12, 2011]. 12 http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/australia/joint0603-2.html/ [accessed September 12, 2011].

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measure against China, the emergence of the Australia–Japan–United States alignment provides an opportunity to prepare for uncertainties about China’s political and security behavior in the region. The SCO was formally established in June 2001 as a cooperative security organization that aimed at resolving the boundary issues and stabilizing the border regions between China and the former Soviet Union through confidence-building measures (CBMs). Since 2003, the SCO has focused on countering transnational threats such as terrorism, separatism, extremism, drug trafficking, cyber-sabotage and weapons of mass destruction proliferation from non-state actors and has conducted a number of anti-terrorist joint military exercises. Although China consistently denies any intention of creating a collective defense structure, since the 2005 Astana summit, the SCO has started to look more like a counter-model to the U.S.-led military alliance to protect its non-democratic members as well as to back Russian and Chinese strategic positions.13 The Astana summit declaration proclaimed that “a rational and just world order must be based upon consolidation of mutual trust and good-neighborly relations, upon the establishment of true partnership with no pretense to monopoly and domination in international affairs.”14 In the Asia-Pacific region, the growth of multilateral security mechanisms has coexisted with the “hub-and-spoke” arrangement in which the United States serves as the hub of a wheel with the five bilateral alliances as the spokes. The U.S.–Japan alliance has been the strongest spoke in supporting the U.S. military presence in the region. Because of this unique regional security architecture, the basic attitudes of Japan and China towards the four types of multilateral institutions are a function of the U.S.–Japan alliance. Multilateral institutions are a hedge for Japan to prepare against the weakening reliability of its alliance with the U.S., while they are instruments for China to offer an alternative to the “hub-and-spoke” system and to counterbalance the U.S.–Japan alliance. The ARF has been a focal point for Japan’s security multilateralism since Japan proposed the formation of an Asia-wide security organization at the 1991 ASEAN PMC. However, under the “multi-tiered” security 13

Weitz, R. (2009). “Growing Pains”. The Journal of International Security Affairs, vol. 47, pp. 2–3. 14 http://www.sectsco.org/html/00500.html/ [accessed September 12, 2011].

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strategy, Japan has also utilized ad hoc multilaterals and coalitions as well as minilateralism to hedge the existing U.S.–Japan alliance. In particular, the Shinzo Abe administration clearly shifted the center of gravity from qualitative multilateralism to minilateral mechanisms such as the TSD and TCOG, although the Yukio Hatoyama administration later toned down initiatives for minilateralism and was eager to build qualitative multilateral mechanisms such as the East Asian Community instead. China’s negative views on multilateral institutions until the early 1990s were a reflection of its concerns that China’s strategic interests would be harmed in any multilateral security mechanisms dominated by the United States and its allies. However, China’s negative views have shifted to the positive view that multilateralism could be an instrument serving Chinese interests in the region and a new world order based on a multipolar system. China currently views the ARF and the SCO as the main platforms for building regional cooperation.15 China’s proactive posture in the ARF was reflected by its co-chairmanship with the Philippines of the ARF InterSessional Support Group (ISG) on Confidence-Building Measures in March 1997. In 2003, China proposed the ARF Security Policy Conference (ASPC) as the highest-level dialogue mechanism involving national defense officials within the framework of the ARF to discuss CBMs in the military sphere. But, together with ASEAN, China has been reluctant to move towards preventive diplomacy beyond the stage of CBMs in the ARF.

Qualitative Multilateralism and the Sino–Japanese Relationship Since the end of the Cold War, the tragic dynamics of a so-called “security dilemma”16 have been in operation between Japan and China due to 15

China Defense Paper 2008. January 2009, p. 48. Wheeler and Booth define “security dilemma” as unintended consequences of “systeminduced” phenomena, and distinguish it from “state-induced” security dilemmas. This is because the term “dilemma” should be “a choice between two unpleasant alternatives.” If a state seeks greater power at the expense of the other’s insecurity, it is not a dilemma to try to protect its security. See Wheeler, N. and Booth, K. (1992). “The Security Dilemma”. In J. Baylis and N.J. Rengger (eds.), Dilemmas of World Politics: International Issues in a Changing World, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 16

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enhanced uncertainties caused by unpredictable changes in the distribution of capabilities and the misperceptions of security policies. The ARF has been expected to alleviate the security dilemma by lessening uncertainty about the actions and intentions of each state through CBMs such as security dialogue and improvement of transparency. However, the ARF remains just a venue for security dialogue. Although most members have implemented agreed-upon moderate CBMs such as publishing defense white papers17 and sending reports to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNRCA), they have failed to develop more advanced and practical military CBMs such as a regional arms register and the notification and observation of military exercises. In addition, the focus of the ARF has shifted from CBMs and preventive diplomacy in the traditional military field to non-traditional security issues, particularly after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.18 Even though the ARF has promoted an ad hoc version of multilateral frameworks to address non-traditional security issues, it is necessary for most countries in the Asia-Pacific region to build CBMs for tackling the challenges of traditional security issues. The point is whether or not qualitative multilateral mechanisms like the ARF have actually succeeded in building mutual confidence between Japan and China, who are unable to make cooperative arrangements directly with one another. The ARF certainly has provided valuable opportunities for diplomatic contacts between the two nations when bilateral dialogue and exchange programs were suspended. However, the ARF has neither eased tensions between the two nations, nor contributed to the development of meaningful military-related CBMs beyond just dialogue and personnel exchanges. The functional and geographical expansion of the U.S.–Japan alliance since the mid-1990s has raised China’s concerns over Japan’s strategic 17

China began to publish its Defense White Papers every even year since 1998, but the released information has been highly unrevealing and far short of transparency based on global standards, leaving many questions about China’s military capabilities and spending. 18 Yuzawa, T. (2005). “Japan’s Changing Conception of the ASEAN Regional Forum: From an Optimistic Liberal to a Pessimistic Realist Perspective”. The Pacific Review, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 463–497.

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position in relation to China and Taiwan. As a result, Chinese recognition of the basic nature of the U.S.–Japan alliance has drastically shifted from the “bottle cap” to prevent Japan’s military build-up to the “egg shell” to foster Japan’s military power. At the same time, as Thomas J. Christensen suggests, the revitalization of the U.S.–Japan alliance has encouraged China “to consider more seriously the benefits of multilateral forums” like the ARF.19 However, the ARF has not effectively reduced Chinese suspicion and mistrust of the U.S.–Japan alliance and Japan’s security policy. China’s National Defense White Paper in 2008 pointed out that “the U.S. has increased its strategic attention to and input in the Asia-Pacific region, further consolidating its military alliances, adjusting its military deployment and enhancing its military capabilities.”20 On the other hand, Japan’s security concerns over China have been amplified by the rapid increase in its military power and ambitious military modernization programs in the post-Cold War era. In particular, the Chinese military budget has continued to increase by more than 10% annually in the last two decades, while Japan’s defense spending has declined. Moreover, the confidence-building efforts and multiple interactions within the ARF have failed to ease Japan’s growing anxiety over the lack of transparency in China’s strategic interests. Japan’s Defense White Paper in 2009 stated that “China has not yet achieved the levels of transparency expected of a major regional power.”21 It then concluded that “due to the insufficient transparency, it is noted that other nations might have distrust and misunderstandings about China’s decision-making processes concerning security and the military.”22 As regards exchanges between units at the bilateral level, in September 2007, Japan dispatched Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) personnel for the first time as observers to the Chinese “Warrior 2007” military exercise. In December 2007, the Chinese destroyer Shenzhen 19

Christensen, T.J. (1999). “China, the U.S.–Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia”. International Security, vol. 23, no. 4, p. 73. 20 http://www.china.org.cn/government/whitepaper/node_7060059.htm/ [accessed January 12, 2011]. 21 http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/pdf/2009/11Part1_Chapter2_Sec3.pdf/ [accessed September 12, 2011]. 22 http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/pdf/2009/04Part1_Overview.pdf/ [accessed September 12, 2011].

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of the South China Sea Fleet made a port call in Japan for the first time since World War II. In return, Japan’s destroyer Sazanami visited China for the first time in June 2008. The second port call in Japan by a Chinese naval vessel was in November 2009. These military-to-military exchanges could be interpreted as a sign that Sino–Japanese defense exchanges are entering a new phase. However, they are still easily influenced by political situations at one time or another. Since the first bilateral security dialogue was held between the two foreign ministries in December 1993, bilateral security dialogues have been suspended occasionally. In August 2009, China rejected a port call by a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) training squadron, apparently in protest over the July visit to Japan of a prominent Uighur activist. Under the framework of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue established in 2009, the U.S. and China finally succeeded in institutionalizing a high-level security dialogue and military-to-military exchanges. Although Japan and China agreed on the Comprehensive Promotion of a “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” in May 2008 and to conduct joint People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and JMSDF search and rescue exercises in November 2009, it will take time to institutionalize various dialogues and exchanges in both security sectors. A military hotline still has not been established between the two nations’ defense authorities, even though the defense ministers of Japan and China finally agreed to set up a working group in August 2007. It was in November 2005 that Japan proposed the hotline. On the other hand, in February 2008, China and the United States officially signed an agreement on setting up a military hotline between the two defense departments. China and South Korea opened military hotlines between their navies and armed forces in August 2008. These contrasts show that military hotlines between China and the U.S. or China and South Korea are measures of confidence building, but in the case of Japan and China are an effect of mutual confidence.

Effects of Ad Hoc Multilaterals and Ad Hoc Coalitions The most important feature of the regional security structure in the Asia-Pacific region recently has been the growth of ad hoc multilateral

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institutions focusing on specific problems in which all members can share their common interests. In particular, the ad hoc approach seems to be appealing to the intractable relations between Japan and China. This section reviews two questions: (1) can this new pattern of multilateral cooperation bring about concerted behavior between Japan and China; and (2) which is more effective for transforming Sino–Japan strategic conflicts, ad hoc coalitions or ad hoc multilaterals? A building block approach of starting from the specific common issue on which Japan and China can collaborate with each other is quite practical. However, most optimistic arguments about ad hoc institutions are built on two questionable assumptions of the “neo-functionalism” theory. One assumption is the so-called spillover hypothesis that cooperation on a specific issue area can trigger effects that provide further cooperation in other areas. In fact, there can be not only spillovers but also spillbacks. Therefore, multilateral cooperation in the non-traditional security area would not necessarily spill over into Sino–Japanese cooperation in the traditional security area. Moreover, the failure of the SPT on the Korean Peninsula may reduce prospects for Sino–Japan security cooperation as well as for the formation of an East Asian security regime. The other assumption inherent in the “new functionalism” is the so-called socialization effect, whereby the accumulation of collective actions inside institutions brings about the diffusion of common norms and identity. Some observers have noted that “there is clear evidence of socialization occurring across the new regional architecture in Asia.”23 However, the agents of political socialization are not states but individuals. Therefore, there is no guarantee that individual learning directly reflects changes in the belief systems of organizations or national policies. As Hongying Wang argues, the small number of Chinese officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who participate in the SPT would be less influential for normative change than military leaders.24 23

Green, M.J. and Gill, B. (eds.) (2009). Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 20. 24 Wang, H. (2000). “Multilateralism in Chinese Foreign Policy”. Asian Survey, vol. 40, no. 3, p. 489.

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In this regard, the military must be the most appropriate agent of socialization. This is partly because the military can bring its members’ beliefs into agreement with the institution’s norms. In addition, socialization effects can be expected through military-to-military interactions such as joint training and exercises because of the existence of so-called “officership,” i.e. common military ethics and responsibilities shared among professional military officers beyond national borders. However, this argument leaves the content of socialization and variation in the degree of socialization unexplained.25 In other words, it is unclear that socialization between the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) results in sharing norms of mutual cooperation as appropriate behavior that would contribute to confidence building and strategic stability between the two countries. For example, the JMSDF and PLAN were original members of the WPNS at the time of its establishment in 1988. They have participated in various forms of CBMs based on the shared principle of “constructive contribution” to maritime security. However, involvement in an ad hoc institution does not mean internalization of the norms, values and attitudes practiced by the institution. In fact, participation in the WPNS has not eased strong skepticism and mistrust toward each other. Moreover, it will take a long time for the socialization process to result in Sino–Japanese reconciliation. There is a difference in the scope of cooperation between ad hoc coalitions and ad hoc multilaterals. For example, the PSI and ASTOP share the common aim of preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems and related materials and technology. While the PSI is a U.S.-led collaboration mechanism to interdict WMDs involving 20 participants, the ASTOP is a coordination forum hosted by Japan to enhance the understanding and support of the existing non-proliferation regime between the PSI participants and the non-PSI participants such as China and India. Both spillover and socialization effects would be expected more in the context of collaboration against common threats than in one of coordination with potential threats based on mutual constraint, because stronger 25

Johnston, A.I. (2007). Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980–2000. Princeton University Press, Princeton, p. 16.

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group bonds are developed in interactions with like-minded countries than with potential adversaries. If so, ad hoc coalitions would be a more appropriate option for improving Sino–Japan strategic relations than ad hoc multilaterals such as the SPT, WPNS and ASTOP. Among a variety of ad hoc coalitions, the ReCAAP is considered as the only success model for Sino–Japanese cooperation as well as a public good from which all countries in the region would benefit. The ReCAAP is expected not only to be compatible with other types of institutions, but also to bring about concerted behavior among regional powers. Based on Japan’s initiative in 2001 within the APT framework, the ReCAAP was signed in November 2004 and entered into effect in September 2006 with the membership of the APT, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The ReCAAP is the first regional government-to-government agreement to combat piracy at sea as well as the unique framework in which both Japan and China can conduct joint operations without U.S. participation. In the process of establishing the ReCAAP, the Chinese response to Japan’s initiative against piracy clearly shifted from strong opposition to active participation. However, China continues to have deep suspicion that Japan is using the piracy issue to build its naval capacity.26 As Miller pointed out, ad hoc cooperation should not be confused with concerted behavior.27 In addition, without U.S. involvement, it would be difficult for the ReCAAP to develop to a joint operational level.

Minilateralism and Sino–Japanese Strategic Relations This section reviews the utility of minilateralism, taking the TSD and the SCO as examples. The main question is: does minilateralism risk triggering a dangerous cycle of mutual hedging between Japan and China or contribute to Sino–Japanese strategic cooperation? If China’s rise is the 26

Christoffersen, G. (2009). “Japan and the East Asian Maritime Security Order: Prospects for Trilateral and Multilateral Cooperation”. Asian Perspective, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 107–149; see also Xinhua, 21 June, 2009. 27 Miller, B. (1994). “Explaining the Emergence of Great Power Concerts”. Review of International Studies, vol. 20, p. 329.

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key driver for Japan to pursue trilateral or quadrilateral groupings with the U.S., Australia and India, China views Japan’s intention of being active in setting up CBMs with it with deep suspicion. Insofar as China seeks to use the SCO as a counter-model to U.S.-led military alliances, it may trigger a negative response from Japan. The TSD originally started at the vice-ministerial level in mid-2002. It was upgraded to the current status of a “strategic dialogue” in May 2005 when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the process would be conducted largely at the full ministerial level. This development of the TSD coincided with developments in U.S.–Japan security relations and a rapid downturn in Sino–Japanese political relations. The TSD practice resulted in a significant development in Australian– Japanese relations. In March 2007, Japan concluded a security agreement with Australia, marking Japan’s first formal defense relationship outside the U.S.–Japan alliance.28 In the May 2007 “2+2” meeting, Japan and the United States affirmed the shared strategic objective of “continuing to build upon the partnership with India to advance areas of common interests and increase cooperation.”29 The trilateral initiative seemed to begin promoting a quadrilateral grouping, although transformation into the quadrilateral rapidly decreased in momentum by the end of June 2008. For Japan, the driving force for the TSD was growing concern about China’s rise, together with the ever-worsening diplomatic tension between the two countries under the Junichiro Koizumi administration during 2001–2006. Another factor was disappointment and frustration with the ARF as the new regional security institution. Since the first ministerial meeting in March 2006, the TSD has welcomed China’s constructive engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the TSD has repeatedly explained that it is not directed at any country, nor is it designed to encircle or contain China. However, China viewed the TSD as “a prelude to an alliance that will surely turn a web of bilaterally based U.S.

28

Although the joint declaration set up regular “two-plus-two” ministerial security talks and stipulated several areas of bilateral cooperation covering all security-related issues, the traditional collective defense and deterrence areas were excluded. 29 http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/scc/joint0705.html/ [accessed July 12, 2012].

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alliances into a more formal multilateral alliance structure” like “an Asian version of NATO.”30 In particular, China was strongly opposed to the concept of a “democracy coalition” and quadrilateral groupings including India as proposed by the Shinzo Abe administration. Nonetheless, the TSD did not necessarily provoke negative reactions from China at the bilateral level. As William Tow observed, the TSD kept the “momentum for the containment approach” from early 2006 to the first half of 2007.31 Even during such a period of conflict, China accepted Prime Minister Abe’s first foreign visit to Beijing in October 2006, and agreed to establish a relationship with Japan based on “strategic reciprocity.”32 In April 2007, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan. Japan and China have been able to resume meaningful diplomatic activities since the departure of Koizumi in September 2006. China was irritated by Abe’s value-oriented diplomacy, but has not shown any desire to downgrade its relations with Japan again. In fact, as Mulgan clearly pointed out, under the Abe administration, Japan’s strategy seemed to “shift from exclusive bilateralism to modest minilateralism.”33 In dealing with China’s rise, the Koizumi administration reinforced its security ties with the United States — an extension of Japan’s basic security policy for more than five decades. Although Abe was more conservative and sensitive to China’s rise than his predecessor, China was not entirely opposed to improving its relations with Japan. The reason why the TSD indirectly let Japan and China agree on resumption of their normal diplomatic relationship is the TSD’s strategic ambiguity and lower level of institutionalization. On the one hand, the TSD is not an organization for defense collaboration among three countries, but a loose institution for policy coordination. In other words, the TSD has not become an instrument of regional containment against 30

Feng, A. (2008). “TSD — Euphemism for Multiple Alliance?”. NBR Special Report, December, p. 43. 31 Tow, W. (2008). “The Trilateral Strategic Dialogue: Facilitating Community-Building or Revisiting Containment?”. NBR Special Report, no. 16, p. 5. 32 http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/bluebook/2007/html/framefiles/honbun.html/ [accessed July 21, 2012]. 33 Mulgan, A.G. (2008). “Breaking the Mould: Exclusive Bilateralism to Modest Minilateralism”. Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 52–70.

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China’s rise. It remains a consultative forum for policy coordination in the field of non-traditional security issues except for the traditional collective defense and deterrence areas. On the other hand, the TSD has the potential to be transformed into a collective defense arrangement to exclusively target the rise of China, depending upon Chinese regional security behavior. On the contrary, the SCO achieved remarkable progress in terms of institutionalization within a short period. In addition to two permanent offices and attendant staff — the SCO Secretariat and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) — the SCO established five specialized working groups in commerce, customs, quality inspection, investment promotion and transportation facilitation. Moreover, the SCO created a team of observers to monitor presidential and other elections in member states.34 As a result of institutionalization, the SCO has created international tension with Japan and the United States. In responding to China’s growing influence in Central Asia, Japan embarked on creating an exclusive framework linking Japan and the Central Asian countries, known as the “Central Asia Plus Japan Dialogue,” in 2004. U.S. application for observer status in the SCO was rejected in 2005. The “Malabar 2007” military exercise by the United States, Japan and India took place less than a month after the SCO’s joint military exercises. According to the 2008 CRS Report for Congress, “the proximity both geographically and temporally led many observers to point out a potentially destabilizing competition between two military blocs.”35

Conclusion In general, a multilateral mechanism would be more useful than a bilateral framework for managing Sino–Japanese strategic relations in the sense of avoiding a zero-sum game. As a result of examination in this chapter, the relative utility of four types of multilateral institutions could be summarized as follows. First, it would be difficult for Japan and China to escape from the security dilemma under the existing qualitative multilateralism institutions. 34

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Chien_peng-Chung/1633/ [accessed September 12, 2011]. Chanlett-Avery, E. and Vaughn, B. (2008). “Emerging Trends in the Security Architecture in Asia: Bilateral and Multilateral Ties among the United States, Japan, Australia, and India”. CRS Report for Congress, 7 January, p. 15. 35

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As long as it maintains the concentric circles structure putting ASEAN at the core, the ARF will continue to be a venue for security dialogue that provides Japan and China with only moderate CBMs. Second, prospects for Japan and China to be able to incrementally build mutual security confidence would be higher under the framework of ad hoc coalitions than it would be with ad hoc multilaterals. However, it will take time before Japan and China get the desired effects through socialization. Third, institutionalized minilateralism among like-minded partners may cause a dangerous cycle of mutual hedging, but loose minilateralism allows for room for coordination with outsiders. Based on the above analysis, the appropriate form of multilateral setting under which Japan and China are more likely to improve their strategic relations would be qualitative minilateralism among the major powers and stakeholders, such as the United States, Japan and China in the Asia-Pacific region. It would be a hybrid institution with elements of both selected membership from minilateralism and coordination with potential threats from multilateralism. This qualitative minilateralism would be more effective for Japan and China in alleviating the relative gain (or loss) considerations than a bilateral structure, and also would be more effective in preventing defections from the group than multilateralism. First, a triangular relationship among the United States, Japan and China is vital. In addition to deepened economic interdependence among the world’s three largest economies, security concerns for any two of the three countries are closely interrelated with the third party. Therefore, the United States is an indispensable player for Japan and China to manage their strategic relations through a multilateral mechanism. Second, this triangular relationship is also unique in that three legs of the triangle are not of equal length. Indeed, Japan and the United States have the “2+2” dialogue framework for their foreign and defense ministers, while the United States and China started the new Strategic and Economic Dialogue in 2009. However, there is no such well-established framework for strategic dialogue between Japan and China, although the Sino–Japan Economic Dialogue started in 2007. A U.S.–Japan–China trilateral mechanism would bridge a missing link. Transformation from a triangular relationship to a trilateral one is not an easy task. However, as Kurt M. Campbell points out, “it is hard to

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imagine a continuing future of peace and stability in Asia unless these three powers can negotiate a kind of strategic modus operandi.”36 As far as the U.S.–Japan–China trilateral mechanism remains just a forum for an exchange of views and ideas on strategic and security issues, it would not necessarily damage the existing U.S.–Japan alliance or Chinese strategic interests in the region.

36

Campbell, K.M. (2000). “Energizing the U.S.–Japan Security Partnership”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 4, p. 130.

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Chapter 7

Major Powers’ Policies toward North Korea and Implications for Sino–Japanese Relations

Gui Yongtao

The North Korean nuclear crisis has deteriorated. Pyongyang has conducted two nuclear tests and asserts its status as a nuclear state. Kim Jong-un, the young supreme leader, is carrying on his father’s legacy of “military first” politics, and has invited further sanctions and isolation by conducting another “satellite” launch. Worse, the economy is standing at the edge of collapse. The dangers thus come from all sides. A nucleararmed North Korea, proliferation and loss of control of weapons of mass destruction, and a refugee crisis caused by possible chaos in the North could all pose grave threats to regional stability. The major powers involved — the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia — are facing a tremendous challenge to de-escalate the crisis while pursuing the ultimate goal of denuclearization. Although not able to prevent Pyongyang from obtaining nuclear weapons, the five countries have, through the process of the Six-Party Talks and other forms of consultation, found more convergence among their interests and policy priorities. Closer communication and coordination, however, are still needed to finally solve the problem and build lasting peace in the region. This chapter looks into the five countries’ current policies — as well as their future prospects — for the Korean Peninsula. Both convergence and 105

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divergence among them will be discussed so as to shed light on the impact of the North Korean nuclear issue upon the major power relations of the region. Policy recommendations are made in the context of Sino–Japanese relations and Northeast Asia at large. Acknowledging the different magnitude and influence of these five countries, it is still believed that all these countries play an indispensable role in the future of the peninsula and are therefore worth a careful examination.

Policy Priorities of the Major Powers U.S. Policy Short of a consistent strategy, U.S. policy toward North Korea has vacillated between engagement and confrontation since the end of the Cold War. But so far neither a grand bargain nor a regime change policy has produced desirable results. Although North Korea’s economic dislocation and its opaque internal politics have made the headlines from time to time, an implosion or collapse of the Pyongyang regime is yet to occur. Facing an already-nuclearized North Korea that poses growing risks of proliferation, even the United States finds stability of the Pyongyang regime to be in its national interests.1 On the other hand, there is always a hardline view in the U.S. policy debate. When it became clear that what Pyongyang desires is not a grand bargain but recognition of its status as a nuclear weapons state, the argument for a tougher North Korea policy grew stronger among U.S. analysts. Some even advocate a “hard containment” strategy that aims to break the North Korean regime through applying comprehensive sanctions and imagines a Northeast Asia without North Korea.2 However, the current U.S. administration can hardly take the risk of destabilizing the Korean Peninsula. North Korea, an important but not 1

Przystup, J.J. (2009). “North Korea: Challenges, Interests and Policy”. Strategic Forum (Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University), no. 250, November, p. 1. 2 Reiss, M.B. (coauthor) (2010). “An End Game for Korea: Reverse-Engineering the Korean Conundrum”. The American Interest, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 4–5.

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urgent problem, is not prioritized on the U.S. foreign policy agenda compared to the more pressing difficulties in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.3 The United States, after all, cannot afford to involve itself in another military conflict. But at the same time there is little chance that President Obama will compromise to North Korea in an election year. Under such circumstances, a major shift in U.S. policy is unlikely to take place. Thus, Washington’s short-term goal is rather modest, namely to maintain the status quo on the peninsula. This implies living with a nuclear North Korea without accepting its nuclear power status, and at the same time strengthening the non-proliferation regime.4 Policy tools available to the United States include the bilateral dialogue with North Korea, the Six-Party Talks, the military alliances with South Korea and Japan, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Proliferation Security Initiative, the UN Security Council sanctions and other less formal bilateral, trilateral and multilateral dialogues. Among them, the Six-Party Talks, despite its twists and turns, is likely to remain central to the U.S. approach to the problem, since it is in Washington’s interests to maintain close coordination with other major powers in the region through this mechanism. Compared to the risk of proliferation, the nuclear weapons possessed by North Korea are probably a less direct and urgent threat to the United States. This has aroused suspicion that the United States might refocus its policy from denuclearization toward counter-proliferation. In order to reassure other countries about its position, the U.S. administration so far has repeatedly clarified its goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. But the time frame for achieving this goal remains unclear. In the long term, denuclearization and peaceful unification under the Republic of Korea could be the ultimate goals that the United States will pursue on the peninsula, though they remain open to debate. For the 3

Feng, Z. (2009). “Erci Heshi Houde Chaohe Weiji: Liufang Huitan yu Qiangzhi Waijiao [The North Korea Nuclear Crisis after the Second Nuclear Crisis: The Six-Party Talks and Coercive Diplomacy]”. Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], vol. 7, p. 45; Xian, F. and Dai, J. (2009). “Chaoxian Bandao Weiji Zouxiang Tanxi [Analyzing the Crisis Trend on the Korean Peninsula]”. Heping yu Fazhan [Peace and Development], vol. 3, p. 12. 4 Przystup, op. cit., p. 6.

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moment, these goals may appear like wishful thinking since Pyongyang is unlikely to change its course; nevertheless, Washington seems to be prepared for various future scenarios. In a stability or status quo scenario, the United States can do nothing more than patiently probe for new attitudes and behaviors in the North Korean leadership.5 In a contingency scenario, the United States has reportedly updated a military operations plan with South Korea, in which U.S. forces would intervene to remove weapons of mass destruction from the North and launch Marine assault operations. But the plan is extremely sensitive and its existence has never been confirmed.6 The United States has also tried to discuss contingency management with China, but has thus far received little response. In a unification scenario, the United States would need to readjust its military deployment on the peninsula and redefine its alliance with South Korea. Washington must discuss with both Seoul and Beijing such questions as what the scale and capability of U.S. forces would then be on the peninsula and whether there would be military bases north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). In fact, the United States has already reached an agreement with South Korea on the so-called “strategic flexibility” of the U.S. forces in Korea, aiming to turn the U.S.–Korean alliance from one confined to the peninsula to one that can address regional security problems such as non-traditional security threats and China’s military modernization.7 Given the unpredictable situation on the peninsula, the unification scenario could be either very remote or rather close. In any case, the U.S. role in the process and the subsequent transformation of the regional strategic landscape will be of great concern to all other parties. .

5

Kelly, J.A. (coauthor) (2010). “An End Game for Korea: Reverse-Engineering the Korean Conundrum”. The American Interest, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 7–8. 6 “S. Korea, U.S. ‘Complete N. Korea Contingency Plan’”. The Chosun Ilbo, 2 November, 2009. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/11/02/2009110200526.html/ [accessed January 25, 2010]. 7 Li, J. (2006). “Zhuhan Meijun Zhanlue Linghuoxing de Neihan ji Yingxiang [The Meaning and Impact of the Strategic Flexibility of the U.S. Forces in Korea]”. Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], vol. 4, pp. 50–54.

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China’s Policy China’s official policy on the North Korean nuclear issue remains unchanged, that is, denuclearization, peace and stability, and resolution of disputes through peaceful dialogue. As moderator of the Six-Party Talks, China has taken various efforts to bring North Korea, the United States and other parties to the negotiating table and coordinate policies among them. This approach has so far produced mixed results. On the one hand, peace and stability have been maintained on the peninsula and the five parties of the talks all adhere to the Six-Party process, but on the other hand North Korea is already nuclearized and shows little interest in trading off its nuclear weapons program. In such circumstances, people cannot help but begin to question the validity of the current policy. In fact, debate over North Korea policy has been intensifying not only among policy analysts but also the general public in China. The focus is on whether China should maintain its traditional ties with North Korea to balance U.S. influence in the region or coordinate more closely with the United States and get tougher on North Korea.8 The debate involves North Korea per se but has much broader strategic ramifications. A hard question here is how to assess the U.S.–China relationship. On the one hand, China shares many common interests with the United States in the global setting and values a stable bilateral relationship for its own peaceful development. Beijing thus would not allow the North Korean problem to hamper its overall strategic partnership with Washington. On the other hand, a lack of strategic mutual trust between China and the United States and their differences over issues involving China’s core interests, such as Taiwan and Tibet, force Beijing to cautiously consider the strategic value of North Korea. Although North Korea’s role as a buffer zone between the U.S. presence on the peninsula and China’s territory may have diminished in the military sense, the North Korean problem can still be useful to China in restraining U.S. influence in the region. Therefore, in light

8

For a detailed discussion of China’s debate over North Korea policy, see: International Crisis Group (2009). “Shades of the Red: China’s Debate over North Korea”. Asia Report, no. 179, November, pp. 5–11.

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of the uncertainty of the future of the U.S.–China relationship, North Korea can be either a strategic liability if people anticipate more cooperation between China and the United States, or a strategic asset if people see more competition ahead for the two great powers. Chinese analysts are concerned about North Korea’s exploitation of this mutual distrust and hedging between China and the United States.9 In fact, North Korea did attempt to drive a wedge in this relationship by playing up the China threat theory in its talks with the United States.10 But since both Washington and Beijing are aware of this tactic on the part of Pyongyang, neither side has been tempted into the trap. There is even an optimistic view in China that diplomatic efforts surrounding the North Korean issue have actually brought China and the United States closer and in a sense enhanced communication and mutual trust between the two countries.11 In all cases, North Korea’s attempt at a strategic relationship with the United States to balance China is no more than wishful thinking. It is true that China is distressed by the question of whether to prioritize peace and stability or denuclearization in its policy goals on North Korea.12 This dilemma has been aggravated by North Korea’s two nuclear tests and other provocative actions. As time goes on, it will be increasingly difficult for China to simultaneously pursue these two goals. In the foreseeable future, China will have no better choice but to give priority to stability and tolerate a North Korea that refuses to reverse its nuclear course. The question thus seems to be not only policy priorities, but also China’s lack of effective leverage over North Korea. Beijing does have the policy instruments to temporarily suspend or threaten to suspend its energy assistance to North Korea, but does not want to exacerbate the economic and social condition in the country. Similar to the case of the 9

Shen, D. (2009). “Cooperative Denuclearization toward North Korea”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 177–180. 10 Based on the author’s conversation with a Chinese Foreign Ministry official on 3 December 2009 in Beijing. 11 Feng, op. cit., p. 46. 12 Zhang, H. (2008). “Dongbeiya Jushi Xianzhuang he Qushi Yantaohui Zongshu [Summary of the Symposium on the Current Situation and Trends in Northeast Asia]”. Guoji Zhanlue Yanjiu Jianbao [International and Strategic Studies Report], no. 16, 25 April, p. 4.

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United States, North Korea does not rank high on China’s foreign policy agenda. This will restrain the Chinese government from taking measures that could destabilize the situation. It is therefore not possible that China will resort to comprehensive economic sanctions to bring North Korea to terms. China’s most desirable scenario is that Pyongyang will shift to a “reform and opening-up” policy. From the Chinese point of view, possessing nuclear weapons may enhance the North Korean leaders’ sense of security but cannot guarantee the survival of their regime. To survive, they must rebuild their economy. Hence, trading off nuclear weapons for foreign political recognition and economic assistance, or a so-called grand bargain, can be a rational alternative for North Korea to achieve sustainable survival.13 Under such logic, the Chinese government will continue its efforts to persuade Pyongyang to adopt a new survival strategy. However, the current North Korean leadership obviously uses a different calculation, in which the survival of their regime is not anchored on the country’s economic well-being but on its military strength, namely the songun or “military first” policy. An opening-up to foreign investment will, from Pyongyang’s perspective, only undermine the legitimacy of the regime. Thus, a bitter fact that China might have to swallow is that it can neither dissuade North Korea from seeking nuclear weapons nor persuade North Korea to open up its economy. In other words, China’s leverage over North Korea is really quite limited because China has little influence upon North Korea’s internal political dynamics. That being said, Pyongyang still has to rely on China for food and energy assistance, especially when it becomes increasingly isolated in the international community. Accordingly, an all-out confrontation with China is not in North Korea’s interests. This leaves Beijing some room for maneuver. Economic inducement, if not pressure, could possibly moderate Pyongyang’s behavior, at least in the near term. From a geopolitical point of view, unification of the Korean Peninsula would not necessarily work to China’s benefit, especially considering the U.S. military presence on the peninsula. The point here is not only whether 13

Based on the author’s conversation with a Chinese Foreign Ministry official on 9 November 2009 in Beijing.

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unification will be realized but more importantly how it will be realized. China welcomes an independent and peaceful unification of the Korean nation. But unification through war or any other coercive means is unacceptable to China. Even if some contingency situation should arise in the North, as a Chinese analyst argued, North Korea’s sovereignty must still be respected and any international intervention, be it South Korea’s occupation or U.S. forces taking control of the nuclear facilities in the North, must be carried out under the auspices of the United Nations in accordance with international law.14 A related question is whether China still regards North Korea as an ally. In the legal sense, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between China and North Korea remains effective today, which obliges China to offer military assistance in the event of North Korea being subjected to armed attack. Not surprisingly, views in China are highly divided on this question. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson has repeatedly remarked that China and North Korea have “normal state-to-state relations,” leaving ambiguity about China’s current and future military role on the peninsula.15 In the long run, however, a denuclearized, peaceful and unified Korea would be in China’s national interests, since China has consistently seen a stable and prosperous periphery as a prime cornerpiece of its diplomatic layout. The strategic orientation of a unified Korea and its implications for China will to a large extent depend on both the internal and external dynamics of the peninsula at that time, which have yet to enter mainstream policy debate in China.

South Korea’s Policy South Korea’s policy toward Pyongyang is significantly influenced by its domestic politics as well as its relations with the United States. During the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, South Korea actively

14

Wang, J. (coauthor) (2010). “An End Game for Korea: Reverse-Engineering the Korean Conundrum”. The American Interest, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 6–7. 15 See China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang’s regular press conferences on 17 March and 2 June 2009, available at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/s2510/2511/ [accessed January 30, 2010].

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promoted engagement and reconciliation with the North under the Sunshine Policy, culminating in the two presidents’ summit meetings with the North Korean leader in 2000 and 2006, respectively. Many South Koreans then perceived the U.S. hardline policy toward North Korea as only escalating the crisis and the U.S. military presence on the peninsula as an obstacle to their ultimate goal of national unification.16 In contrast, the Lee Myung-bak administration takes a more pro-American stance and has replaced the Sunshine Policy with an initiative called “Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness,” which promises to give the North largescale economic assistance aimed at raising the per capita income there to US$3,000 over the coming ten years on the condition that the North gives up its nuclear weapons and opens up to the outside world. The Sunshine Policy did contribute to defusing the situation, but was unfortunately not reciprocated by the North. The Vision 3000 initiative, on the other hand, has the merit of prioritizing denuclearization, but has an air of condescension and can even be perceived by the North as aiming to undermine their regime.17 With the current South Korean administration placing stress on its alliance with the United States, insisting on the inclusion of the nuclear issue in any inter-Korean summit, and raising North Korea’s human rights issue, inter-Korean relations seem to be almost at a deadlock. Yet, regardless of their different political and diplomatic orientations, the three recent South Korean administrations all pledged to promote economic exchange with the North, thereby giving Pyongyang an incentive to keep its door open to Seoul. South Koreans’ perception of the North Korean threat is also fluid. During the Sunshine Policy era, the public perception of the threat from the North gradually waned; and many did not regard the North as their major enemy.18 Even after North Korea’s first nuclear test in October 2006, polling results indicated that South Koreans blamed the United States

16

Snyder, S. (2003). “Sino–Korean Relations and the Future of the U.S.–Korean Alliance”. NBR Analysis, vol. 14, no. 1, June, p. 51. 17 Wang, Z. (2009). “Chaoxian Erci Heshi Tanyuan yu Waijiao Sikao [Probing the Causes of North Korea’s Second Nuclear Test and Thinking the Diplomacy]”. Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], vol. 7, p. 40. 18 Li, op. cit., p. 51.

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as much as they did North Korea.19 Statistical analysis, however, also shows that both the conservatives and the progressives in the South are keenly aware of the danger posed by North Korean nuclear weapons.20 Therefore, apprehension of the nuclear weapons in the North and hope for reconciliation with the North may coexist among the South Koreans. Analysts in South Korea are also highly concerned about crisis management in case of a contingency in the North. Various scenarios have been estimated and measures ranging from humanitarian aid to military intervention have been discussed. Some South Korean researchers suggest that Seoul, Washington and Beijing should have consultations on contingency measures, especially in the event of military intervention. From a South Korean perspective, it is more desirable that the U.S.–Korea allied forces and China should jointly intervene under the auspices of the United Nations than that China should take unilateral measures and confront the U.S.–Korea alliance on the peninsula.21 Many South Koreans have a positive view of unification, but consensus is lacking as to the specific policy and model for unification. Given the tremendous economic and political gap between the two Koreas, the public in the South is especially concerned about the great expense unification would entail. Researchers believe that an ideal approach is to realize unification through peaceful dialogue on the condition of co-existence and co-prosperity. They propose a gradualist model that gives preference to economic exchange and cooperation that aims at building an inter-Korean economic community, and allows the North to develop economically and politically as an independent administrative region before a full integration with the South.22 The current South Korean government also sees the North Korean nuclear issue as an obstacle to unification because no country would support 19

Kim, S. and Lim, W. (2007). “How to Deal with South Korea”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, p. 77. 20 Chae, H. and Kim, S. (2008). “Conservatives and Progressives in South Korea”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4, p. 84. 21 Based on the author’s talk with researchers of the Sejong Institute on 8 September 2009 in Seoul. 22 Based on the author’s talk with researchers of the Korea Institute for National Unification on 7 September 2009 in Seoul.

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the unification of a Korean Peninsula that is in possession of nuclear weapons.23 Hence, it could be said that Seoul will commit itself to denuclearization for the foreseeable future.

Japan’s Policy Japan–North Korean relations for a time saw the dawn of normalization when the two countries signed the Pyongyang Declaration of 2002, in which Japan promised to offer economic and humanitarian assistance after normalization and North Korea agreed to address the nuclear, missile, abductees (in euphemism) and other issues of Japan’s concern. However, the bilateral relationship has kept deteriorating thereafter due to the outbreak of the second North Korean nuclear crisis and deadlock on the abductees issue. Japan probably responded to the North Korean nuclear and missile threat in a most sensitive manner. A prevailing view in Japan is that Japan is, among the countries concerned, most likely to be the target of North Korea’s nuclear and missile attack. In the eyes of Japan, North Korea’s ballistic missiles remain incapable of striking the territory of the United States except Guam. China, Russia as well as the United States have their own nuclear deterrence; South Korea, though within the range of hundreds of Scud missiles deployed in the North, is after all of the same nation; only Japan, against which North Korea still harbors a deep animosity, is directly threatened by the 320 No-dong missiles deployed in North Korea.24 In such circumstances, Japan has made various efforts to reinforce the U.S. commitment to extended nuclear deterrence and to upgrade its own ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability. The Japanese government publicly supported the U.S. war in Iraq and dispatched Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) there to participate in reconstruction, in spite of overwhelming public opposition. Junichiro Koizumi, the then-Prime Minister,

23

Office of the President (Cheong Wa Dae) (2009). Global Korea: The National Security Strategy of the Republic of Korea. June, p. 16. 24 Michishita, N. (2009). “Playing the Same Game: North Korea’s Coercive Attempt at U.S. Reconciliation”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 146–147.

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directly linked the Iraqi situation with the North Korean nuclear threat even before the Iraq war. He argued that given the North Korean issue, Japan’s alliance with the United States provided strong deterrence and that Japan should thereby support the United States in launching the Iraq war even without a UN resolution.25 Such strategic thinking was in fact also widely shared by Japanese analysts at the time.26 In response to North Korea’s missile test in July 2006, the Japanese government immediately decided on a series of sanctions against Pyongyang, including banning the visit of a North Korean passengercargo ship called Man Gyong Bong from entering Japanese ports. The then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe went as far as to assert in a press conference that Japan should discuss attacking North Korean missile bases in the face of being threatened by assault, though short of using the term “preemptive strike” per se.27 After Pyongyang’s first nuclear test in October that year, Tokyo expanded the sanctions to all North Korean ships and imposed an embargo on exports from North Korea. Taro Aso, the then-Foreign Minister, hinted that Japan could even discuss arming itself with nuclear weapons when a neighboring country possesses them.28 He later, as Prime Minister, mentioned the rising argument for Japan’s own nuclear armament again when meeting with the South Korean President in July 2009.29 Hence, the North Korean nuclear issue has virtually lifted the lid on Japan’s nuclear taboo. 25

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s statement in the budget committee of the upper house, 156th session of the Diet, 5 March 2003. Meeting record of the budget committee of the upper house, no. 6, p. 4. http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/ [accessed January 28, 2010]. 26 Masayuki, Y. (2003). “Iraku Mondai ga Semaru Nihon no Sentaku [Japan’s Choice Urged by the Iraq Problem]”. Chuokolon, vol. 118, no. 4, p. 80; Tanaka, A. (2003). “Iraku Senso to Nichibei Domei [Iraq and U.S.–Japan Alliance]”. Kokusaimondai [International Affairs], vol. 524, pp. 65–67. 27 “Tekino Kichi Kogeki, Kentokenkyu ga Hitsuyo [Necessary to Discuss and Study Attacking the Enemy’s Bases]”. Asahi Shimbun, 10 July, 2006. 28 Foreign Minister Taro Aso’s statement in the foreign affairs committee of the lower house, 165th session of the Diet, 18 October 2006. Meeting record of the foreign affairs committee of the lower house, no. 1, p. 21. 29 “Kitachosen Kaku Meguri, Shusho ga Kakubusoron ni Genkyu, Nikkan Syuno Kaidanji [Prime Minister Referred to Nuclear Armament Discussion Concerning North Korea in Japan–Korean Summit Meeting]”. Asahi Shimbun, 31 July, 2009.

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The Japanese government, however, is still committed to the country’s three long-standing non-nuclear principles (not to develop, possess or allow entry of nuclear weapons). This recent debate over Japan’s nuclear option may only consolidate the argument that the existing policy is in Japan’s national interests. It can also be useful to reinforce the U.S. commitment to the nuclear umbrella. Nevertheless, the debate could send misleading signals and raise fears of a regional arms race.30 China, for instance, is always concerned about the possibility of Japan going nuclear.31 Although not directly driving Japan to pursue independent nuclear deterrence, the perception of an imminent North Korean threat has accelerated Japan’s deployment of the BMD system. The Japanese government decided to introduce BMD in 2003, successfully tested the SM-3 and PAC-3 missiles in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and deployed 6 Aegis destroyers equipped with BMD capability and 17 PAC-3 fire units by 2011.32 In response to North Korea’s satellite (ballistic missile) launch in April 2009, Tokyo for the first time implemented a national drill of its BMD system. These deployments on the part of Japan are for the moment focused on North Korea, but can also neutralize the nuclear capability of China and Russia and thereby heighten concerns about the evolving nuclear balance in the region. Another problem that has exacerbated the Japan–North Korean relationship is the abductees issue. Since the problem began to attract public attention in Japan, some politicians, civil society organizations and the media have enthusiastically involved themselves in the debate on North Korea, and virtually demonized North Korea as a country in public opinion. The Japanese government is thus under constant domestic pressure to get tougher on North Korea. Apart from the unilateral sanction measures mentioned above, Japan also took the lead in pushing for harsher UN resolutions against North Korea, and tried to put the abductees issue onto the agenda of the Six-Party Talks. But unfortunately Japan’s sticking to the

30

Szechenyi, N. (2006). “Japan’s Nuclear Debate: To Be Continued?”. Japan Chair Platform (Center for Strategic and International Studies), 14 December, pp. 1–2. 31 “Japan Looked into Going Nuclear: Media”. China Daily, 26 December, 2006. 32 Boeisho (Ministry of Defense, Japan) (2011). Nihon no Boei: Boe Hakusho [Defense of Japan: Defense White Paper]. p. 239.

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abductees issue has complicated the coordination among the countries involved and gives North Korea a chance to exploit the differences. In the meantime, Tokyo did keep negotiating with Pyongyang both openly and behind the scenes, but so far has made little progress on the abductees and other bilateral issues. Many Japanese view the Six-Party Talks as a failure, since they have not been able to keep North Korea from going nuclear. Nonetheless, the Japanese government does acknowledge the necessity of pursuing its goals within a regional multilateral framework, currently being the SixParty Talks. With the Japan–North Korean normalization process institutionally linked to the Six-Party Talks through its Working Groups, Japan has thus far adhered to this framework. Similar to other countries, maintaining the status quo on the Korean Peninsula is in Japan’s national interests as well. But Tokyo may feel more urgency to realize denuclearization. Some Japanese analysts have also proposed that trilateral contingency planning be carried out among Japan, the United States and South Korea in order to address a possible military conflict and refugee crisis.33 In the long run, Japan may not oppose the unification of the Korean Peninsula. Regarding China’s rise as its top strategic concern, Tokyo probably will actively seek cooperation with a unified Korea in order to balance China’s regional influence. However, Japan will also have to deal with a stronger and unified Korea that has serious historical and territorial disputes with it.

Russia’s Policy After the end of the Cold War, Russia’s policy toward the Korean Peninsula for a time took the path of alienating the North and leaning toward the South, but later shifted to a more balanced stance in order to restore its influence in the region. The major goal of Russia is to maintain the stability of the peninsula and to promote the development of its Far Eastern area. 33

Tanaka, H. (2009). “The North Korea Nuclear Crisis: Five Guiding Principles”. East Asia Insights (Japan Center for International Exchange), vol. 4, no. 2, July, p. 2.

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The Soviet Union was once an ally and main source of assistance to North Korea. But when Mikhail Gorbachev began to adopt a pro-Western policy and tried to obtain loans from foreign countries, the Soviet Union reversed the direction of its Korean policy and stunned North Korea by establishing diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1990. South Korea reciprocated by promising to provide a loan package worth US$3 billion. In 1991, the Soviet Union started to demand hard currency for exports to North Korea; consequently, trade between the two countries plummeted by 70% that year. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Boris Yeltsin’s leadership inherited the Soviet policy of tilting toward Seoul. In 1992, Moscow stopped its weapons supply and economic assistance to Pyongyang, and canceled a cooperation plan to send 64 scientists to the North to help develop its atomic energy industry. In 1993, it was announced that Russia was no longer obliged to defend North Korea as stipulated in the 1961 Soviet–North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. In the meantime, Russia moved closer to South Korea, signing a joint declaration with Seoul in 1994, and agreeing to repay Soviet debt by providing South Korea with raw materials, industrial products and military technology and equipment.34 Moscow’s abandonment policy exacerbated Pyongyang’s isolation, and in a way accelerated Pyongyang’s steps toward developing nuclear capabilities of its own. What followed then was the first North Korean nuclear crisis of 1993–1994, which highlighted Russia’s strategic decline in the region. Moscow was excluded from the four-party peace talks to cope with the crisis; and its offer to supply nuclear reactors to North Korea as part of the KEDO agreement was rejected by South Korea and the United States.35 The bitterness of being marginalized in Northeast Asia led to Russia’s rethinking and re-orientation of its Korean policy. After Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996, Moscow made various diplomatic efforts to restore its relations

34

Ji, Z. (2003). “Eluosi Chaoxian Bandao Zhengce de Yanbian ji Zoushi [The Evolution and Trend of Russia’s Policy toward the Korean Peninsula]”. Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], vol. 2, p. 8. 35 Ferguson, J.P. (2003). “Russia’s Role on the Korean Peninsula and Great Power Relations in Northeast Asia”. NBR Analysis, vol. 14, no. 1, June, pp. 38–39.

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with Pyongyang, culminating in signing the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness, and Cooperation. The new treaty replaced the 1961 treaty’s automatic military intervention clause with an article that stipulates the mutual obligation of immediate contact in case of a security crisis. The meaning of this “mutual contact” clause, however, could be subject to different interpretations, which leaves Russia the alternative of intervening militarily in a conflict scenario on the peninsula or not.36 During the Vladimir Putin era, Russia further expanded its diplomacy toward the two Koreas. In his respective summit meetings with Kim Daejung and Kim Jong-il, the Russian President expressed to both sides his interest in linking a trans-Siberian railway system to the inter-Korean railway. He also invited South Korea to participate in the exploitation of oil and gas in Siberia and Sakhalin, and showed willingness to help North Korea modernize its railroads, plants and power stations. The responses from Seoul and Pyongyang, however, were not as enthusiastic as Moscow might have expected. Russia remains economically weak and has little of substance to offer North Korea. Pyongyang is also unhappy about Moscow’s arms sales to Seoul. On the other side, South Korean businessmen are still cautious about investing in Russia. The second North Korean nuclear crisis and the subsequent Six-Party Talks have given Russia a chance to regain its weight in regional security affairs. As an active participant in the Six-Party process, Russia tried to exert a unique influence by adhering to the denuclearization goal on the one hand and opposing tougher sanctions against North Korea on the other. From Moscow’s perspective, a balanced relationship with both Koreas is in Russia’s national interests, because the South can provide assistance and investment for developing its Far Eastern area, while the North can serve as a handle for its diplomatic return to Northeast Asia. A major difficulty Russia faces, however, is that it lacks leverage over North Korea. For the time being, the stability of the peninsula is high on Russia’s policy agenda, which partly explains its reluctance to agree on harsh sanctions that could jeopardize the Pyongyang regime. A collapse of North 36

Joo, S.H. (2001). “The New Friendship Treaty between Moscow and Pyongyang”. Comparative Strategy, vol. 20, pp. 475–476.

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Korea would result in refugees pouring into Russia’s territory and consequently destabilizing the social and economic condition of the Far East, a scenario that is obviously against Russia’s interests. In the long term, Moscow may support unification of the peninsula as long as it is realized in a peaceful way. From Russia’s point of view, a unified Korea could counterbalance the influence of China and Japan in the region, and at the same time create more opportunities for its economic development. That being said, the status quo — i.e. a divided peninsula — is probably in Russia’s best interests, because it could give Russia more maneuvering space and most importantly prevent any major power from acquiring a predominant position over the peninsula.

Convergence and Divergence among the Major Powers There is both convergence and divergence among the major powers over their policy priorities on the Korean Peninsula. Denuclearization, being the central task of the Six-Party Talks, is a basic goal shared by the five countries. Now that it is almost impossible to reverse the current North Korean regime’s course of going nuclear, the five countries must make sure never to recognize North Korea as a nuclear state and to strictly implement the UN sanctions. By cutting off the financial sources of North Korea’s nuclear and missile program and preventing the inflow of all weapons-related technology and materials into North Korea, other countries can at least decelerate, if not stop, the weaponization process of Pyongyang’s nuclear capability. Given North Korea’s nearly bankrupt economy and its eagerness to obtain foreign assistance, it might not be so difficult to get Pyongyang back to the negotiation table. The problem, however, is that even when bilateral and multilateral dialogues are resumed, Pyongyang could still pay simple lip service to denuclearization. The five countries thus must be both patient and resolute in pursuing the ultimate goal of denuclearization. Stability is also a shared interest of the five countries. For South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, chaos in North Korea could result in serious refugee problems that would negatively affect the stability of the region. The United States, as mentioned above, may still view

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the collapse of the Pyongyang regime as one alternative to solve the problem. Yet, under the current situation a collapse would cause loss of control of the nuclear weapons in the North and thereby increase the risk of proliferation, the least desirable scenario for the United States. Thus, ironically, the United States now has a stake in maintaining the North Korean regime. Given the disorder caused by Pyongyang’s ill-fated currency reform and constant shortage of food in the country, the international community should be prepared to provide humanitarian assistance to North Korea in accordance with UN resolutions. Economic disaster in the North should not be allowed to lead to humanitarian, political and security disasters. Non-proliferation is definitely a top priority for the United States, and is also supported by the other four countries and the international community at large. Incidents such as the Thai authority’s seizure in Bangkok of a cargo aircraft loaded with North Korean weapons including missiles and explosives that was reportedly heading toward Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates’ seizure of a vessel laden with North Korean weapons heading for Iran, and the tracking and forcing back of another North Korean cargo ship, the Kangnam, to its home port on its way to Myanmar have demonstrated that so far the obligations stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1874 have been faithfully fulfilled by UN member states.37 The major powers in Northeast Asia, as neighboring countries of North Korea, naturally bear more responsibility for tightening the ban on arms exports from Pyongyang. Denuclearization, stability and non-proliferation, therefore, can be regarded as the common goals of the five major powers in the region. However, on such questions as contingency planning and unification of the peninsula, these countries may have different strategic calculations. The United States and South Korea are understandably more ready to intervene in case of contingency, which from the Chinese point of view would infringe on North Korea’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and consequently violate international law. It would be hard for China 37

“Arms Sales Highlight N. Korea’s Duplicity”. The Chosun Ilbo, 14 December, 2009. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/12/14/2009121400696.html/ [accessed January 30, 2010].

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to accept an arrangement in which the U.S. and South Korean forces take military and political control, while asking China simply to provide humanitarian aid.38 Even between the United States and South Korea, to what extent the U.S. forces would take joint operations with South Korea or simply intervene unilaterally remains a question. Thus, how to coordinate the interests of different countries and figure out an acceptable way to manage a crisis is a great challenge to the countries concerned. No country directly opposes Korean unification per se. But for all major powers in the region, a unification scenario will increase the uncertainty of the strategic environment in Northeast Asia. A peaceful unification in accordance with international law is certainly preferred, but cannot be guaranteed. Unification that takes place through war or other coercive forms will inevitably create a destabilizing situation and heighten tensions among the countries concerned. The status of the U.S. forces in a unified Korea will naturally raise concerns in surrounding countries. The United States may try to justify the continuation of the U.S.–Korean alliance and its military presence on the peninsula by emphasizing its role of balancing China and stabilizing the region, a logic that is likely to be accepted by Japan and Russia. China, for its part, will probably have mixed feelings over the U.S. forces in Korea, acknowledging its stabilizing role for the time being while fearing the detrimental effects of American predominance over the peninsula. South Korea’s attitude toward the U.S. forces is complicated. Public sentiment is unlikely to welcome the U.S. presence if the North Korean threat disappears, whereas policymakers and concerned elites may realistically keep supporting the U.S.–Korean alliance as well as the U.S. forces on the peninsula. In any case, the rationale for Koreans to seek an offshore balancer that would offer security against the surrounding big powers will remain mostly valid.39 Moreover, a unified Korea will continue to face territorial and historical disputes with Japan. And similarly, irredentist claims among Korean nationalists linked with contention over history could also become a potential flashpoint between a unified Korea and China. 38 39

Wang (2010), op. cit., p. 7. Snyder, op. cit., p. 72.

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Looking at the framework to deal with the above-mentioned challenges surrounding the peninsula, it is advisable that both bilateral and multilateral dialogues and cooperation be enhanced. Apart from emphasizing the alliances with South Korea and Japan, the United States should make efforts to stabilize its relations with China and Russia so as to avoid the negative impact that an overall deterioration in its relations with these two powers would have on their coordination over North Korea. In addition, the United States, Japan and South Korea should also take appropriate steps to hold both informal and formal bilateral talks with North Korea on such topics as diplomatic normalization and reconciliation. Some countries suggest that in response to Pyongyang’s provocation, a five-party dialogue without North Korea’s participation should be held to demonstrate unity and cohesion among them. China, however, believes that this kind of action for the moment would further estrange North Korea from the international community and reinforce Pyongyang’s logic of developing nuclear weapons against foreign enemies. The Six-Party Talks, therefore, remain a practical option to peacefully solve the problem. Policy coordination through the UN process should also be enhanced to promote more concerted actions over the peninsula. In the long term, a regional multilateral framework should be developed to overlook security issues in Northeast Asia. Such a multilateral arrangement will be conducive to the process of a peaceful Korean unification.40 It will also contribute to diluting the negative effects caused by traditional bilateral alliances and alleviating mutual distrust among the major powers. Whether the Six-Party Talks will evolve into such an institutionalized regional formula remains uncertain. But this ad hoc mechanism has already been successful in bringing together the major powers of the region and facilitating policy convergence among them. It is therefore advisable for the countries involved to continue to work on multilateral security cooperation on the basis of the Six-Party Talks, with the specific form and membership adjusted to the problems it will address.

40

Kim, Y. (2003). “The Great Powers in Peaceful Korean Reunification”. International Journal on World Peace, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 12–13.

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Implications for Sino–Japanese Relations Based on their shared interest in maintaining the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula, China and Japan are engaged in close communication and coordination on the North Korean issue through the Six-Party Talks and other bilateral, trilateral and multilateral dialogues. In the Joint Statement of the 2008 summit, for instance, the leaders of the two countries resolved to promote a “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests,” “to jointly do the utmost to maintain peace and stability in the Northeast Asia region and to together promote the Six-Party Talks process.”41 Basic goals and principles being agreed, several differences still exist between the two countries that require further consultation. As mentioned above, the North Korean nuclear crisis has accelerated Japan’s deployment of the BMD system and has caused the nuclear debate in Japan to flare up. Whether this will usher in a new era characterized by Japan’s more proactive security role in the region has naturally become a focal point of public discussion in China. The security dilemma between China and the U.S.–Japan alliance also poses a challenge to Sino–Japanese relations. Should China and the United States fail to cooperate in a possible contingency on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, as an ally of the United States, would face difficulty in taking a position vis-à-vis China. Furthermore, given the possible intervention by the U.S.–Japan alliance in a conflict scenario across the Taiwan Strait, China reasonably worries about the strategic ramifications of Japan’s BMD deployment, which would neutralize China’s deterrent capability and thereby weaken its leverage over the Taiwan issue. In this context, strategic dialogue between the two countries should be strengthened so as to alleviate the security dilemma and avoid misperception and miscalculation in contingency scenarios. China and Japan also differ on the question of how much pressure should be put on North Korea. Japan is dissatisfied with China’s reluctance to draw concessions from Pyongyang through levying harsher 41

“Joint Statement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Comprehensive Promotion of a ‘Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests’”. 7 May, 2008, Tokyo. http://www.mofa.go.jp/ region/asia-paci/china/index.html/ [accessed January 30, 2010].

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sanctions, while China is concerned that Japan’s unilateral sanctions against North Korea will throw the negotiations into a stalemate and even escalate the tension. Considering the different images of Pyongyang in public opinion in the two countries and the different impact that Pyongyang could have on the two countries’ geopolitical interests, it is not difficult to understand this divergence. China and Japan, however, could also try to find common ground through the process of discussing and implementing UN resolutions. The impasse over the abductees issue may have held back Japan’s assistance to North Korea for the moment. But since Tokyo is still committed to bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang, when the appropriate time comes, China and Japan, together with other parties, could consult on issues of humanitarian and economic aid as well. A nuance between the two countries’ positions regarding sanctions and assistance may continue to exist. Yet through close consultation the two governments will be able to reach more understanding and achieve more coordination on these matters. In addition to bilateral interaction, China and Japan can also pursue policy coordination through trilateral dialogues. In the Action Plan issued at the first China–Japan–South Korea trilateral summit in December 2008, it was announced that “the three countries shared the view that the SixParty Talks is an important mechanism for maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia at large,” and “reaffirmed their commitment to realize the goals outlined in the Joint Statement of 19 September 2005 of the Six-Party Talks.”42 And in the second such trilateral summit, held in October 2009, the three countries again promised to “remain committed to dialogue and consultation and continue to work through peaceful means to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and to “make joint efforts with other parties for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks.”43 Besides, an official trilateral dialogue among China, Japan and the United States is also in preparation.

42

“Action Plan for Promoting Trilateral Cooperation among the People’s Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea”. December, 2008, Fukuoka. 43 “Joint Statement on the Tenth Anniversary of Trilateral Cooperation among the People’s Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea”. 10 October, 2009, Beijing. http:// www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/jck/index.html/ [accessed January 30, 2010].

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This dialogue in the future can take the form of summits or meetings among senior officials, and focus on discussing both traditional and nontraditional security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. North Korea may remain too sensitive a topic at the initial stage of such a dialogue, but will certainly become a top item on the agenda in due course. In any case, these trilateral dialogues give China and Japan another effective mechanism to work together in regional affairs. Over 100 years ago, turmoil in Korea dragged China and Japan into a devastating war, which resulted in half a century of animosity and war between the two countries. This tragic chapter of history shall never be repeated. Today a stable, prosperous and nuclear-free Korean Peninsula is definitely in the national interests of both China and Japan. In time to come, the two countries will also benefit from the independent and peaceful unification of the Korean nation, because unification is the ultimate solution to stabilizing the peninsula. To achieve these goals, intensive consultation and careful co-management is needed. China and Japan, together with the other parties concerned, should first of all adhere to the goal of denuclearization and strengthen the non-proliferation regime, while at the same time engaging Pyongyang in negotiation through such positive means as humanitarian and economic assistance, diplomatic normalization, and establishment of a peace regime on the peninsula, as well as negative means such as UN-sponsored sanctions. People cannot, however, be too hopeful about the outcome of the negotiation with Pyongyang. It is unrealistic to expect that North Korea would willingly reverse its course of going nuclear. It is also impossible for outsiders to change the internal politics of North Korea. To put it differently, engagement is necessary in terms of stabilizing the situation, but is far from enough to solve the problem. No matter whether a soft or hard landing for North Korea occurs in the future, enhanced multilateral coordination is required in order to build permanent peace on the peninsula. China and Japan, in all senses, have high stakes in this process and must commit themselves to finding a future solution for the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia at large. A common strategic vision and hardheaded calculation, rather than ideological or emotional bias, should be the guiding principles for addressing this formidable challenge, as well as fostering long-time mutual trust between these two powers.

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Chapter 8

Regional Structures in Northeast Asia: Whither and What?

Niklas Swanström

Regionalism, regionalization and regional cooperation have been buzzwords for a long time, not least in Europe where the trend has been towards integration in economic as well as in political terms. Moreover, Europe has increasingly created a common identity that has strengthened overall cooperation. Nowhere in the world has there been such deep integration as in Europe, and nowhere else has there been an attempt to create a similar development. Cooperation has proven to be a positive development in most regions of the world, both from the security and the economic perspectives. For better or worse, globalization and cooperation have increased globally and regionally, and have brought people closer to each other than ever before — in some cases, this has resulted in tension. What constitutes cooperation and what its end results should be are topics of debate, and ideas vary from one region to another. The European view has often been that regional cooperation should lead to greater integration and supra-national cooperation. There is, however, a question as to whether cooperation always has to lead to integration and the creation of common identities, as in Europe. There tends to be a more skeptical view of regional cooperation in general and integration in particular in Northeast Asia and throughout Asia.1 1

Swanström, N. (2002). Regional Cooperation and Conflict Management: Lessons from the Pacific Rim. Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. 129

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In many ways, Northeast Asia has proven that cooperation does not automatically lead to integration and the creation of common identities. To give one example, economic cooperation in Northeast and East Asia has not led to any substantial integration, even if there are voices raised arguing that East Asia could develop a stronger regional sense of shared identity than the EU has done.2 Northeast Asia has had a long history of lack of cooperation and there is general skepticism towards multilateral structures. Moves towards regionalism have received a better welcome from governments and populations and have been more successful when they come in the context of bilateral relations. There has been a persistent reluctance towards cooperation and integration into a regional structure in Northeast Asia. This does not mean that there is a lack of intellectual thinking or creativity when it comes to designing different approaches to multilateral cooperation and coordination. On the contrary, an alphabet soup of regional organizations in Northeast Asia has emerged that is impressive in itself, and intellectual debate has flourished. There have never been more regional structures dealing with different aspects of security and development. However, having a multitude of regional structures does not automatically mean having effective structures. Indeed, there has been much criticism to the effect that many of these attempts are no more than paper tigers. I do share the opinion that much of the regional development is paperwork, even if the goal is far from anything comparable to the European Union, and very little has been accomplished that has had a lasting impact on multilateral relations. On the other hand, there are reasons for some optimism in the region, due in large part to the improved relations between China and Japan but also to the improvement in cross-Strait relations, which has greatly improved the cooperative climate in the region. Both China and Japan have confirmed their support for and engagement with the multilateral process in Northeast Asia and an extended East Asia. Each Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in Japan has spoken positively about opportunities for multilateralism, not least Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. In China, there has likewise been a very positive development 2

Nakasone, Y. (2006). “The Route to an East Asian Community”. Global Asia, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 16–18.

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with regard to multilateralism and in 2002 at the 16th Party Congress the Chinese Communist Party lifted up multilateral cooperation — a position that was further strengthened at the 17th Party Congress. It is beyond doubt that both states attach great importance to the multilateral process, the success of which is more debatable.3 The bilateral relationship between China and Japan is especially important in Northeast Asia, as they are the two major powers in the region and their economic and political clout will inevitably impact the regional structures.

Warm Economic and Cold Political Cooperation A distinction needs to be made between business relations, which have long been deeply integrated (with the exception of North Korea), and political relations, which have been frosty and difficult to coordinate and integrate.4 Northeast Asia has emerged as a global financial power and, to a certain extent, a driving engine of international economic development. In 2005, South Korea, Japan and China together accounted for 16.9% of the world’s GDP, 15.7% of the world’s exports, 23.6% of the world’s population and 38.1% of the world’s foreign exchange reserves.5 Much of this economic strength is traded within the region and to a large extent the Northeast Asian markets are more important than external markets, apart from the EU and the U.S. Indeed, the East Asian trade constitutes well over 50% of the total trade.6 Northeast Asia as a market and as an exporter is crucial to the world market, but despite the region’s economic development and international influence, it has not developed into a 3

Li, M. (2009). “China’s Participation in Asian Multilateralism: Pragmatism Prevails”. In R. Huisken (ed.), Rising China: Power and Reassurance, The Australian National University E Press, Canberra. 4 Zhang, Y. (2007). “The Future of Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation”. Seoul, 19 November. 5 World Bank (2006). “World Development Indicators”. 6 World Trade Organization (2009). “International Trade Statistics 2009”. Geneva; Kawai, M. (2005). “East Asian Economic Regionalism: Progress and Challenges”. Journal of Asian Economics, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 29–55; Kawai, M. and Wignaraja, G. (2008). “Regionalism as an Engine of Multilateralism: A Case for a Single East Asian FTA”. Working Paper Series on Regional Economic Integration, no. 14, Asian Development Bank.

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political power internationally. This is due in large part to the fact that the region is anything but economically integrated and is even less coordinated in the political arena. This said, even in the economic field, we do not find much multilateral cooperation. In fact, most of the trade agreements are bilateral and compromised to the extent that Richard Baldwin, among others, has compared the situation to a noodle bowl.7 This would indicate a network of primarily bilateral agreements that forms a regional structure of more or less overlapping trade agreements — according to Richard Baldwin, the attempt fails to reach the level of true regionalism. Politically, there is even less cooperation: even in Central Asia, a region marked by its reluctance to cooperate, there is more cooperation than in Northeast Asia.8 The level of suspicion between the various states is extremely high and tension often rises for minor reasons, such as the student performance and dumpling incident which ravaged the bilateral relationship between China and Japan. The fragile, albeit greatly improved, Sino–Japanese relationship is at the heart of the failure in the region to accomplish effective multilateral cooperation. It would, however, be superficial to claim that Sino–Japanese relations are the sole reason for the failure to cooperate. South and North Korea are formally at war with each other; Japan’s occupation of Korea is still bitterly remembered; Korean–Chinese tensions are at times high, especially as border issues still seem unresolved; China’s regional stature seems threatening to the Koreas; and the cross-Strait tension between Beijing and Taipei has divided many governments in the region.9 It is clear that the lack of cordial relations between the great powers of the region will increase the difficulties in promoting region-wide cooperation. The situation is not made easier by the history of the Japanese invasion of China and its occupation of parts of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Japanese relations 7

Baldwin, R.E. (2008). “Managing the Noodle Bowl: The Fragility of East Asian Regionalism”. The Singapore Economic Review, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 449–478. 8 Norling, N. and Swanström, N. (2007). “The Virtues and Potential Gains of Continental Trade in Eurasia”. Asian Survey, vol. 47, pp. 351–373. 9 For the historical argument and its impact on the current situation, see: Gries, P.H., Zhang, Q., Masui, Y. and Lee, Y.W. (2009). “Historical Beliefs and the Perception of Threat in Northeast Asia: Colonialism, the Tributary System, and China–Japan–Korea Relations in the Twenty-First Century”. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 245–265.

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with Taiwan have at times been particularly troubling. The population of Taiwan has been the part of China that has been most pro-Japanese, and Japan has often defended especially conservative elements in Taiwan that argue for the independence and autonomy of Taiwan. Maritime issues, such as border delimitation, are also a troubling factor in bilateral relations. There is no shortage of issues complicating bilateral and multilateral relations in the region, but on the other hand there is no shortage of good reasons for cooperation. What is striking is that historically as the tensions among governments have decreased (excluding North Korea versus South Korea and Japan) and trade has increased significantly, there is also a counter-trend whereby the populations distrust each other more and there is a direct fear of the other sides. The situation is, in other words, neither positive nor negative but rather complex. Nevertheless, it is still a significant improvement and increasingly there is a vibrant exchange of ideas and information that assists in consolidating the recent positive developments.10

The Alphabet Soup As noted earlier, there is a multitude of regional organizations and cooperative structures in Northeast Asia, but it is significant that most of these — and particularly the most effective ones — have an East Asian focus or an even broader scope. There are relatively few organizations that focus exclusively on the Northeast Asian states. It is apparent that Northeast Asia has a problem in developing regional structures that only focus on the region itself and its problems, a deficit that is serious. Thus, it has become virtually impossible to talk about cooperation in Northeast Asia without including the broader framework. There are a number of minor structures that focus on limited questions or subregions of Northeast Asia, but the more significant structures are all trans-regional. This deficit is most apparent in the security field and regarding political cooperation. There are virtually no security organizations that deal with 10

Swanström, N. and Kokubun, R. (eds.) (2008). Sino–Japanese Relations: The Need for Conflict Prevention and Management. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne.

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Northeast Asian security issues. The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was terminated in May 2006, but was a key example of how a security deficit in the region was managed by a trans-regional grouping, which was to a large extent toothless. Similarly, the Six-Party Talks (SPT) are trans-regional, due in large part to the importance of the U.S. factor but also due to the failure of China and Japan to agree on a joint approach to the situation on the Korean Peninsula. There has never been a serious attempt for the Northeast Asian states to jointly try to resolve the issues on the Korean Peninsula. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has been one of the most important attempts for the region to create a security dialogue on a broader scale. It is telling that the ARF is transregional and that Sino–Japanese relations play a minor role here, something that has made it possible to engage in this structure. Sadly enough, the ARF as a security organization is largely stalemated, due mostly to the different perceptions of how the organization should be used and how it should be structured formally.11 Moreover, it would be unlikely that China and Japan would allow a trans-regional organization such as the ARF to have a major impact in Northeast Asia, as it would decrease their own influence. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become the most interesting model for security discussions in Northeast Asia; the inability to create something similar in China and Japan (as well as South Korea) highlights some of the security deficits in the ASEAN Plus Three and ASEAN Plus One formats. The informal and consensusdriven model is highly interesting for Northeast Asia, but Northeast Asia has not been able to translate that into a regional structure; rather, it has begun cooperation with ASEAN to lead and bridge the security deficits in Northeast Asia. In the economic field, there have been many arguments that the driving forces are natural and lack government support and yet despite this (or maybe due to it) have been very successful. It is evident that the economic development in the region has been impressive and the world’s economic powerhouse has been directed towards Northeast Asia. Regretfully from a regional perspective, even here it is mostly trans-regional 11

Swanström, N. (2002). Regional Cooperation and Conflict Management: Lessons from the Pacific Rim. Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University.

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structures such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) that have been most prominent in creating regional structures for economic liberalization and cooperation. This said, none of the structures can offer a framework that has regulatory power, but are mostly limited to having discussions and providing general frameworks for economic cooperation. This is a major drawback in terms of long-term cooperation and creation of trust between China and Japan, as they cannot even agree on regional frameworks, despite the very high level of economic interaction. Instead, both China and the region have turned to ASEAN for guidance in the loose frameworks of ASEAN Plus One and ASEAN Plus Three and the free trade areas that are under discussion for inclusion in this framework. Discussions of an East Asian Community (EAC) have been in the air since the 1st ASEAN Plus Three Summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 1997, but there was little agreement on what exactly this meant until the Joint Statement on East Asian Cooperation in 1999 in Manila.12 Despite an agreement on the need for multilateralism, there was already a debate at the time on the membership issue as well as on the influence of the organization, which slowed down the creation of a regional community. China has been, and remains, reluctant to include new members, while Japan has been very open to new members. The discussion about an EAC increased in both depth and extent when the East Asia Vision Group articulated its vision in 2001 in Brunei at the 5th Summit of the ASEAN Plus Three leaders,13 at which there was a realization that increased regionalism and regionalization was here to stay. More concrete measures towards the creation of a community came in 2002 when the East Asia Study Group presented 17 long-term and 9 middle- and long-term measures for community building.14 The natural prolongation of this has been hotly debated — China has put its focus on deepening of the organization, whereas Japan has argued strongly for a broader structure (10+3+3)

12

Kenichi, I. (2007). “State of East Asian Community Concept and ASEAN Integration”. GFJ Commentary, 21 February. 13 East Asia Vision Group (2001). Towards an East Asian Community. Brunei. 14 Kenichi, I. (2007). “State of East Asian Community Concept and ASEAN Integration”. GFJ Commentary, 21 February.

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including India, Australia and New Zealand. It is no surprise to find China and Japan on different sides of the process, but more surprising is that neither of the states argued for the inclusion of the U.S. in the beginning, even if Japan did not exclude admitting the U.S. at a later date in accordance with its view of an open form of regional cooperation. Despite the great number of multilateral structures that have been initiated and the verbal support for further regional integration and deepening of an Asian identity, the realist (realpolitik) perspective still lurks behind all strategies and national agendas are predominant in all political decisions. Little or no national sovereignty is surrendered to regional organizations and structures that could deal more effectively with security challenges and trade-promoting policies. This is not always a bad policy, but in many areas the region will underperform and in some cases fail to improve regional and, by extension, national security. It is striking to see that there are relatively few references to a Northeast Asian Community or Northeast Asian security organizations. Despite the need for regional security mechanisms and trade-oriented regional mechanisms, the most important structures are trans-regional in character. There are several reasons for this deficit, including leadership, differing visions on cooperation and old-fashioned power politics.

Leadership and Structures Some of the major challenges the region faces are questions of leadership. That is, will China, Japan or South Korea lead the regional structure, or could a collective leadership work? It is evident that there is a conflict of interest between China and Japan regarding the leadership role. It might not be so much the question that any of the states would like to take the lead, but rather that they cannot accept the other state taking the lead. Historical issues as well as (and more importantly) current issues such as political and economic influence make it difficult to accept either of these two states as a regional leader. This is one of the most important differences and is not an easy one to bridge. Smaller states such as South Korea (North Korea or Taiwan would not even be considered) would not be able or allowed to lead the region into a regional organization — this leaves the region to rely on extra-regional actors such as ASEAN, which is not

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sufficient to lead the region forward as it suffers from a number of problems.15 Apart from the leadership issue, there are structural problems with the possible construction of a regional structure, namely how the different actors view the future of regional organizations. China, on the one hand, thinks that deepening the current structure is fundamental and is not interested in diversifying the membership to South Asia, and particularly not to the U.S. Japan, on the other hand, is more open to increased membership and has not excluded the possibility of including the U.S. in this. In essence, China is more interested, together with Malaysia among others, to focus on ASEAN Plus Three; while Japan, together with India and others, is more keen to broaden the structure towards an EAC in the broader sense.16 In large part, this reflects the growing importance of China and the relative decline of Japan in regional affairs. It would very much be in Japan’s interest to include more members to balance Chinese growth, and the U.S. and India are key states in this. China, however, would like to bide its time as time is in its favor politically, economically as well as militarily. An EAC is a centerpiece of the new Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) foreign policy and much of its views on regional security are based on this concept. Japan has not, however, been able to present a convincing blueprint for an EAC. This is indicative of the problems that lay ahead in its development. The close affiliation Japan has with the concept of an EAC means that it has little interest in China’s more narrow idea of ASEAN Plus Three, and Japan has attempted to prevent the expansion of its influence in the region. On the positive side, since the end of the Cold War, globalization (and regionalization) as well as the increased importance of Asia have broken down the long-standing barriers to regional identity.17 Leading the

15

Baldwin, R.E. (2008). “Managing the Noodle Bowl: The Fragility of East Asian Regionalism”. The Singapore Economic Review, vol. 53, no. 3, p. 450. 16 Mulgan, A.G. (2009). “Hatoyama’s East Asia Community and Regional Leadership Rivalries”. East Asia Forum, 13 October. 17 Ravenhill, J. (2002). “A Three Bloc World? The New East Asian Regionalism”. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 2, pp. 167–195.

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development has been economic integration, which has forced closer cooperation on the people in the region, supplemented by modest but important educational and cultural exchanges that have brought the region closer together. This is not to say that there is no tension between the different states; nonetheless, interaction has increased significantly and there have been important changes in each state’s perception of the others over time.18 However, it is not possible to speak about an East Asian, or still less a Northeast Asian, identity. The problem lies not only in history but also very much in contemporary changes and political power games. One of the more serious issues is that the main problems, namely North Korea and Taiwan, are excluded in this. North Korea has failed to open up to the outside world and to a certain extent Taiwan has been refused international space, even if Taiwan despite its formal exclusion is still deeply integrated in the region in many aspects, particularly in the economic sector. One of the major challenges is that any regional organization has to include the problem areas of Northeast Asia; otherwise, it would be useless before it is even initiated. In plain words, both North Korea and Taiwan would need to be included in some form. Regarding North Korea, both South Korea and Japan would have difficulty in accepting North Korea without demanding changes, whether symbolic or real. Japan suffers from the legacy of the abduction cases and it would be difficult, if not impossible, in the short term for Japan to agree to cooperate without real concessions on the abduction issue. In the case of Taiwan, China would refuse to accept Taiwan as a full member of a regional organization unless the issue of national sovereignty was handled, 18

Terada, T. (2003). “Constructing an ‘East Asian’ Concept and Growing Regional Identity: From EAEC to ASEAN+3”. The Pacific Review, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 251–277; Beeson, M. (2009). “East Asian Regionalism and the End of the Asia-Pacific: After American Hegemony”. Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 10 January; Berger, T. (2008). “Overcoming a Difficult Past: The History Problem and Institution Building in Northeast Asia”. In M. Timmermann and J. Tsuchiyama (eds.), Institutionalizing Northeast Asia: Regional Steps towards Global Governance, The Brookings Institution Press, Baltimore; Oshimura, T. (2008). “The Function and Dysfunction of Identity in an Institutionalizing Process: The Case of Northeast Asia”. In M. Timmermann and J. Tsuchiyama (eds.), Institutionalizing Northeast Asia: Regional Steps towards Global Governance, The Brookings Institution Press, Baltimore.

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i.e. Taiwan enters under the flag of “one China.” These difficulties underscore the fact that the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula are the most problematic areas of tension in the region.19 Any regional structure or cooperation scheme would have to face these two challenges over time and it would be premature to engage in anything regional that refuses to acknowledge this.

Molding the Structures Together The main problem today, particularly in Northeast Asia but also more generally in East Asia, is not the lack of vision in the region — there are both impressive structures on paper and visions in people’s minds — but rather a question of implementation and management. It is, apparent that there has been a problem in finding a regional solution that is acceptable to all actors. But seemingly it is much more difficult to accept that these structures would receive an independent role of their own or at least function outside of the total control of each state. That is, the willingness to trust and compromise is low, particularly among the Northeast Asian states. In all states, sovereignty is considered of paramount importance, even if this is arguably less so in Japan and more so in China, and any structure that threatens the state sovereignty will be rejected. This, despite the fact that a minimal surrender of sovereignty could lead to a tremendous positive development in the security of each individual state and for the region at large. The informal cooperation in many fields is, however, impressive; and in the fields of combating organized crime, rescue operations and human trafficking, there is a healthy amount of formal cooperation. Where formal cooperation has reached its limits, more informal networks have developed, but more is needed. It is striking that most structures in Northeast Asia have a strong informal component and second-track focus to it, and that there are virtually no formal organizations that have much impact in Northeast Asia and only a few in 19

Swanström, N. et al. (eds.) (2010). Conflict Prevention and Management in Northeast Asia: The Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait in Comparison. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne.

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East Asia.20 This is because regional cooperation and any form of regionalism are hurt by bilateralism: bilateral agreements tend to take precedence over multilateral agreements, resulting in neglect of the need to build a multilateral structure that would benefit the region over time. Moreover and paradoxically, there are too many structures and organizations competing for influence and competence on the regional scene. In many ways, the current structures are blocked from independent action by other regional structures with overlapping competencies. It will be necessary to create more coordinated and better-equipped structures that are accepted by all actors in the region if this development is to be successful. This is not to say that the attempts should be to create a regional EU, but only that there is a need to be more effective in their cooperation. It could, on the other hand, be a deliberate strategy to “overfeed” the region with competing structures just to keep the actual influence down but at the same time still openly adhere to the idea of regional integration. By acting in this way, these groups would instead block overall integration. However, the fault lies in a much worse problem: good intentions. The regional actors’ attempts to create regional visions and structures that they think can resolve specific problems fail to take into account the fact that creating too many structures with broad mandates will only create competing organizations and bureaucracies and will fail to accomplish what is needed: cooperation. There is a great need for a common regional vision as to what a regional structure should look like and what it should encompass. It would most likely be better to assume a very modest role rather than the all-encompassing role of the European Union, as the former could result in small but positive steps that could be built on in the future. It is apparent that increased and improved cooperation needs regional institution building that could facilitate the discussions and implementation of regional ideas and efforts.21 While there is in general a reluctance 20

Qi, H. (2009). “China’s ‘New Neighboring Diplomacy’”. Contemporary International Relations, vol. 19, no. 5, p. 92; Komori, Y. (2009). “Regional Governance in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific”. East Asia, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 321–341; Swanström, N. (2002). Regional Cooperation and Conflict Management: Lessons from the Pacific Rim. Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. 21 For an excellent argument for institutionalization of the region, see: Timmermann, M. and Tsuchiyama, J. (eds.) (2008). Institutionalizing Northeast Asia: Regional Steps towards Global Governance. The Brookings Institution Press, Baltimore.

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to formalize anything that could be perceived as a regional structure, there have been several attempts to formalize a number of structures that have some, albeit not sufficient, power to act regionally. Gao Quanli, the Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in China, claimed that: “The current global financial crisis may provide a historic opportunity for Northeast Asian States to raise the level of economic cooperation, because developing complementary resources, technologies and products among concerned states is crucial for regional development.”22 The situation, however, continues to look bleak, even in the field of economic cooperation, in spite of a high level of economic integration. This is due in large part to the unilateral and bilateral agreements that have prevented further Northeast Asian economic integration.23 This has long been noted, and in the political field cooperation is still low, in spite of an increased awareness of its necessity. The fact that the Northeast Asian states missed the train during the financial crisis is worrisome, and should make one pessimistic about the prospects for any deepening — let alone blossoming — of regional integration and cooperation in Northeast Asia.

Reflections on the Future The prospects for further cooperation in the Northeast Asian region are not, however, all negative and in East Asia they are very positive. There are a few hurdles for the regions to clear before progress can be made, though. The most important obstacle that Northeast Asia, and even East Asia, needs to overcome is the great power rivalry between Japan and China. Basic trust needs to be established between both states before it can be transferred to the regional level — the problems in the bilateral relationship today clearly prevent further integration and cooperation. Moreover, there is a need to simplify the regional “noodle bowl” and choose a few noodles that look particularly appetizing and cook with these. The quality of the meal lies not in the number of noodles in the 22

Quoted in Chen, R. (2009). “Prospects for Northeast Asian Cooperation”. Beijing Review, 16 June. 23 Baldwin, R.E. (2008). “Managing the Noodle Bowl: The Fragility of East Asian Regionalism”. The Singapore Economic Review, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 449–478.

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bowl, but in how the dish is seasoned. This is something that has been forgotten along the road, due mostly to the fear of losing sovereignty and the distrust between the different states. Some of the problems lie in the three rises in the region. The first is the rise of China, something that is a concern both for Japan, which is losing its position as the leader of the region, and for many of East Asia’s smaller states, which fear a rising China. This is not just a question of growing military strength but also of economics, as China’s economic development and cheap labor costs are a real economic threat to many of the smaller states. The rise of China has also overshadowed the rise of Asia — the reality is that many of the Asian states have experienced impressive growth, and instead of seeing China as a threat there should be a greater openness to seeing the possibilities that China offers a growing Asia, something which Singapore and Malaysia have repeatedly argued. The rise of multilateralism is another issue that could offer a great advantage to the rising Asia and China, but which is neglected outside of ASEAN. We have seen that the rise of multilateralism in the world at large and in Southeast Asia in particular has brought great advantages to many regions in terms of trade and security. Northeast Asia has been reluctant to join this trend and this could cause some serious implications in the future, as it will decrease the rise both of China and of Asia. This is due in large part to the fact that Asia is not able to optimize the ongoing growth in the region mainly because of issues other than economic ones; this will provide the West with some much-needed breathing space. The failure to establish a Northeast Asian cooperative structure, much less a regional organization, is apparent and it seems that the East Asia focus will remain important for some time. ASEAN as a driver is more acceptable to the Northeast Asian states than having a regional actor in charge. Even a rotating chair seems to be a choice that is too sensitive in the short term, but will be necessary over time. The question is what will drive a regional organization, or any other form of cooperation, forward. Economic crises have had a tendency to integrate states and create a regional sense of emergency, something that was noted in Southeast Asia in the 1997–1998 financial crisis and which led to much deeper economic cooperation. We have not seen the same tendency in Northeast Asia, despite some efforts to create regional mechanisms for economic crisis

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management in the form of currency swaps, for example. What is needed is a greater effort to prevent crises from erupting in the first place — that would take much greater political determination and financial integration than any of the states in the region is willing to commit to today. Furthermore, there is a need for the region on its own behalf and in cooperation with other regions and actors to deal with the two most important issues in Northeast Asia: North Korea and Taiwan. There is no doubt that both are extremely sensitive and that there is no — or at most, only a very modest — willingness to handle these issues.24 It is evident that the issues need to be dealt with in the context of a sovereign state (North Korea) and under the “one China” context (Taiwan and the Chinese mainland), or else there will be no possibility to act at all. Both issues are today internationalized and need to be handled, as they threaten the very foundation of security of Northeast Asia. There is no doubt that the lack of transparency in military matters and the continued arms race in the region have a negative effect on security and cooperation in the region. In some ways, the Northeast Asian region is still stuck in the Cold War — the same is true about East Asia in general, even if the internal relations of Southeast Asia have shown some significant degree of military cooperation. China’s military rise has caused substantial alarm in East Asia and especially in Japan, which in turn has strengthened its ability to counter Chinese aggression. It is true that China has improved its military strength; however, the concern should not be current but rather focused on the distant future, as the Chinese military might is still relatively weak.25 In many ways, the Chinese military is still suffering from old equipment, poor training, unmotivated conscripts, and poor coordination among the different branches of the armed forces. Japan has no reason to fear the military expansion of China in the short and medium term; on the contrary, the Japanese military units are on par with

24 Swanström, N. et al. (eds.) (2010). Conflict Prevention and Management in Northeast Asia: The Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait in Comparison. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne. 25 Thompson, D. (2010). “Think Again: China’s Military”. Foreign Policy, March/April; Mufson, S. and Pomfret, J. (2010). “There’s a New Red Scare. But Is China Really so Scary?”. The Washington Post, 28 February.

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those of the Chinese military. This said, it is evident that China’s smaller neighbors have good reasons to question the Chinese military build-up, as any small state has when its large neighbor grows quickly, despite the fact that China’s military capacity is well under what should be needed for such a large nation with both internal and external issues to consider. Sino–American and Japanese–American relations also play important roles in the creation of regional structures. The U.S. might not be a creator of regional structures, but it has been and could continue to be a spoiler if regional efforts are perceived as going against its own interests. Additionally, Japan is increasingly concerned over the U.S. role in the region and will not accept being taken for granted by the U.S. or having its security compromised. A failure of the U.S. to engage Japan constructively will force Japan towards two extremes: either to cooperate with Beijing, as China could potentially threaten the waterways, or to scale up its own defenses significantly to be able to counter the Chinese “threat.” Finally, and potentially most importantly, is how the EAC will be defined, as it seems to be the most obvious structure that could impact security in Northeast Asia in the short time span. There is a risk that the narrow definition proposed by China and the more inclusive Japanese suggestion will both be implemented to some extent. This is possibly the worst-case scenario, as it will dilute the regionalism and cooperation even further; moreover, both scenarios exclude North Korea and Taiwan.

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Chapter 9

China, Japan and Asian Regional Integration: From Bilateral to Multilateral?

Rumi Aoyama

The relationship between the countries occupying the second and third positions in the world’s GDP index, China and Japan, has a profound significance for the stabilization of the Asian region as well as the security and prosperity of the world. China’s presence in international society has been rising at a rapid pace over the past two decades. Although a few dark clouds appeared over the Chinese economy and the direction in which it was heading during the global recession triggered by the American subprime mortgage crisis, China is managing to accomplish a speedy economic recovery, and its economy seemed to have bottomed out after the first quarter of 2009. In 2008, China’s foreign currency reserves skyrocketed to nearly US$2 trillion and its trade surplus was near US$300 billion. Though little progress has been made with domestic political reform, China is making attempts to fulfill its responsibility as a major player on the world stage by taking a cooperative stance on many international issues, such as the Six-Party Talks and the Darfur problem in Sudan. In the wake of China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence, the ongoing power shift process on the world stage and particularly in Asia has transformed Sino–Japan relations significantly.

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The increase in China’s presence in the international order brought about a sense of competitiveness to the relationship between China and Japan, and ushered in a period during which it became easier for confrontations to arise between the two nations. After the end of the Cold War, various disputes occurred between Japan and China concerning a variety of problems, including environmental issues, historical issues and territorial issues, such as the matter of the ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and natural gas and oil field development in the East China Sea. Furthermore, the fact that both Japan and China are now experiencing profound socio-economic changes and political transitions has complicated bilateral ties in many ways. As a consequence, confrontations between the two states became conspicuous in 1996 and bilateral relations continued to worsen over the next 10 years or so. However, it is important to point out that during Junichiro Koizumi’s term as Prime Minister of Japan, various frameworks relating to bilateral risk management were constructed.1 Beyond the bilateral frameworks, the regional integration of Asia has been quietly progressing in the post-Cold War period. The first East Asia Summit (EAS) in 2005 signaled a new step toward the development of Asian integration. At present, multi-layered and multi-channeled frameworks such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC: 21 countries and regions), ASEAN Plus Three (APT: 13 countries) and EAS (18 countries) exist concurrently. Nevertheless, there are also regional and subregional organizations in which either Japan or China — not both — participates, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)2 and the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). In this sense, it is important to take Sino–Japan relations into consideration when looking at 1

For the bilateral risk management constructed between China and Japan, see: Aoyama, R. (2010). “Changing Japanese Perceptions and China–Japan Relations”. In G. Curtis, R. Kokubun and J. Wang (eds.), Getting the Triangle Straight: Managing China–Japan–U.S. Relations, Japan Center for International Exchange, Tokyo. 2 The predecessor to the SCO was the Shanghai Five, an organization established in 1996 which was composed of China, Russia and the three Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In June 2001, Uzbekistan joined the organization, and the organization’s standing was elevated with its name changed to the current Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

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Asian regional integration: what kind of influence does the fragility of Sino–Japanese relations have on Asian regional integration, as well as on the manner in which frameworks for risk management between China and Japan are established? Over the past decade, both Japan and China have searched for ways to improve their bilateral relations through their efforts regarding Asian regional integration. During the period of time in which Sino–Japanese relations soured due in part to historical and territorial issues, in particular from 2002 onward, China intended to utilize the flow of Asian integration to help settle its disputes with Japan. Japan’s enthusiastic discussions concerning the formation of an East Asian Community coincided exactly with the worst period for Sino–Japanese relations, the days of the Koizumi administration. Thus, discussions in Japan regarding the East Asian Community have come to focus on the possibility of reconciliation between China and Japan.3 If such circumstances are considered, there are possibilities for the two countries to improve their bilateral relations through multilateral efforts. The construction of a cooperative relationship is vital to bilateral and regional stability, in part because it requires a strong sense of shared interests and collective identity.4 In this sense, a multilateral cooperation among three or more states, in addition to Japan and China, will facilitate the regional integration process by requiring “coordinating relations in accordance with certain principles.”5 Accordingly, this paper will examine the construction of a cooperative relationship between Japan and China with regard to the regional integration of Asia. The formation of this relationship can be divided into three periods: the inception period of Asian regional integration (1989–1997), Sino–Japanese disagreements with regard to the regional integration of Asia (1997–2006), and the period of exploration of the construction of a 3

Kokubun, R. (2007). “Higashi Ajia Kyodotai no Milai [The Future of the East Asian Community]”. Nikkei Shimbun, 18 March. 4 Hemmer, C. and Katzenstein, P.J. (2002). “Why Is There No NATO in Asia? Collective Identity, Regionalism, and the Origins of Multilateralism”. International Organization, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 575–607. 5 Ruggie, J.G. (1992). “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”. International Organization, vol. 46, no. 3, p. 568.

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Rumi Aoyama

dialogue between the two countries concerning Asian regional integration (2006 onwards). For each time period, relations between Japan and China concerning regional cooperation will be examined, and conclusions as to the possibilities for cooperation as well as problematic areas between China and Japan in the future regarding the integration of East Asia will be drawn.

Inception of Regional Integration: 1989–1997 Efforts to integrate the Asia-Pacific region began with Australia’s proposal to establish APEC in 1989. Japan strongly supported Australia’s proposal, welcoming a free and open economic exchange in which America could also participate, without any exclusive or insular economic blocs.6 Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad made a proposal for a similar organization, the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC), in the very next year, 1990. However, the EAEC proposal was staunchly opposed by the United States, as it called for the exclusion of America from the caucus. The Japanese government also took a negative stance towards the idea of EAEC, an organization whose ideals directly opposed those of APEC. Consequently, executive members from Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry flew to Malaysia in order to restrain this movement towards an Asian economic bloc. During this period, Japan, a developed country, took an assertive stance and attempted to fulfill a leadership role in the economic cooperation of the Asia-Pacific region including America. On the other hand, the concept for China’s diplomatic relations with its surrounding countries appeared within its foreign policy strategy immediately following the Tiananmen Square Incident. In order to break through the isolation that occurred right after the Tiananmen Square Incident, the Paramount Leader of China at the time, Deng Xiaoping, hammered out the four-pronged political approach of yi quan (一列: surrounding countries), yi lie (一列: developed countries), yi bian (一辺: developing countries) and yi dian (一点: the United States). Foreign policy towards surrounding countries was thus positioned as one of the four great pillars of Chinese 6

Asahi Shimbun, 3 November, 1989.

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diplomacy after the end of the Cold War. With Deng’s endorsement of a benign peripheral policy, in 1991 China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (under the name “Chinese Taipei”) simultaneously joined APEC. Although recognizing the importance of engaging in diplomatic relations with surrounding countries, China was cautious about the prospect of forming an East Asian economic partnership. With regard to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir’s EAEC, Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng stated that “China recognizes the necessity of strengthening economic ties amongst the East Asian countries. However, decisive answers to the questions as to what kind of cooperation should be carried out, as well as what form the cooperation should take, have yet to be successfully produced. Without solving these problems, EAEC would assumedly be a loose union.”7 Furthermore, from China’s point of view, the United States was trying to create, using APEC as a foothold, an economic order in the AsiaPacific region in which the United States was at the helm.8 It is not unreasonable to suggest that China felt a strong sense of wariness regarding American influence on Asia-Pacific economic integration. Since that time, China greatly feared that America was forming an encircling net around China by the strengthening of the U.S.–Japan security system and the eastward expansion of NATO occurring in Europe. In this manner, there was a considerable difference of opinion between Japan and China with regard to economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, which had substantially begun to take shape in 1989. One of the important factors contributing to these divergent views was their different strategy towards the United States.

The Asian Financial Crisis: China’s Reaction The 1997 Asian financial crisis provided an opportunity for the regional integration of Asia. China’s position of maintaining its currency, the yuan, 7

“Burokku Koso ni ha Shinchou Malaysia Homon no Chugoku no Li Peng Shushou [Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng Shows Caution Concerning Bloc Idea Upon Visiting Malaysia]”. Asahi Shimbun, 14 December, 1990. 8 Jiang, X. (1994). “APEC Fazhan Fangxiang zhe Zheng [Disputes about the Direction of APEC Development]”. Shijie Zhishi [World Affairs], vol. 21, p. 4.

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during the crisis received a high evaluation from the rest of the world, and this high value of China’s currency accelerated its diplomatic relations with surrounding countries. In reality, China had been proactively making efforts to engage in diversified diplomacy by means of multilateral conciliation, especially conciliation and cooperation with its neighboring Asian countries, since well before the Asian financial crisis. The following factors prompted China to adjust its diplomatic strategy towards the countries neighboring it.

Changes in China’s U.S. Strategy One of the crucial reasons behind China’s changing strategy towards America was the strengthening of the U.S.–Japan security system in Asia. The “U.S.–Japan Joint Declaration on Security: Alliance for the 21st Century” statement was signed by United States President Bill Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto on April 17, 1996, after which China came to criticize the U.S.–Japan security alliance openly. With China’s fears about being trapped in an encircling net by America ever growing, China set out to mitigate its containment and embarked upon a full-blown development of the policy established by Deng Xiaoping of yi quan (surrounding countries), yi lie (developed countries), yi bian (developing countries) and yi dian (the United States). Reflecting this alteration in foreign strategy, China began to show a proactive participatory stance in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) from 1996 to 1997, and China also founded the Shanghai Five (later known as the SCO) in 1996.

ASEAN’s Growth as a Regional Pole In the latter half of the 1990s, the number of ASEAN member nations increased drastically. Continuing from Vietnam’s induction in 1995, by the end of 1999 Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos had also become new members of ASEAN, meaning that ASEAN had come to physically “neighbor” China. ASEAN has grown to be a pole with significant political and economic importance in the Asian region, and furthermore has expanded its influence right up to China’s borders. Such growth and expansion of ASEAN as a regional pole was an important move that China

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could not ignore, and subsequently stimulated China’s diplomatic relations with its surrounding countries.

China’s New Security Concept The New Security Concept, first alluded to by Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in July 1996, was laid out officially during the April 1997 Sino–Russian Joint Declaration. Also, the piece “Position Paper Regarding the New Security Concept,” presented at the July 2002 ARF Ministerial Meeting, provided more details of the New Security Concept. The concept of non-traditional security and the idea of a cooperative security proposed in the New Security Concept are of great significance. The cooperative security concept, in line with China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, shares commonalities with ASEAN’s values: the solving of problems not through the use of force or domestic intervention, but through a conference system.9 The idea of non-intervention and the emphasis on non-traditional security furnished the base for the construction of cooperative relationships between China and ASEAN as well as China and the SCO, while moreover widening the breadth of cooperative relations in general. The proposal of the New Security Concept also worked concurrently with the changes in China’s awareness with regards to the America-led “hub-and-spoke” military alliances and military pacts within Asia. According to David Shambaugh, a representative of the ASEAN East Asia Vision Group in 1999 conveyed a message to China that if China stopped demanding that the ASEAN member nations break their military ties with America, and if China did not use its overseas citizens for political purposes, it would be possible for ASEAN to construct a better relationship with China.10 There is no solid indication as to whether this message 9

For research on ASEAN values, see: Godement, F. (2002). “Chinese and Asian Concepts of Conflict Resolution”. In R. Ash (ed.), China’s Integration in Asia: Economic Security and Strategic Issues, Curzon Press, Richmond, pp. 246–256; Acharya, A. (2001). Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order. Routledge, London. 10 Shambaugh, D. (2004/2005). “China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order”. International Security, vol. 29, no. 3, p. 70.

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propelled a change in China’s view of the American military presence in Asia or not; however, the rhetoric about dissolving alliances subsided from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspapers after the year 2000. Such changes indicated that China has come to accept the America-led traditional security framework as an established fact.

China’s Economic Interests The GMS regional cooperation, involving China’s Yunnan Province, commenced in 1992. The cooperation framework for the GMS took shape in 1996, when six investment projects were identified. It is needless to say that China found the promises of economic benefit coming from this tangible joint development attractive. Thus, in 1994 Yunnan Province became involved in the conception of the GMS idea, and in 1998 China’s central government also came to actively promote the plan. In Central Asia, under the initiative of China, the SCO was established in 2001. There are some concerns that it is a military bloc constructed to deal with the United States; there is also the view that it is nothing more than an “axis of convenience.”11 Nevertheless, from China’s point of view, the SCO is essential for both regional security as well as economic trade cooperation. The fact that China places much emphasis on economic trade cooperation with other SCO member countries has a deep relation to its extensive development projects in its western region. China officially started its “Great Western Development” in the year 2000, and upon accelerating economic growth in the western region, the countries of Central Asia were seen by China as supply sources for valuable energy and resources as well as a vital foreign market. Currently, a number of economic trade pacts between SCO member countries have been signed, and preliminary work on the confirmation of fields of economic cooperation and decisions on model projects is progressing. Also, at first, China had a plan to implement the liberalization of goods, services, capital and technology by the year 2020 within the organization, but in part due to mutual distrust and disagreements 11

Lo, B. (2008). Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics. Brookings Institution Press, Baltimore.

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concerning expectations between the countries involved, this plan was not realized.12 In this manner, throughout the Asian financial crisis, China revised its foreign policies and proactively attempted to become involved with the regional integration of Asia. Such a diplomatic stance was confirmed at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002, and diplomacy within Asia came to be placed as one of the most important priorities among China’s foreign strategies. Regarding the diplomacy guidelines for the next five years adopted at this National Congress, the first 20 years of the 21st century were perceived as a strategic chance, and the slogan “major powers are the vital points, surrounding countries are the most important, developing countries are the foundation, and a diversified diplomacy is the principal stage” was set out to describe China’s new diplomatic policies. Along with this kind of strategy, China deepened its cooperative relationships with ASEAN and SCO. Two specific characteristics can be observed within these sorts of initiatives from China. First, although it may have been reluctant to do so, China decided to accept the existing American-led international order. Secondly, the recognition of the importance of the idea of a non-traditional security guarantee provided depth and width to China’s influential power. From its geographical advantage, China attempted to press forward with a substantial regional integration that connected Central Asia and Southeast Asia, areas of which the United States was not a part.

The Asian Financial Crisis: Japan’s Reaction In contrast to China using the Asian financial crisis as an opportunity to increase its presence in Asia, Japan became passive towards its main leadership role in the regional integration of Asia for a period of several years after the crisis. Just as it had in the first half of the 1990s, Japan made 12

“Shanghai Hezuo Zuzhi Chengyuanguo Zongli Huiyu: Yangqi Jingji Hezuo Zhi Fan [Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member Countries Meet at Conference: Raising the Sails of Economic Cooperation]”. Xinhua News Agency, 23 September, 2003. http://news. xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2003-09/23/content_1095882.htm/ [accessed November 11, 2006].

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attempts to take a proactive leadership role in Asia after the financial crisis, proposing the establishment of the Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) immediately following the crisis. With regard to this proposal, America indicated concerns that the establishment of the AMF may threaten the existence of the International Monetary Fund, the organization that supports the international financial order; thus, America expressed opposition to the plan. China also showed a sense of caution towards Japan taking on a leadership role, and replied that financing such an initiative would be difficult. Plans for the AMF were set back due to this opposition from the United States and China, but the following year, in October 1998, the Japanese Minister of Finance Kiichi Miyazawa officially declared the formulation of the “New Miyazawa Initiative.” The essence of this “New Miyazawa Initiative” was that the Japanese government would administer financial support to six countries in Asia over the next two years, with the total given amounting to US$30 billion. Japan boasted with pride that through this initiative, it had “imposed on itself the two-sided heavy burden of both promoting growth in Asia and stabilizing the market.”13 Nevertheless, the failure of the AMF proposal amounted to a hard blow for Japanese diplomacy. Domestically, voices criticizing Japan’s handling of the Asian financial crisis as a diplomatic failure were loud.14 During the three years afterwards until 2000, the Japanese government came to hesitate in taking a leadership role in Asian integration, and the voices of those in other Asian nations hoping for Japan to step up to such a role faded.15 Japanese diplomacy gradually shifted towards stressing Japan–America relations, starting from the 2000 Yoshiro Mori administration. This shift was best illustrated by the remarks of Prime Minister Koizumi on 13

“Nihon, Ajia Saisei ni Jyuseki, 300 Oku Doru Shien Seishiki Hyomei: Shudo Teki Yakuwari Ninau [Japan’s Heavy Responsibility towards Regenerating Asia: Official Declaration of 30 Billion Dollars in Support — Shouldering a Leading Role]”. Nikkei Shimbun, 4 October, 1998. 14 “Nihon no Gaigo, Kotoba/Chie Busoku: Ajia Kiki de Hikui Hyoka [Japanese Diplomacy, Lack of Words and Wisdom — Low Assessments in Its Handling of the Asian Crisis]”. Nikkei Shimbun, 24 March, 1999. 15 Fukushima, A. (2009). “Japan’s Perspective on Asian Regionalism”. In M.J. Green and B. Gill (eds.), Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community, Columbia University Press, New York, p. 107.

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November 16, 2005: “The better Japan–America relations are, the more able Japan is to construct favorable relations with Asia and the rest of the world.”16 As a result, Japan’s Asian policy amounted to a passive response to China’s rising influential power. At the 4th APT Informal Summit Meeting held in November 2000, China carried out various proposals, such as the establishment of a free trade area with ASEAN, the offer to deposit US$5 million into the ASEAN cooperation fund, joint development along the Mekong River basin, construction of infrastructure directly connected to both China and ASEAN, HIV/AIDS countermeasures and cooperation in the field of telecommunications technology. In November of the following year, 2001, China and ASEAN signed the “China– ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement,” and both entities agreed to begin discussions towards the formation of a free trade sphere in 2010.17 Such efforts on China’s part motivated Japan to act. The Japanese government, which felt that it had fallen behind China, revised its APT plan and began to endorse a plan that will include Australia and New Zealand as member countries.18 With China’s influence rising in Asia, Japan, in an effort to counter it, clearly laid out the importance of the universal value of democracy with regard to Asian regional integration, and also strongly advocated for the inclusion of democratic countries, such as Australia, in the organization. The “Issue Paper” that the Japanese government presented in June 2004 was also written based on this aim.19 Furthermore, at the 2005 East Asia Summit held in Kuala

16

“The President’s News Conference with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan in Kyoto, Japan”. 16 November, 2005. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/19364519/ presidents-news-conference-prime-minister-junichiro-koizumi-japan-kyoto-japan/. 17 Free trade agreements (FTAs) will be formed in 2015 with countries that join ASEAN later. 18 Terada, T. (2009). “The Origins of ASEAN+6: Japan’s Initiatives and the Agent– Structure Framework”. Working Paper, Waseda University Global COE Program: Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration. 19 The three pillars of the “Issue Paper” are: (1) functional enhancement of the East Asian Community in the form of FTAs, anti-terror measures, etc.; (2) a plan for an East Asian Community that includes countries such as Australia and India; and (3) formation of values to heighten the community’s sense of unity, such as democracy. The full text can be viewed at http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/issue.pdf/.

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Lumpur, Malaysia, Japan once again supported the participation of both Australia and New Zealand in the organization. Japan’s support for an Asia-Pacific regional economic cooperative initiative including America and other democratic nations was also in the interests of its economy. Such an initiative — a plan for the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) — was proposed by the United States at the 2006 APEC meeting, and the Japanese government indicated a positive stance towards the idea. According to the preliminary calculations done by the Japan Center for Economic Research, compared to the Japan– China–Korea FTA, the APT FTA and the FTA for advanced countries within APEC, the FTAAP would raise Japan’s GDP by 0.8%, making it have a considerably greater effect than the other FTAs.20 From around the middle of the year 2000, Japan, which was strongly aware of China’s increasing influential power, revised its passive policies and once again displayed a leadership stance in Asia. At the June 2006 World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia held in Tokyo, the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Toshihiro Nikai, proposed the establishment of an East Asian version of the OECD. Soon after, at the Meeting for Economic Affairs for all Asian nations held in Malaysia on August 18 of the same year, Japan declared that it would contribute 10 billion yen towards the plan to create an East Asian version of the OECD. It is thought that Japan’s aim with this plan was to strengthen its influential voice through trade policies within its region.21 This proposal was agreed on at the November 2007 East Asia Summit, and, as a result, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) opened in June 2008. As discussed above, with regards to its policies towards Asia, Japan became passive for a period of time following the Asian financial crisis. After the increase of China’s presence in Asia, Japan remained passive and in the background, but eventually began to act assertively. In the midst of the competition over who should lead a regionally integrated Asia, differences between China and Japan concerning universal values, 20

“Ajia Kenkyu Repouto: Nihon Keizai Kenkyu Senta [Asia Research Report, Japan Center for Economic Research]”. Nikkei Shimbun, 19 January, 2009. 21 “Higashi Ajia Ban OECD Mezatsu: ERIA 3ka Shido [Aiming for an East Asian Version of the OECD: ‘ERIA’ Starting on the Third]”. Nikkei Shimbun, 18 August, 2006.

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selection of countries for inclusion into regional organizations, and other issues have been clarified as well as amplified.

2006–: Risk Management in the Asian Region The rivalry between China and Japan regarding Asian regional integration became fully apparent after the Asian financial crisis, and in particular after the year 2000. China asserted its position that it was against making ideological differences an issue regarding Asian regional integration, but Japan, particularly while under the Koizumi and Abe administrations, promoted value-oriented diplomacy. Also, China emphasized that it supports the APT framework and that it would construct desirable relations in APT with every country, including those in Oceania.22 However, Japan laid out an FTA plan for 16 countries called the Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia (CEPEA) in April 2006, and the Hatoyama administration also declared an indication towards a comprehensive economic partnership on the third day of forming their Cabinet. Moreover, Japan also supports ASEAN Plus Six, which would include Australia. Such competition between China and Japan, as well as the participation of the United States, is all surprisingly desirable to ASEAN, another major player in the region. For instance, the then-Prime Minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, emphasized the strengthening of cooperation with the United States during an interview with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei Shimbun on November 4, 2009. The reason that Thailand welcomed U.S. involvement in Asia was that competition among big powers such as China, Japan and the U.S., which had laid out a progressive participatory policy towards Asia under the Obama administration, would give the country more leverage in regional politics.23 As a result of the different players and values involved, the current movement towards Asian regional integration is a synthesis of multiple layers and channels. At the East Asia Summit held in Hua Hin, Thailand in October 2009, Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd advocated a 22

“Yazhou Zhixu, Hai Raobukai Meiguo [Order of the Asian States, Still Need to Face the U.S.]”. Global Times, 18 July, 2005. 23 Nikkei Shimbun, 5 November, 2009.

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wide-ranging FTA for the Asia-Pacific region. Because of ASEAN’s desire not to be dragged into a tug of war between China and Japan over the wideranging FTA,24 it was agreed that the two previously proposed wide-ranging FTA plans — the East Asia Free Trade Area (EAFTA), which was postulated by the China-supported APT, along with the CEPEA, which came into being through the initial 16 member countries of the East Asia Summit — would be considered concurrently. In short, there is a possibility that an “East Asian Community” as well as an “Asia-Pacific Community” could materialize at the same time, and that possibility is being considered. Though both Japan and China continue to compete with each other, changes in Japanese foreign policy since the 2006 Abe administration, particularly in its policies towards China, have nevertheless eased the level of contention. Due to these revisions in policy, the possibility that the two countries may further promote cooperation with regard to Asian economic integration has been born, and channels for cooperative dialogue have already begun to be constructed.

Sino–Japanese Regional Cooperation Centering on the Environment Japan and China both share many natural resources such as the atmosphere and the ocean; accordingly, regional cooperation with regard to the environmental field is progressing the most. Cooperation in this field, which started in the early 1990s, has never been disrupted, regardless of deteriorating bilateral political relations. Various environmental cooperative frameworks are making progress within Asia. Examples are the North-East Asian Subregional Programme for Environmental Cooperation (NEASPEC), which includes the six countries of Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea; the Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET), which has 13 Asian countries25 as members; the Asia-Pacific Migratory Waterbird Conservation 24

“Chiyiki Renkei, Nigo Nado Xin Koso [New Ideas from Japan, Australia, etc. Concerning Regional Cooperation]”. Nikkei Shimbun, 26 October, 2009. 25 The participants of EANET include Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Strategy, of which Australia is also a part; the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP), which includes Japan, China, South Korea and Russia; and the Asian Network for Prevention of Illegal Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, and many others. Among these, there are some associations in which not only the central government of each member nation participates, but also regional governments and environmentalists take part, and international organizations such as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) additionally participate as observers. One case in which such multi-level participation can be seen is with the Northeast Asian Conference on Environmental Cooperation (NEAC), whose members are China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Russia, along with UNEP and ESCAP as observers. After the Abe administration in 2006, the Japanese and Chinese governments came to possess a clear recognition of the importance of and possibilities concerning the environmental field with regard to both countries. In April 2007, when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan, he agreed with Japan in the “Joint Statement on the Further Enhancement of Cooperation for Environmental Protection” that environmental initiatives from both Japan and China, as well as the above-mentioned regional cooperation frameworks, should be actively promoted. Also, in December 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda set forth the “Asian Economic and Environmental Community” plan, and called for an integrated Asian economy with environmental issues as its axis. These kinds of environmental cooperation projects are progressing under the initiatives of Japan and other developed countries within Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. These environmental cooperation projects, which can evade the leadership disputes dogging other issues within Asia, are likely to continue to progress rigorously into the future.

Possibilities for Sino–Japanese Cooperation Regarding Northeast Asian Problems Just before the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the North Korean nuclear crisis reignited. In April 2003, Three-Party Talks between North Korea, the United States and China were held in Beijing

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regarding the North Korea nuclear issue. Since before the Three-Party Talks were held, China had begun examining the possibility of establishing a multinational discussion framework in order to confer on the North Korea nuclear issue. In spite of the overwhelming strength of opinion from specialists opposing the internationalization of the North Korean issue,26 the Chinese central government made the decision to hold the first Six-Party Talks in Beijing in August 2003. The Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited North Korea in September 2002 and held a discussion with North Korean General Secretary Kim Jong-il. Koizumi’s visit to North Korea was generally seen as a step forward in normalizing relations between the two countries. As a result of Koizumi’s visit to North Korea, five of the Japanese citizens abducted from North Korea27 returned to Japan. The Japanese government at the time took the position that “it is impossible to normalize diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea by shelving the abduction issue,”28 but since then there has been no progress concerning the abduction issue, and Japan’s policy towards North Korea remains at an impasse. China’s crisis awareness with regard to the North Korean nuclear issue is generally recognized as being far weaker than that of the United States.29 However, the recognition of the North Korean nuclear threat is rising by the day in China. The North Korean nuclear threat has become a real issue for China, especially in 2009, when North Korea carried out a nuclear test only a few kilometers away from the Chinese border. After North Korea’s 2009 nuclear test, China measured radiation in the atmosphere for the first time in the vicinity of the nuclear test near the China–North Korea border. After former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited North Korea to seek the release of two American journalists in August 2009, direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea were realized. North Korea, which had wanted 26

Based on an interview by the author in June 2008. The kidnapping of Japanese citizens by North Korea happened frequently throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The number of abductees officially recognized by the Japanese government now stands at 17. 28 Opening statement by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a press conference in New York, 13 September, 2002. 29 Park, J.S. (2005). “Inside Multilateralism: The Six Party Talks”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 75–91. 27

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direct negotiations with the United States for some time, showed little indication that it would return to the Six-Party Talks. Meanwhile, among experts in China, together with frustration and hardline stances towards North Korea, the tendency to emphasize the common interests of both China and Japan, as well as argue for the importance of the Six-Party Talks, has been gaining strength. China’s policy towards North Korea changes along with fluctuations in the state of affairs in Northeast Asia, and the opportunity for Sino–Japanese cooperation with regard to maintaining the peace and stability of Northeast Asia has risen accordingly.

Construction of a Sino–Japanese Dialogue Regarding Mekong River Development As described earlier, from 1998 onward the Chinese government came to be proactively involved in the GMS project.30 From 1999 through 2000, China made other cooperation agreements with two of the five countries of the Mekong River basin. At the first summit meeting of the GMS in November 2002, a visionary plan for the next 10 years concerning prosperity, fairness and the stimulation of economic activity was adopted. In light of this plan, China made transportation and electric power trade agreements with the GMS. Moreover, in 2004, China enacted a zero-tariff policy for Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, and also gave them US$30 million in aid. China’s triple strategy of exchange with the Mekong River basin nations — through trade, investment and aid — triggered Japan’s re-involvement in this region. Traditionally, Japan had close ties with the countries in the Mekong region. Japan had given out rather large amounts of aid to these countries through official development assistance (ODA) and other activities with non-governmental organizations. However, in recent years, Japan received a sense of danger31 from

30

The Greater Mekong Subregion includes six countries: Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and China. 31 “Chugoku to Sunzaikan Kisou Nihon Kankyo Shien de Makikaeshi Hakaru [Japan Fights with China for Its Presence: Plans to Rally via Environmental Assistance]”. Asahi Shimbun, 4 November, 2009.

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China’s Mekong River development, so Japan devised a recovery plan to compete with China. Through this plan, Japan has regularly held meetings with the governments of the Mekong River basin countries, and has also expanded its aid to the region. Currently, Japan possesses two channels of exchange with the Mekong River basin nations. One of these is specifically with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (CLV), and the other is with all five of the Mekong River basin countries. As for the latter, exchange progresses through a framework in which China is not included. Concerning Japan’s relations with the CLV nations, the CLV and Japan Summit was first held in November 2004, through which Japan and the three CLV nations agreed to strengthen economic and cultural exchange. Additionally, in 2007, Japan announced that it would give the three CLV nations US$20 million to aid in their development. From 2008, there was also an increase in activity in Japan’s exchanges with the five Mekong River basin nations. The first Japan–Mekong Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was held in 2008, and an additional four meetings have been held since then, the last in July 2012. With regards to economic aid, Japan promised in 2009 to give over 500 billion yen in ODA to the five Mekong River basin countries over the next three years; this was later expanded in 2012 to 600 billion yen for the period 2013–2015. In this manner, with the conflict over which country should be Asia’s leading power in the background, both Japan and China have actively supported and been involved with economic development along the Mekong River. In the meantime, Sino–Japanese cooperation regarding Mekong regional development has also begun to be sought. For instance, the Japan–China Policy Dialogue on the Mekong Region started in 2008. This Japan–China dialogue is still just in its beginning stages, and so far has been held only three times — in April 2008, June 2009 and April 2010. During these policy dialogues, both China and Japan explained and exchanged opinions about their respective Mekong River development initiatives, and they also held discussions about the formation of relations that would allow Japan, China and the Mekong region to all share benefits with each other in the future. In October 2009, Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi agreed to cooperate in the development of the Mekong

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region. Although it is still uncertain whether China and Japan can construct a valid system of cooperation in regards to development in the Mekong River basin, Japan and China have shown that they both have the intention of cooperating, and are willing to discuss the possible channels of cooperation.

Conclusion Along with China’s rapidly rising influence in the international and regional orders, especially during the nearly 10-year period from 1997 to 2006, there have been a number of contentions between China and Japan in the process of Asian regional integration. The competitive relationship between two major powers has brought about a characteristic feature of Asian regional integration — a region with a multi-layered and overlapping web. In the meantime, even while competing with each other, Japan and China have constructed dialogues and cooperative programs to avoid all-out confrontations concerning Asian regional integration from 2006 onward. These kinds of initiatives are all part of the idea of risk management, which both sides have begun to seek. The area in which cooperation between China and Japan is making the most progress is the environmental field, where Japan has maintained a dominant influence. The environmental cooperation of the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan and China, which has not been interrupted once since the beginning of the 1990s, is likely to become the foundation for other forms of regional cooperation in the future. Additionally, frameworks for subregional cooperation have begun to be constructed, such as they have for the Mekong River development issue. Moreover, upon keeping peace in the Asian region, even with regards to the extremely important Northeast Asia issue, the opportunity for cooperation between China and Japan continues to rise. On the other hand, the current state of Sino–Japanese cooperation in Central Asia has still not progressed. As stated earlier, China’s interest in the economic trade side of cooperation had already risen since the time of the Shanghai Five. Only three months after the inception of the SCO, on September 14, 2001, at the summit meeting held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the “Memorandum Regarding the Basic Objectives and Directionality

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of Regional Economic Cooperation as well as Trade and Investment Convenience-Making Processes”32 was entered into. By agreeing with its contents, member countries sought to “abolish trade and investment barriers, furnish transportation infrastructure, bring goods and technology to a common standard, expand the exchange of justice, and promote and protect mutual investments”33 with the goal of establishing and developing economic cooperation mechanisms. Such cooperation bore fruit, and in 2008 total trade between member countries of the SCO rose to US$30.8 billion, a rapidly dramatic increase of 20 times the amount when the organization was established eight years prior. China acts as the core of the SCO, in which it actively promotes policy cooperation and foreign exchange in many fields including the functional enhancement of the SCO, the economy, justice and education. In the SCO, which will become an important place for exhibiting one’s presence in the international order, China will likely demonstrate its pulling power vigorously in the future. Feeling its own crisis awareness increase through observing such a trend by China, Japan embarked on a new strategy in Central Asia, which had been called a “null space” for Japanese diplomatic relations after the Cold War.34 With the August 2004 Central Asia visit by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, a Central Asia + Japan Dialogue was realized. In June 2006, Foreign Minister Taro Aso announced an approach to Central Asian diplomacy based on three guidelines, which called for “Seeking Partnership Rooted in Holding Universal Values in Common.” Then, the second time the Central Asia + Japan Dialogue held its conference of foreign ministers, an “action plan” comprising five principal fields as pillars was decided upon. These five pillars consisted of the following: politics and dialogues, interregional cooperation, business promotion, intellectual dialogues, along 32

For the Chinese-language full text of the memorandum, refer to this website: http://www. sco-ec.gov.cn/crweb/scoc/info/Article.jsp?a_no=521&col_no=50/ [accessed November 11, 2006]. 33 Ibid. 34 The Japan Institute of International Affairs (2006). “Wagakuni no Yurashia Gaigo: Shanghai Kyoroku Kiko wo Tegagari ni [Our Country’s Eurasian Diplomacy: Taking a Clue from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization]’’. H18 Nendo Gaimusho Itaku Kenkyu Hokokusho [Ministry of Foreign Affairs Contract Research Report in 2006], March.

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with cultural and personnel exchange. In August of the same year, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi made visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, through which the strengthening of relations between Japan and Central Asia was boosted even further. In November 2006, Foreign Minister Aso declared in an address entitled “Making the ‘Arc of Freedom and Prosperity’” that the newly developing democracies on the Eurasian continent were tied together as part of the “arc of freedom and prosperity.” However, there is no sign of a solution having been found with regard to value problems involving power struggles between China and Japan in Central Asia. Compared to bilateral risk management between Japan and China, Sino–Japanese risk management regarding the regional integration of Asia is still standing at its starting point. In order to keep peace and prosperity in the Asian region, establishing frameworks for dialogue on issues that could lead to confrontation is an urgent necessity. In constructing the frameworks to manage issues that could lead to confrontation between the two countries, the following three tasks are important. First, it is necessary to make public any concrete and visible results from the environmental field, in which Sino–Japanese cooperation is progressing the most, as soon as possible. These results will explicitly show the advantages of a cooperative relationship between the two countries. Second, it is necessary to discover and make known areas other than the environmental field that bring mutual benefits, and thus cooperation, to China and Japan. Third, as stated previously, the American component comprises a large weight within both China’s and Japan’s policies towards Asia; therefore, the future actions of both countries are strongly controlled by America’s Asia policies. It can be gathered from these three points that digging around for common benefits for all three countries — Japan, China and the United States — regarding the regional integration of Asia is also necessary. Asian regional integration consists of many overlapping layers due to the rivalries between the key actors, and the future direction is still not clear. Nevertheless, cooperation in Sino–Japanese relations would exert a great influence on the orientation of Asian regional integration, and the continuation of a cooperative stance between Japan and China with regard to the budding regional integration of Asia is surely indispensable for the stability of the Asian region.

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Part IV Where Are We Moving?

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Chapter 10

Sino–Japanese Relations: From the “1972 Framework” to the “2006 Framework”

Ryosei Kokubun

Emerging New Environment When we consider Sino–Japanese relations in recent years, we must take into consideration two new factors. The first of these is that on September 16, 2009, the administration of Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took office, ending the continuous rule of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which with the exception of one year had lasted over half a century since 1955. Although this was the result of a general election, it also constituted a kind of revolution in Japanese politics. Under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the LDP won in a landslide in the 2005 general election held four years earlier. However, if we reflect on this now, this was not necessarily a victory for the LDP. That was the election in which Prime Minister Koizumi defied the LDP with its conventional factionalism and threw down the gauntlet against the LDP’s conservative faction under the name of postal reform. If we go back further still to 2001, when Koizumi presented himself as a candidate in the LDP’s presidential election, he boldly cried “Smash the LDP!,” and called for defeat of conventional factional politics and garnered massive support

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for this. In that sense, these elections results were the final ultimatum from the electorate about the LDP’s inaction in the face of demands for the internal reform of the party, even though these had risen over the years. After its crushing defeat, the LDP has still continued in its sluggish state, and has reached a crucial stage in terms of whether or not it can genuinely regenerate itself in the future. Perhaps out of an awareness that it needed to differentiate itself from the LDP, the DPJ’s Hatoyama administration exhibited some distinctive features on the foreign policy front as well. The “yuai (fraternal) diplomacy” advanced by Hatoyama had a deep pacifist hue on the surface, but the more important thing was its essence. The two features of this foreign policy were first the correction of the exclusive devotion to the United States that had existed under the LDP, and second the change of emphasis seen in the assertion of an “East Asian Community.” These two were linked and were debated extensively, and a shift from a focus on the U.S. to an emphasis on Asia — and more concretely the possibility of an equidistant foreign policy between Japan, the U.S. and China — was pointed out. However, Prime Minister Hatoyama himself rejected this interpretation, and explained that although U.S.–Japan relations remained the linchpin of Japanese foreign policy, there was a need for Japan to cast off its dependence on the U.S. and make the relationship more equal, and moreover to further strengthen its Asian foreign policy, with the focus on China and South Korea. That said, there has as yet been no clear response about the concrete details surrounding the “East Asian Community,” such as the question of what the status of the U.S. will be within it. The second new factor is the fact that the rise of China has increasingly become a reality. China has now surpassed Japan in GDP, and currently occupies second place in the world after the United States. Naturally, owing to its huge population, China remains a developing country if we are talking about per capita GDP, but the “China” centered on the coastal areas is already approaching the advanced countries, and appears to be following the road to great power status on various fronts, including military affairs. Moreover, amidst the current global financial crisis, the strength of the Chinese economy, where the managed market economy called “state capitalism” is being employed, has been shown.

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From such circumstances, a debate about a “G2” era between the U.S. and China has also appeared,1 and around the world considerable attention is being paid to China’s current state and future direction. Leaving aside the question of whether or not a G2 is feasible, the era has already moved from the previous time of the conventional G7 or G8 led by the advanced countries of the West to a new day of the G20, which includes those developing countries that have risen more recently. China’s presence and voice in the G20 group is large. And inversely proportionate to this, along with the end of the era of the G7 and G8, the presence and voice of Japan, whose economy is shrinking and population is declining, continues to grow smaller than before. If we reflect on history, whether we are talking about the Republic of China or the People’s Republic of China, it is no exaggeration to say that 20th-century China in a sense took as its objective catching up to and surpassing Japan. Whether it was the Three People’s Principles, which were the national credo of Sun Yat-sen and his successor Chiang Kai-shek, or Mao Zedong’s socialism and communism, or Deng Xiaoping’s socialist market economy, these were all ultimately part of a process of seeking for a method to achieve the final goals of “wealth and power” and “Chinese unification.” If we assume that the target to be attained by the Chinese during that time was Japan, then there is little question that the reality of China’s rise, which is currently occurring in this region, is of great significance for the history of civilization. What are these two new factors likely to bring about for Sino–Japanese relations and this region? Sino–Japanese relations since 1972 had of course been established on the basis of an equal political relationship, but there was still an aspect of North–South relations between an advanced country and a developing country when it came to economic realities. This is symbolized by the yen loans in official development assistance (ODA) from Japan to China, which started from 1979. However, these loans also ended in 2008. When we observe the clear contrast between a rising China and a sluggish Japan like that described above, the positioning in the Sino–Japanese relationship continues to go through clear changes. This is the appearance 1

Bergsten, C.F. (2008). “A Partnership of Equals: How Washington Should Respond to China’s Economic Challenge”. Foreign Affairs, vol. 87, no. 4, pp. 57–69.

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of a level relationship that is no longer a “North–South relationship”; and to frame it in terms of global presence, China has already overwhelmed Japan. For that reason alone, the trends in the relationship between China and Japan, which already occupy second and third place globally in GDP, will continue to be an extremely important factor from the standpoint of examining the international relations of the region in the future. On this point, the two countries have already accumulated a great deal of experience. In particular, during Jiang Zemin’s visit to Japan in 1998, there was a backlash in Japan about Jiang’s fixation with historical problems, causing bilateral relations to enter a rough period, and the two countries’ ties deteriorated seriously from the start of the Koizumi administration in 2001 due to the issue of visits by the Prime Minister to the Yasukuni Shrine. It reached the point where, in connection with the reform of the permanent member countries of the United Nations Security Council and the problem of its enlargement including Japan, anti-Japanese demonstrations took place in the spring of 2005 in every major Chinese city in opposition to such an enlargement. The world even began to worry that the worsening of Sino– Japanese relations might ultimately lead to a permanent regional dispute. However, things changed greatly in 2006. Prime Minister Koizumi retired from the field when his term expired, and the Shinzo Abe administration took power. Although Abe’s position inside the LDP had been that of a hardliner towards China, he immediately moved to improve relations with that country. After Abe assumed office, the first country that he chose to visit was China, and here he achieved an improvement in Sino– Japanese ties by establishing a “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” with Chinese President Hu Jintao. It is no exaggeration to say that this represented a development suggesting a metamorphosis from the “1972 Framework” at the center of bilateral ties, whose major principle was the “Sino–Japanese friendship” underscored previously. This is because the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” included in it multilateralism aimed at tackling the two countries’ common issues in the region and the world. Accordingly, here I will tentatively call this the “2006 Framework,” which constitutes the new framework for Sino–Japanese relations. Examining its substance and future prospects may hold some significance from a policy standpoint.

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When the DPJ assumed power in 2009, Prime Minister Hatoyama made it clear that he would continue to pursue the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” with China that was born in 2006. However, it is entirely possible that such a framework will be changed, depending on the foreign policy posture of new administrations in the future. Above all else, this is because the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” has itself just begun, and the expression itself is still not fully recognized and has not penetrated widely. In addition, owing to its precipitous rise, China has raised its presence as a global power to the point where its relationship with the United States is now called the “G2,” and it has surpassed Japan economically, and amid such realities there lies latent potential for changes in the state of its relations with Japan and the emphases therein. Based on such changes in the situation, in this chapter I will trace the shift from the 1972 Framework to the 2006 Framework and probe its background, while at the same time examining the current state of and issues in the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests.” Based on an analysis of these, I want to examine the questions of what meaning the newly manifested transfer of power in Japan and the rise in China’s presence hold for bilateral ties between Japan and China in the future, and what effect this will have on the formation of a regional order, and in particular the multilateral frameworks between many countries, such as the “East Asian Community.”

From a “Friendly” Relationship to a “Strategic” Relationship Changes in the Framework Japan and China normalized diplomatic relations in September 1972. The reason why the term “normalization” was used is that in 1952 Japan “restored” diplomatic relations with “China” by recognizing not the People’s Republic of China on the mainland but rather the Republic of China in Taiwan as the legitimate government, and then subsequently “normalized” the “non-normal” relationship that it had with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Up to that point, there is no question that the

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problem of Taiwan constituted the major theme in normalization of diplomatic ties. For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), unification with Taiwan was the problem remaining as a symbol of final victory in the Chinese civil war. In other words, it was proof of the CCP’s historical legitimacy. In addition, there also remained the problems of pre-war invasion and World War II (historical problems) in Sino–Japanese relations, and this was also another major theme at the time of normalization of diplomatic ties. The core issues therein were Japan’s official expression of its attitude about these problems, and agreement about “compensation.” With respect to Taiwan, paragraph 3 of the Joint Communiqué issued at the time of normalization of diplomatic relations stated: “The Government of the People’s Republic of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China. The Government of Japan fully understands and respects this stand of the Government of the People’s Republic of China.”2 That is, agreement was reached by “understanding” and “respecting” the Chinese position. In addition, in the preamble to the Joint Communiqué relating to historical problems, Japan in fact apologized to China: “The Japanese side is keenly conscious of the responsibility for the serious damage that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people through war, and deeply reproaches itself.”3 In paragraph 5, China announced that it would renounce compensation: “The Government of the People’s Republic of China declares that in the interest of the friendship between the Chinese and the Japanese peoples, it renounces its demand for war reparation from Japan.”4 And it adopted essentially the same method as the Republic of China in 1952 by making a background statement to the effect that Japanese civilians were also “victims” and China would not impose a burden on them. These two issues were the basic themes in normalization of Sino–Japanese relations, and the framework created here has been an unchanged principle up to the present day. It is frequently called the “1972 Framework.” However, if we take the basic framework of Sino–Japanese relations since 1972 to be not 2

“Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China”, 29 September, 1972. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/china/ joint72.html/ [accessed September 12, 2011]. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.

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an unmoving political framework but rather a more academic and functional analytic framework, it is possible — and necessary — to establish it more flexibly. From such a standpoint, I have argued previously that it is necessary to reorganize the “1972 Framework” and reconstitute it in a form that corresponds to changes in the objective situation.5 In this connection, Kazuko Mori has also argued against the claim made by Jin Xide (the former Vice Director of the Institute of Japanese Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) that the “1972 Framework” is an absolutely unchanging principle, and instead asserted that a redefinition has become necessary in response to structural changes in Sino–Japanese relations.6 I have previously discussed the “1972 Framework” in terms of four issues, namely the international order, awareness of China, agreement of the war generation, and the Taiwan problem.7 The international order refers to the fact that during the Cold War, Japan and China joined together with the United States for the purpose of opposing their common enemy, the Soviet Union, and aimed at closer relations. Awareness of China refers to the fact that Japan and China, and then the United States, shared an awareness on the point that the establishment of China’s modernization line and its participation in international society would contribute to the stability and development of the region. The agreement of the war generation means that Sino–Japanese friendship was mutually confirmed by a shared agreement that the two countries, with the focus on this generation, would not fight another war so that there would be no return to the unfortunate history of the past. It goes without saying that the Taiwan problem refers to the fact that both sides confirmed that the People’s Republic of China was the legitimate government of China. However, with the advent of the 1990s, the Cold War ended. The international framework that had supported the 1972 Framework thus changed, and then rapid economic growth began in China. From then, a debate occurred about the status and evaluation of China, culminating in 5

Kokubun, R. (2006). “The Shifting Nature of Japan–China Relations after the Cold War”. In P.E. Lam (ed.), Japan’s Relations with China, Routledge, London; Kokubun, R. (2007). “Changing Japanese Strategic Thinking toward China”. In G. Rozman, K. Togo and J.P. Ferguson (eds.), Japanese Strategic Thought toward Asia, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. 6 Mori, K. (2006). Nitchu Kankei: Sengo Kara Sinjidai he [Japan–China Relations: From the Post-War to a New Era]. Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, pp. 90–94. 7 See footnote 5.

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the “China threat” theory generated in connection with China’s nontransparent system of government. Moreover, the war generation withdrew from center stage in both countries, and it became harder to establish tacit agreement about the “unfortunate history” since the postwar generation was in charge of Sino–Japanese relations, and the result was that a certain difference in temperament became evident in the awareness of and stances towards the war and invasion. Although there was no change in the principle of “one China” when it came to the Taiwan problem, the substance and presence of Taiwan ended up changing greatly between the era of normalization of diplomatic ties and the 1990s owing to Taiwan’s rapid economic growth and democratization. In response to such changes in the objective situation surrounding Sino–Japanese ties, even though the basic spirit of the 1972 Framework remained, matters had reached a stage where the formation of a new framework for bilateral ties was needed. In particular, as noted already, after Jiang Zemin’s visit to Japan in 1998, friction arose in every field of Sino–Japanese relations, with the focus being historical problems. The images of the other side held by the people of each country also worsened, and a new framework for a new era that expanded the 1972 Framework had become necessary. Amid this situation, in October 2006 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had just assumed office, made his electrifying trip to China, and thereby gave birth to the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” as the new framework for Sino–Japanese ties. This was presented as one means for a breakthrough in order to remove the deadlock in Sino–Japanese relations, which had deteriorated chiefly because of the problem of visits to the Yasukuni Shrine during the Koizumi administration. The Joint Press Statement released at that time explained this point in paragraph 3 as follows: Both sides shared the view that the two countries would continue to observe the principles enunciated in the Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, and the Japan–China Joint Declaration, and that they would face past history squarely, advance towards the future, deal appropriately with issues which may influence the development of Japan–China relations, operate

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the two wheels of politics and economy, and elevate the Japan–China relations to a higher dimension. Furthermore, both sides shared the view that the two countries would strive to build a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests, and achieve the noble objectives of peaceful co-existence, friendship for generations, mutually beneficial cooperation, and common development.8

What is extremely interesting is that there was no mention at all in this press statement about the problem of Taiwan, and in addition historical problems were only touched on briefly in this quote by the phrase “they would face past history squarely.” On the contrary, in this connection it was stated: “The Japanese side emphasized that Japan more than 60 years after the War, has been consistently following the path of a peaceful country, and would continue to follow this path. The Chinese side positively appreciated this.”9 In other words, this represented a shift to a more forward-looking stance whereby the Chinese side positively appraised the peace and development of post-war Japan, while setting aside the canonical view of history that links together pre-war and present-day Japan. However, at this time a “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” as a new orientation was only agreed to up to this stage, and nothing specific had been filled in for its concrete contents as yet. This became clear in the Sino–Japanese Joint Statement announced for the purpose of comprehensive promotion of the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests,” which was issued at the time of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Japan in May 2008.10 The Joint Press Statement issued at the same time promoted bilateral exchanges and cooperation, and included an agenda covering 70 items, such as a bilateral strategic dialogue, security dialogue, peacekeeping operations cooperation, joint historical research, youth exchanges, 8

“Japan–China Joint Press Statement”, 8 October, 2006. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/ asia-paci/china/joint0610.html/. 9 Ibid. 10 “Joint Statement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Comprehensive Promotion of a ‘Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests’”, 7 May, 2008. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/ asia-paci/china/joint0805.html/.

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cooperation on the global environment and energy conservation, promotion of tourism, etc.11 The Sino–Japanese Joint Statement declared: “The two sides recognized that the Japan–China relationship is one of the most important bilateral relationships for each of the two countries,” and then it went on to say, “Japan and China now have great influence on and bear a solemn responsibility for peace, stability, and development of the Asia-Pacific region and the world.”12 Thus, it was assumed that bilateral ties do not stop at the two countries but rather have an effect on the Asia-Pacific region and on the world. In addition, it was stipulated that the bilateral relationship should be situated as a relationship “over the long term.”13 In other words, the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” was envisaged as something for reinterpreting bilateral ties from a global and comprehensive perspective, and also as a long-term relationship. In connection with the Taiwan problem, the Sino–Japanese Joint Statement stated extremely simply that: “The Japanese side again expressed its adherence to the position enunciated in the Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China.”14 It further positioned historical problems in a future-oriented manner by stating: “The two sides resolved to face history squarely, advance toward the future, and endeavor with persistence to create a new era of a ‘mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests’ between Japan and China.”15 With respect to post-war Japan, like the Joint Press Statement of 2006, it stated that: “The Chinese side expressed its positive evaluation of Japan’s consistent pursuit of the path of a peaceful

11

“Joint Press Statement on the Strengthening Exchange and Cooperation between the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China”, 7 May, 2008. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/china/pv0805/press.html/. 12 “Joint Statement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Comprehensive Promotion of a ‘Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests’”, 7 May, 2008. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/ asia-paci/china/joint0805.html/. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

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country and Japan’s contribution to the peace and stability of the world through peaceful means over more than sixty years since World War II.”16 To summarize the above, I have repositioned the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” from the viewpoint of multilateralism based on the historical friendly relations accumulated since 1972, and where the two countries cooperate in tackling the common problems of the region and the world without confining Sino–Japanese relations to bilateral ties, so that this relationship can be raised to a new level. I have tried to interpret this relationship in a more forward-looking and long-term manner.

Background to the Change Why did such changes occur? The key to understanding this lies in the changes in the objective situation surrounding the two countries, Japan and China. I want to discuss this by breaking it down into four points. The first thing to be noted is the sudden rise of China. China has adopted a modernization line since 1978, but had partially introduced the market after this with the precondition that it was a socialist planned economy, and had opened its market to the outside world in a limited manner. The thing that changed this greatly came in 1992 after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, when a socialist market economy was introduced based on the resolution of Deng Xiaoping, and it was announced that China would aim at a full-fledged market economy. Direct foreign investment increased rapidly after 1992, and China’s economic growth came to exceed 10% per annum. Although the growth was blunted somewhat owing to the effects of the Asian currency crisis in the latter part of the 1990s, growth accelerated again with the advent of the 21st century. From the subprime loan problem in the United States in 2007 to the Lehman Brothers shock in 2008, the world economy suddenly found itself in the grips of a deep downturn, but China, which had strengthened its command economy, has kept the adverse effects to a minimum. In addition, owing to China’s massive purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds and its huge reserves of foreign exchange earned through trade and exporting, the U.S. 16

Ibid.

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also decided that it could not recover without Chinese cooperation, and it has continued to adopt an extremely respectful stance vis-à-vis China. Moreover, there is also a tendency for the world’s investors to view this vast potential market as a means to escape the global recession, and China’s global presence looms larger by the day. For Japan as well, China has now become its largest global trade partner, and the world’s largest market for direct investment. Such a rapid rise by China continues to change greatly the structure of Sino–Japanese relations. At the outset, Sino–Japanese ties were established in a form where China exported its resources to Japan, and Japan transferred technology to China, and this structure lasted for a long time. From 1979 to 2008, Japan provided ODA to China, and it is no exaggeration to say that the basic structure of such a relationship was a “North–South relationship” between an advanced country and a developing country. However, the contents of both trade and investment are now bidirectional, and it can be acknowledged that interdependence has deepened. In other words, the Sino–Japanese relationship has become a level relationship, and on this point one can conclude that it was necessary to change the framework of the relationship to a more comprehensive and forward-looking one beyond mere bilateral “friendship.” Second, the expansion and deepening of the relationship accompanying the advance in interdependence also increased bilateral frictions at the same time, and necessitated a new framework to substitute for the “1972 Framework.” In recent years, historical problems, of which the foremost was Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, have been at the heart of such frictions, but Yasukuni itself is not necessarily the essence of the problem; rather, the nucleus appears to be a kind of “power shift” accompanying China’s rapid rise and the diminishing of Japan’s economic might and presence, and the corresponding psychological effects on both countries’ peoples. For example, anti-Japanese demonstrations occurred in China in 2005, but while it was commonplace for debate to link this to historical problems in Japan, this was in fact triggered by the problem of admitting Japan to permanent member nation status on the UN Security Council.17 Japan’s 17

Kokubun (2007), op. cit., pp. 137–142.

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distrust concerning Chinese military action or the infestation of marine survey vessels in the East China Sea may also be an expression of vigilance towards China, which is becoming a major power while remaining non-transparent. The image of China has still not taken a turn for the better in Japan, but the major reason for this is the problem of food safety that arose chiefly in the case of poisonous pan-fried dumplings imported from China in 2008.18 This is indeed something that occurred in spite of the closer bilateral ties. Although the “1972 Framework” was established based on considering of primary importance the stance and response to the problems of history and Taiwan, with the passage of time the “friendship generation” of both countries left center stage, and a younger generation wound up supporting the relationship. It became impossible to solve the frictions based on national interest and popular sentiment that increased along with the expansion and deepening of relations simply by the slogan of “friendship,” and it became necessary to search for a path to resolution through more realist negotiations. Moreover, beginning with the media and Internet, “public opinion,” which had been inconceivable in previous relations, also began to have its say about bilateral ties. Precisely such major factors are of the more realistic problem-solving type, and they lay in the background of the shift to the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” in the form that keeps its eyes on Asia and the world. Third, it goes without saying that the wave of world globalization continues to exert a huge effect on the Asian region. Before we argue the pros and cons of this, it is clearly a reality and it cannot be stopped, and therefore the problems of the world and the region must be considered in this context. This is apparent if we examine the present-day global financial crisis, for example. Irrespective of this, given that globalization is advancing within the framework of the system of nation-states, nationalism will periodically erupt as dissatisfaction from the nation and the citizenry surfaces.

18

“Report from the Fifth Tokyo–Beijing Forum, Co-Sponsored by Genron NPO and China Daily” (2009). http://tokyo-beijingforum.net/index.php?option=com_content& view=article&id=439:5-&catid=110:20095&Itemid=203/.

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This wave of globalization was not experienced under the “1972 Framework.” Under these new circumstances, Japan and China, the two major powers in Asia, will continue to confront an era in which they have no choice but to cooperate for the region and the world in innumerable fields including finance, trade and investment, the environment, energy, nuclear proliferation, piracy, crime, natural disasters, infectious diseases and narcotics. These realistic imperatives are one reason for orienting both Japan and China not towards dogmatic themes, but rather towards more realistic problem solving and a “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests.” Fourth, although a generational shift is also involved, a turnover in the political power leadership of both countries can also be noted. In Japan, the dominance of the LDP under the “1955 System” lasted many years. It was the Kakuei Tanaka faction, the largest faction in the LDP, which had supported normalization of Sino–Japanese diplomatic relations in 1972 and subsequent Sino–Japanese ties. Noboru Takeshita in the 1980s and Ryutaro Hashimoto and Keizo Obuchi in the 1990s were also part of this current, and composed the centrist faction of the LDP that supported the mainstream approach in Japanese relations with China. When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who took office in 2001, said “Smash the LDP!,” he was essentially talking about overthrowing the old Tanaka faction, and one can argue that he did in fact achieve this objective during his five years in office. Hiromu Nonaka, who was at the center of negotiations with China in his capacity as a power holder in the Tanaka faction, was pushed into retirement by Koizumi. Thus, the LDP’s direct channel to China was lost in the Koizumi era. In retrospect, Koizumi’s decision to visit the Yasukuni Shrine was also aimed at garnering the support of the Japanese Association for the Bereaved Families of the War Dead, which had previously supported the Tanaka faction. Koizumi’s successor Shinzo Abe was initially a member of the hardline faction towards China, but supported by a clamor seeking an improvement in relations, he visited China and embarked on the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests.” Since then, despite the changing of the guard from the administrations of Prime Ministers Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso of the LDP to the administrations of Prime Ministers Yukio Hatoyama, Naoto Kan and now Yoshihiko Noda of

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the DPJ, and perhaps reflecting this complicated historical background, all of these leaders have stated that Japan will continue to pursue the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” with China. In that time, there has also been a power shift in the Chinese leadership, namely the transfer of power from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. In 2002, Jiang Zemin yielded the post of CCP General Secretary to Hu Jintao, and Hu became President of the PRC in the spring of 2003 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2004. When Hu took office as President, whose bailiwick includes foreign policy, in 2003, China’s posture towards the outside world exhibited a variety of changes. The promise to serve as host country for the Six-Party Talks from 2003, the policy of essentially maintaining the status quo with regard to the Taiwan problem that was launched thereafter, and so on are parts of a policy of strengthening the framework for cooperation with the United States. This appears to be an attempt by Hu to differentiate himself from the Jiang Zemin era, which had avoided a tough policy towards North Korea and pushed a policy of unification with Taiwan. In Chinese diplomacy towards Japan as well, a flexible policy not fixated on historical problems that was called “New Thinking about Japan” was debated in this period, though it is not certain to what extent this was at the behest of the central leadership. However, during this period the Koizumi government was still in power in Japan, and so an improvement in ties was delayed due to the continuation of visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. Then with the advent of the Abe administration in 2006, Hu Jintao actively undertook a policy of improving relations with Japan, and as noted above he refrained from any mention of the problems of history and Taiwan. There were soundings from the Chinese about a visit by Abe to China in September 2006; and the fact that this occurred immediately after the arrest of Chen Liangyu, the CCP Shanghai Committee Secretary who was directly connected to Jiang Zemin and was viewed as a possible rival to Hu Jintao, symbolizes such a break from the past.19 19

For details, see Kokubun, R. (2010). “The Japan–China Relationship, East Asia Community, and the Trilateral Relations”. In G. Curtis, R. Kokubun and J. Wang (eds.), Getting the Triangle Straight: Managing China–Japan–US Relations, Japan Center for International Exchange, Tokyo.

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In this manner, the result of the search for a new framework for bilateral ties by the new leadership following the generational transfer of power was the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests.” I have probed the background to the establishment of the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” from four viewpoints as discussed above. To sum up, Sino–Japanese relations have broadened and deepened in the course of more than 30 years of history to the point where they cannot be handled any longer by just the “1972 Framework.” There has been a generational transfer of power, and China and Japan have also become second and third in GNP in the world. Hence, the Sino–Japanese relationship no longer falls within the scope of just a bilateral relationship.

Challenges to the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” The Sino–Japanese “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” has been continued in the DPJ government, which replaced the LDP. Cooperative bilateral ties, which stretched across a large number of specific items as promised during the age of LDP rule, such as a bilateral strategic dialogue, economic cooperation, security guarantee dialogue, peace-keeping operations cooperation, joint historical research, youth exchanges, cooperation on the global environment and energy conservation, promotion of tourism, etc., have basically continued down to the present. The qualification is that owing to the change in governments on the Japan side, political leadership by the DPJ continues to be put into practice at present, while the moves by Japan’s bureaucratic machinery have become more sluggish than before. To be sure, it appears that routine exchanges and cooperation between Japan and China are being pursued without fail. Perhaps in the future as the DPJ government finds its legs, top-level exchanges between the governments will also increase, and the plans for these may be set in motion more concretely. However, the road ahead will not be level. In order for there to be a stable structure in the new Sino–Japanese relationship where the “2006

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Framework” has replaced the “1972 Framework,” both parties must address the challenges posed by the various problems noted below. Roughly speaking, these can be summarized under the following four headings. First of all, there is the size of the effects exerted by the changes in the two countries’ domestic politics. The ups and downs of high politics due to factionalism and bureaucratic politics involved in the changing of the guard in China’s leadership as well as the changing of prime ministers, the switchover to a new ruling party and policy formation in Japan, the trends in public opinion and the media in domestic politics, and the status of the domestic political society or economy may all have an impact on diplomacy. As far as China is concerned, in the policies towards Japan of the preceding Jiang Zemin era and the subsequent Hu Jintao era, the ways of dealing with historical problems differ. Jiang Zemin clearly projected his own personal feelings towards Japan onto policies, whereas Hu Jintao has been strongly oriented towards a forward-looking and stable relationship with Japan. In Japan as well, one can observe major differences in the posture towards China during the Koizumi era and during the time of the prime ministers who followed him, as is clear from an examination of the way in which visits to the Yasukuni Shrine were handled differently. The personalities of the two countries’ leaders have clearly cast their shadows here. In connection with this point, new leaders are scheduled to replace Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in China in 2012–2013. At the present stage, there is a high likelihood that these will be Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. The commonly held view is that Xi will assume the office of CCP General Secretary, while Li will become the Chinese Premier. Viewed in terms of background, it is Li who is close to Hu Jintao, but it is highly likely that Xi will take over Hu’s position. Xi was formerly one of Jiang Zemin’s right-hand men, after which he was reputedly close to Zeng Qinghong, who served as a key player during the above-described Chen Liangyu scandal that occurred in the course of the consolidation of Hu Jintao’s power base.20 20

Ibid.

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Will Xi Jinping ultimately follow Hu Jintao’s softer line towards Japan? It is hard to imagine that he will simply return China’s ties with Japan back to square one. While it may be hard for him to carry out such a clear soft-line policy towards Japan as that of Hu Jintao, it is anticipated that the basic line will hew closely to that followed in the Hu era. This is because even though there is a sense that the personal feelings of the leaders had a major impact on policies during the Jiang Zemin era, it remains a fact that even during that period there were around Jiang people like Zeng Qinghong who strove to improve Sino–Japanese relations. The same holds true in the case of Japan. A transfer of power from the LDP to the DPJ took place in 2009, and Sino–Japanese relations are now confronting their most important phase in the post-war period. Even though it can be rightly stated that the post-war U.S.–Japan alliance was the, so to speak, “absolute value” in Japanese diplomacy, it has been relativized with the passage of time, and to that extent the tilt towards Japan’s relationship with China has increased. In addition, the DPJ has emphasized historical problems, and has adopted an exceptionally clear stance about Japan’s past invasion. A tilt towards China by the DPJ government in the future is foreseen based on this, but on the other hand the voices critical of China over such issues as human rights and Tibet are deeply entrenched in the party. If changes were to occur in the power structure inside the DPJ due to future developments in the political situation, one cannot reject out of hand the possibility that this stable scenario could collapse. For precisely that reason, the reality is that China also has little choice but to adopt a relatively calm stance in its relationship with the DPJ. In addition, although it will depend on the status of the two countries’ high politics as well, situations in which the momentum of nationalism will increase by having the amplifying effect of the mass media added to it may well arise depending on the two countries’ future domestic circumstances, especially their socio-economic conditions. If we consider the Chinese political system in particular, if there is for instance increasing social unease, such as a growing number of the unemployed due to a worsening of disparities or economic circumstances, it may be that in order to divert popular dissatisfaction with the system the government may direct it at specific foreign countries and Japan in particular, either

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with the regime’s tacit approval or intentionally. However, if the Chinese government resorts to this, it is equally likely that this will ultimately result in a wave of criticisms lodged against China, as happened during the anti-Japanese demonstrations in 2005.21 Secondly, it remains a fact that the image that each of the two countries has of the other has not improved. According to the “Opinion Poll on Foreign Diplomacy” undertaken annually by the Cabinet Office of Japan, starting from 1989, when the Tiananmen Square Incident occurred, the image that the Japanese held of China began to worsen, and the view that “I do not have a friendly feeling towards China” (which combined the responses “I do not have a friendly feeling towards China” and “If I have to say one way or another, I do not have a friendly feeling towards China”) became dominant starting in 1995. This situation became entrenched from 2003, and the percentage responding “I do not have a friendly feeling towards China” reached 66.8% in 2008.22 The chief reason for this is that this was the year in which the incident involving the poisonous dumplings made in China occurred, and distrust about Chinese food products increased, chiefly among Japanese housewives. Moreover, according to the image survey in Japan and China that has jointly been conducted annually by Genron NPO of Japan and China Daily since 2005, the percentage of Japanese who responded that they had a good (which combined the responses “Good” and “If I have to say one way or another, good”) impression about China in 2009 was 26.6%, while that for those responding that they had a bad (which combined the responses “Bad” and “If I have to say one way or another, bad”) impression was 73.2%. Similarly, the percentage of Chinese who responded that they had a good impression about Japan was 32.6%, while that for those responding that they had a bad impression was 65.2%. In the responses to another question, “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘China’ (‘Japan’)?,” the most common of the many responses were “socialism and communism,” “militarism” and “totalitarianism (one-party dictatorship),” 21

Ibid. Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009). “Gaiko ni Kansuru Seron Chosa [Public Opinion Survey on Foreign Diplomacy]”. http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h21/h21-gaiko/images/ z10.gif/. 22

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in that order, in Japan; while the most common responses were “capitalism,” “militarism” and “nationalism,” in that order, in China. This demonstrated that the citizenry of both countries had hardly broken free at all of the stereotypical images of the other. Such mutual images will be improved with greater contact and the passage of time. In addition, with respect to the future of Sino–Japanese relations, the percentage of Japanese who responded “They will improve” or “If I have to say one way or another, they will improve” was 31.1%, while that of those replying “They will not change” was 39.3%; thus, the percentage of those holding a pessimistic view was not all that strong. For China, the percentages were 51.2% and 40.1%, respectively, giving a combined total of over 90%.23 In recent years, the Japanese government has been actively trying to attract Chinese tourists by relaxing visa restrictions and the like as part of its economic growth strategy, and there is a possibility that this will result in a sudden surge in the number of Chinese traveling to Japan. It can be anticipated that there will be a turn for the better in the image that Chinese have of Japan due to such increased opportunities for direct contact, and this is a key element that may be viewed favorably in terms of the two countries’ images. But to repeat myself, it is still going to require some time for an overall improvement in the mutual images at the popular level. Thirdly, a large number of unresolved problems still exist as before between Japan and China. At present, the problems between Japan and China are chiefly the issue of the development of the resources of the East China Sea and the food-related problems stemming from the poisoning incident involving dumplings made in China. As far as the latter is concerned, the culprit was arrested in spring 2010 and cooperation in the two countries’ inspection systems will continue to be examined between the governments. Therefore, what is more important right now is the former issue. China had pushed forward with the development of gas fields in the oceanic region that falls somewhat on the Chinese side of the meridian line between Japan and China, but Japan had requested the provision of 23

“Report from the Fifth Tokyo–Beijing Forum, Co-Sponsored by Genron NPO and China Daily” (2009). http://tokyo-beijingforum.net/index.php?option=com_content& view=article&id=439:5-&catid=110:20095&Itemid=203/.

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data owing to the possibility that in this area Chunxiao (or Shirakaba in Japanese) is linked to Japan at the sea bottom, and demanded that Japanese corporations be allowed to participate in such development. The Chinese side had previously rejected such requests, but it attempted to strike a bargain during Hu Jintao’s trip to Japan in May 2008 by allowing the involvement of Japanese corporations and agreeing to joint development in the other oceanic regions that sit astride the meridian line. However, it does not follow from this that the Chinese side has accepted the meridian line claimed by Japan as the borderline between Japan and China; rather, China emphasized that it has not changed its previous position on the continental shelf. Then, perhaps due to dissatisfaction internally in the Chinese military and elsewhere, this news was made public only after some time had passed following Hu Jintao’s trip to Japan.24 Since that time, there has been almost no progress in the concrete talks about this subject. It can be surmised that there was a strong backlash inside the Chinese leadership in response to the major concessions made by Hu Jintao. There is a possibility that this issue will also be linked to that of the Senkaku (Diaoyutai in Chinese) Islands, for which there is an underlying debate over sovereignty, and this subject will be hard to handle in the future. In particular, there has been a rapid strengthening of Chinese naval forces along with China’s wide-ranging emergence. As Japan’s vigilance about the reinforcement of the Chinese military, with the focus on the security sector, continues to increase, this has potentially become the grounds for the “China threat” theory. In addition, although the problems of history and Taiwan, which were the traditional themes between Japan and China, have subsided under the forceful policies of the Hu Jintao leadership at present, these could perhaps be reignited at some point either by an unforeseen incident or a change in policies by the leadership. In particular, the mutual images have still not matured, and should some unforeseen incident occur, there is always a possibility that it might lead to a clash of nationalisms between the two countries. In the future, it is expected that Sino–Japanese ties will expand on the economic front, and opportunities for contact between 24

Asahi Shimbun, 19 June, 2008.

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the citizens of the two countries will increase, travel included. Although the positive side of this is great, the increase in contact and interdependence carries with it simultaneously the possibility of an increase in friction. Some preliminary consideration on such fronts is likely to be needed henceforth as well. Fourth, there is a possibility that cooperation itself in the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” may on the contrary cause friction and antipathy between the two countries in the concrete policy process thereof. In the “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests,” we can envisage cooperation in a variety of fields, such as economics and finance, trade and investment, the environment, energy, natural disasters, infectious diseases, crime and so on. Cooperation when it comes to global issues is extremely desirable, but the national interests of each country are easily intertwined with the respective themes. Whether one is talking about Japan or China, there is no problem if the two countries prioritize solicitude towards the other country, but in reality the thing that will be prioritized is of course the interest of their own citizens. That being the case, when this conflicts with problems of sovereignty and national interests, that may inadvertently serve as the trigger for conflict. In connection with this, there is the debate about the “East Asian Community.” The DPJ has raised this concept to the forefront, and it is considered proof of the positive turn of diplomacy towards China in Japan. But it is not necessarily the case that China is positively attuned to such an “East Asian Community.” Previously, there was a strong tendency for this debate to be linked to issues of regional hegemony and leadership. The debate revolved around the question of who would become the leader of the region, Japan or China, and also what to do about the U.S. presence in the region. China has formally stated its view that the “East Asian Community” should have ASEAN as its core. Whatever the case may be, although the sound of the “East Asian Community” as an ideal is beautiful, the importance of the nation state and sovereignty will still be prioritized. The formation of a community that overcomes the walls between nation states will be difficult in this

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region, where standardization in terms of the regional economics and politics has been slow. In other words, it will be necessary to pay attention to this during debates over the “East Asian Community,” so that the competitive consciousness and national interests of Japan and China do not end up contrarily clashing with each other.

Conclusions To be blunt, the “2006 Framework” based on a “Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests” as the new framework in Sino–Japanese relations has not yet been firmly established. One should probably say that the countries are still at the stage of searching for a new framework. In spite of that, as noted at the outset of this chapter, I have boldly adhered to the “2006 Framework” as the replacement for the “1972 Framework” because of its political significance with regard to the future orientation of Sino–Japanese relations. The Sino–Japanese relationship has expanded and deepened far beyond what was imaginable within the older framework, and it can no longer be based on the “amity” of the two countries alone. The two countries now share a responsibility to co-exist in governing this region, with the Sino–Japanese relationship in a more promising form. We cannot forget that China and Japan are now the second and third largest economic powers in the world, and above all else the two countries together account for approximately 17% of the world’s economic strength. However, as I have argued in this chapter, the road ahead will not be that easy. There remain many unresolved problems, and there is also the possibility that the issues of history and Taiwan, which are currently in abeyance, may reignite depending on the situation. The concept of an “East Asian Community” surpassing the framework of the nation is also premature in this region, where there is a strong tendency to preserve the solid carapaces of the nation state and sovereignty, and such a community will require time and only happen slowly in the future. In addition, the emotional ties binding the citizens of the two countries to each other are still weak. Owing to this, no matter what changes in administration or leadership may occur, as we move forward Japan and China must

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continue exchanges and dialogue among their respective leaders for quite some time. During that time, contacts and exchanges between the citizens of the two countries will further expand and deepen through the economy, culture, study abroad and travel, and by this means a more solid network and sense of mutual trust may be formed at the social and personal level.

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Chapter 11

Power, Soft and Hard: The U.S., China and Northeast Asia in the Financial Crisis and the North Korea Problem

Shi Yinhong

U.S. Power, the “Western Model” and the Financial Crisis About 2,500 years ago, Herodotus, the father of Western historical writing, began his classic narrative on the rise, predominance and then decline of the Persian Empire and the dramatic mounting of the Greek glory in these words: “I will cover minor and major human settlements equally, because most of those which were important in the past have diminished in significance now, and those which were great in my own time were small in the past. I will mention both equally because I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.”1 Such a philosophy runs through his masterwork, and toward its end speaks out again through the mouth of Themistocles, the maker of strategy for the triumph of the small Greek city-states against the mighty Persian Expedition: “It was not we who 1

Herodotus (440 B.C.E.). The Histories. Translated by G. Rawlinson (2010), eBooks@ Adelaide, Adelaide, statement 1.5. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/herodotus/h4/ [accessed October 4, 2011]. 193

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accomplished this [the Greek victory over Persians at Salamis], but the gods and heroes, who did not want to see a single man ruling both Asia and Europe.”2 Thus, the “Father of History” gave expression to a general principle of international politics. The ancient philosophical idea of the changes in the fates of nations has often been demonstrated throughout history, including in this time of global financial crisis and recession. Though the concrete causes are numerous and complex, no one denies that it initially broke out in the United States and spread from there. Moreover, so few people refute the almost commonsense proposition that this superpower was the single most important perpetrator of the crisis. So Asians do blame America for the crisis, though many of them (including Chinese in the PRC) are aware that they themselves should shoulder their own part of the responsibility, since Asia has enjoyed and benefited from America’s unhealthy financial, commercial, military and ideological “overstretch” for so long that they have contributed substantially to the “spoiling” of the United States as well as of themselves. In this context, the further relative decline of both American hard and soft power, a decline resulting primarily from George W. Bush’s blunders in war and foreign policy and China’s dramatic economic rise during his years in the White House, is inevitable. At present, the global financial crisis and economic recession have been widely regarded as a historical turning point, ending the already-too-long “post-Cold War” era and ushering in a new period of world politics. More specifically, there has been the major development described by an American scholar as “the financial death of the US Empire.”3 America’s huge and nearly perennial financial deficits — whether federal, local governmental, corporative or even individual — come from almost all the major dimensions of the operation of the American “democratic welfare empire,” or to put it with some major reservations, from the contemporary American way of life. In the words of the above American scholar, which are exaggerated but still plausible, “the myth of US omnipotence likely is shattered forever. . . . Over the last 2

Ibid., statement 8.109. Bandow, D. (2008). “Economic Collapse: The Financial Death of the US Empire”. 11 October. http://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2008/10/10/economic-collapse-thefinancial-death-of-the-us-empire/. 3

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six years [i.e. 2002–2008] the US has tossed away its moral superiority, diplomatic indispensability, and military infallibility. Now it has lost its economic security. Washington is broke.”4 In a sense, the more profound impact of the financial crisis and recession the world has faced since September 2008 is psychological and intellectual; it has had a strong influence on the world’s political and cultural belief system. J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to China and currently Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, deeply sensed or predicted this impact. He said at a conference in Washington, D.C. in early October 2008 that the financial crisis was “catastrophic” and that 2009 would be a defining moment in history, for the idea of the universal superiority of free-market capitalism and Western liberal democracy would be severely challenged internationally.5 Indeed, people began to have serious doubts as to whether these were the best ways to deal with the severe problems of the world. Ambassador Roy was only a little more prescient in that sense than many others in the U.S., Europe and Asia. There has indeed been a broader discrediting of the so-called Anglo-Saxon economic model (or “Washington Consensus” in its political economic dimension) within Asian countries, no doubt broader than during the decade before the global financial crisis. In China, this discrediting is unquestionably much stronger than in most other East Asian countries, especially because of the comparative selfconfidence in China’s own spectacular economic achievements, which were achieved substantially through depending upon China’s own way of doing things rather than on its adaptive “borrowing” from the West. To a large extent, China had discredited the Washington Consensus model much earlier. Since the late summer of 2003 (at the earliest, according to some Chinese researchers), China’s top leaders have emphasized an increasing conviction that the laissez-faire market economy, obsession with GDP growth alone and undifferentiated integration into 4

Ibid. J. Stapleton Roy’s speech at a conference held by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., 8 October, 2008. http://www.iie.com/events/event_detail.cfm?EventID=88/. 5

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economic globalization — all so prominent in China’s drastic economic rise at the cost of social justice, balanced development and environmental protection — are unsustainable and increasingly dangerous, reflecting a large part of the Chinese public’s resentment or even anger. What happened in the U.S. and much of Europe and elsewhere only further convinced the top Chinese leaders, some “uncorrupted” Chinese intellectual elites and a larger portion of the Chinese people to go a national way substantially different from the Western liberal model (or the AngloAmerican model, as many in the world say) and its “Chinese version,” while still keeping the native and foreign positive experiences of the market economy and its healthy social implications. We have touched upon the major faults in the national economies of both the United States and China, both in a sense resulting from the Western liberal model. Their most prominent symbols on the international stage are China’s huge trade surplus and America’s enormous international financial debt. In U.S.–China relations, that huge surplus has had its counterpart for years — China’s huge purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds and other dollar assets. This is a major pathology of the current world economy: China’s money lending, together with that of Japan, has maintained to a large extent the highly unhealthy structure of American finance and consumption characterized by its “spending spree,” while the United States has been able thereby to provide a major indispensable market to China to which to sell labor-intensive merchandise produced in the framework of a similarly unhealthy development mode characterized by a “GDP growth obsession.” This logic can be described, without much cynicism, as “China and the U.S. spoil each other,” and in a corresponding degree they have spoiled the world. Back to the shaky state of the idea Ambassador Roy referred to: the idea of the universal superiority of free-market capitalism and Western liberal democracy. This idea has never held much sway with the contemporary Chinese political leadership, even during the early stages of reform and opening-up when traditional communist orthodoxy lost much of its credibility. There has been a firm belief among them and, through them, among most of the Chinese people in “Chineseness” per se and its overwhelming importance for engaging in maintenance, reform and development, in light of the negative influence of the Western liberal

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model and its “Chinese version,” to which their existing economic and social faults are to a substantial degree due. This belief in Chineseness is not like the traditional (or Confucian) one, which treated it as an unquestionable universal applicable value. It is definitely particularistic, not at all supposing that what is best for China is necessarily best for the world, just as what is best for the U.S., Western European countries or the (former) Soviet Union is not necessarily best for China. In this critical aspect, Mao Zedong before the 1950s prepared people like Deng Xiaoping and the younger generation of the Chinese leadership, by his insistence on deciding the strategy of the Chinese revolution according to particular Chinese conditions and his resistance against the dictation of the Comintern and its submissive Chinese agents who attempted to impose revolutionary “universalism” upon the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This preparation was so profound and effective that Deng Xiaoping and his major supporters within the CCP began their breakthrough of reform by denying such revolutionary “universalism” with a way of thinking and even arguments similar to those that Mao had used and taught decades ago. Their success up to now has provided one major source of the Chinese patriotism today. The success (“authoritarian” or not, and with major negative consequences of which the Chinese people are well aware though it may be) of so-called “socialism with Chinese characteristics” has restored the Chinese people’s self-confidence after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution and in the face of the earlier spectacular success of the contemporary West (which made it wild with joy at the “end of history”). This self-confidence is now developing to its height in the context of the global financial crisis and economic recession, which has further spoiled the West’s prestige and increased its dependence upon China. Its effect on China’s foreign policy is noticeable, at least as this author was quoted by Financial Times saying that “the Chinese leaders have more confidence. China will not ask for this or that. But it will frequently say ‘No’ over Tibet or over Taiwan or a few other issues closest to Beijing’s heart.”6

6

Quoted in Pilling, D. (2008). “Foreign Policy: Assertiveness Alongside a Message of Peace”. Financial Times, 21 November.

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The Issue of Confidence in the U.S. in Northeast Asia Is there a crisis of confidence in U.S. national power in East Asia? In the context of some initial indications of a recovery of U.S. economic prowess in the coming weeks or months, together with promises of change made by a very energetic and charismatic President Barack Obama, a “crisis” in confidence in the U.S. would seem to be an overstatement when talking of Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), etc. But there are doubts, more serious than before. America’s up-to-now very remarkable incompetence for years in denuclearizing North Korea or even convincingly de-escalating its nuclear and missile weapons endeavor, as well as in overcoming the Afghanistan and even Pakistan quagmires, has strengthened these doubts, while the “Japanese political revolution” made by the victorious Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) now headed by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda partly reflects them. Looking into the longer future, governments and peoples across the Pacific may naturally doubt that a financially much weaker America could remain to the same extent as in the past the leader and protector in the region, to say nothing of the increasing influence and strength of China as a rising great power (albeit a peaceful one). The structure of power and the role of the U.S. in the region can change, and is really changing, though the degree and direction of this change is debatable. For China, because of its greater independence and magnitude, “confidence in U.S. national power in East Asia” is not a relevant concept. China has determined to cooperate with the U.S. in East Asia widely but still selectively, while it has been objectively or even in some cases subjectively “eroding” U.S. power and preponderance, sometimes at least in quite effective and low-costly ways. The most important among a few major developments in this respect since the financial crisis is in the areas of China’s much-increased regional financial role, the expanding regional function of its national currency Renminbi, and the substantial steps with greater prospect in regional multilateral economic cooperation or even integration. International politics are relative, and most of the governments and informed people in East Asia sense more strongly than ever before the decrease of U.S. power and the increase of China’s. International politics

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are dynamic, so the relative decline of one power and the relative rise of another are not unchangeable, or certain and determined. International politics are a sort of comprehensive game, with their hard power and soft power aspects in numerous subfields and both the United States and China (together with other players) having their respective advantages and disadvantages, so that assessment of the overall game performance and balance of strength is definitely a complex matter. Often it depends more on open-ended observation, experienced intuition and common sense.

What China’s Priorities in the Regional Security Game Should Be The Necessity for a Revised Approach towards North Korea More than six years after China made a remarkable engagement with international efforts to try to denuclearize North Korea, and thereby in this vital aspect stabilize the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, almost no one within or outside China regards its protracted endeavor as particularly positive in its record of achievements. This is really remarkable, or even somewhat surprising, in the context of China’s dramatic rise as a great power, and in consideration of the relative great length of time that China — for the most part a good learner in the contemporary era and in diplomacy — has had to experiment, revise and develop the related policies based on practice and learning. In the North Korea problem, China has suffered its single greatest failure in diplomacy and foreign policy since the beginning of the “reform and opening-up” era. From a strategic perspective, focusing on the relationship between means and ends as well as that between costs and effectiveness, one can hardly give China’s policy towards the North Korean issue high marks. This demonstrates a perennial strategic paradox: the need to balance opposing imperatives and deal with them with less efficient half-measures. The hesitation and half-measure practice are partly due to the division of elite opinion within China on the North Korean problem, profoundly reflecting the complexities of China’s related interests and the difficulties

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of the fundamental circumstances under which the problem exists. An implicit but steady majority (though not a very large one), according to my close observation and best knowledge over years, are “defeatists” in the sense of accepting de facto possession of nuclear arms by the Pyongyang regime without any further effort to try any measures stronger than those that have been tried, which have been blamed by them for the general deterioration of China–DPRK relations — a development quite dangerous in their eyes for China’s strategic environment in Northeast Asia. For China, the difficulty lies mainly in the exact predicament of the mutually contradictory nature of China’s vital interests over the North Korea problem. The restraint and even the disabling effect of this predicament on China’s leaders have been really severe, especially in consideration of their characterized strategic culture of extra prudence and conservatism. They have been seeking, through years of partial success and more of frustration, to achieve an uneasy balance among the following vital interests: (1) ensuring peace and fundamental stability on the peninsula; (2) fostering North Korea’s denuclearization; (3) seeking to preserve a continued relationship with North Korea; and (4) helping to prevent a possible collapse or severe impairment of the Pyongyang regime that would result in massive chaos in North Korea, driving tens of thousands of refugees flooding into China, to say the least, and giving rise to unregulated power-politics among neighboring powers dangerous to everyone. After years of wide-ranging political and scholarly discussions in the United States, the ROK and Japan over the causes of China’s behavior in dealing with the North Korean nuclear problem, there is not much required to be elaborated further on the above items related to China’s vital interests except the third: the continued non-hostile or even better relationship with North Korea, which has raised or aggravated so much strategic suspicion, especially in the ROK. A hostile North Korea at its border is what China not only prefers not to have, but in a real sense cannot afford to have. In other words, China’s leaders and many others believe that China must prevent the denuclearization process and its own role within it from seriously and lastingly damaging China–DPRK relations through too much alienation from the Pyongyang regime, which would make China a loser in a major geopolitical game, even if the DPRK by some “magic wand” could really be denuclearized. As touched on above, a closely connected issue is China’s concern about the possible

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collapse or severe impairment of the Pyongyang regime and the negative effects for China of the ensuing chaos. In this sense, Beijing’s strategic interests in North Korea are not mainly “acquisitive” in terms of obtaining positive gains, as so many people in the ROK suspect, but “preventive”: to prevent the various dangers mentioned above from happening. What has made Beijing even less willing to seriously damage the relationship with Pyongyang for denuclearization is Beijing’s persistent hope that Pyongyang can finally be reformed. A “reformist” approach among China’s other means for pursuing denuclearization emerged initially in 2004, and since then has lingered most of the time, though with diminishing effectiveness. Increased economic aid was perceived as a stimulant to tactfully induce, encourage or facilitate some slow, cumulative economic reforms in North Korea. The hope must be that this would gradually change Pyongyang’s outlook on both domestic and foreign policy, thereby making itself gradually devalue its nuclear arms program, while increasing the stability of the regime and solidifying China’s long-term reformist influence on the country. China’s predicament in the North Korea problem is bound to continue, reflecting the “structural” complexity of its fundamental interests and the basic situations in which it has unavoidably been involved. But the problems should by no means be so numerous, severe and so often nearly disabling as they have been over the years. “Breaking out” of this situation requires understanding and acting on one point in particular: that the denuclearization of North Korea is closely bound up with China’s strategic security. The latter has a great stake in the former. The objective of the complete assured denuclearization of North Korea should be insisted on under any circumstances. It must not be abandoned, as “defeatists” in China and the other major concerned powers have hinted at or even implicitly or explicitly advocated, just because it cannot be realized in the present or in the predictable future. For China’s part, this objective must be realized sooner or later in consideration of China’s vital national interests, and it can or at least would most likely be realized sooner or later in consideration of China’s necessarily increasing capability. China should alter its too-lenient policy towards behavior on the part of Pyongyang that damages East Asian stability. This policy alteration requires first of all the sharp awareness of two fundamental facts: (1) as

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historical experience has shown again and again, China’s assistance and lenience cannot be bartered for North Korea’s friendship toward China; and (2) we are now faced with a North Korea that possesses nuclear weapons, refuses denuclearization and devotes huge efforts to maintaining and developing a nuclear arsenal, while having taken a protracted unfriendly attitude towards China and having undermined China’s major interests and honor. China should attach resolute and reasonable political preconditions to the continued assistance to North Korea, chiefly its amicability toward China, peaceful orientation of foreign policy and real progress in the direction of denuclearization.

Dealing with the Bizarre China–ROK Political Relationship China’s political relations with the ROK are bizarre in the sense that they are by no means intimate, insofar as one can use this word to characterize the economic and human exchange relations between countries. The bizarreness lies in the fact that since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the ROK in 1992, the national governments in Beijing and Seoul have almost always maintained a sort of polite friendly posture towards each other, but never more than that. Under the politeness, or formal friendliness, there is almost some coolness, a lack of reasonably sufficient attention, and at least occasionally polite refusal of required diplomatic communication at both the high state and lower working levels, resented particularly by officials on the ROK end. Moreover, the general positions and much of the concrete policies of the two governments towards the North Korean nuclear problem in the framework of the Six-Party Talks have been very similar, particularly during Roh Moo-hyun’s presidency; however, China–ROK consultations on a peaceful solution to the protracted problem have obviously been far from sufficiently close, frequent or high-level. In addition, especially in the mass media in the ROK, Pyongyang’s bigotry in insisting on its nuclear arms program often leads to complaints, or rather sharp criticism, of China’s unwillingness to exert economic pressure against the DPRK. The latter’s occasionally softening stance — partly due to China’s incentives and persuasion — could easily have brought out

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statements in the South Korean media warning of China’s “ambition” or “strategic plan” to expand its power and influence over the northern part of the Korean Peninsula through diplomatic efforts, economic assistance and trade. Another issue of a similar nature, which has produced even stronger strategic suspicion against China on the part of the ROK, is what China might do in the event of a collapse or near-collapse of the Pyongyang regime. The standard opinion in the ROK is that “China may probably wage direct intervention with its armed forces when drastic change breaks out in North Korea,” as a Chosun Ilbo editorial in September 2009 stated, “or [China may] bring the issue to the United Nations to prevent the reunification of the Peninsula under ROK’s direction.” This will allegedly threaten the ROK and the whole Korean nation with an anguished situation, i.e. “rendering its own [national] fate dominated again by the neighboring powers,” as in the historical past.7 On China’s side, when policy elites think about the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, the U.S.–ROK military alliance is always a primary factor in the picture for many of them, thereby contributing a lot to their reluctance to accept, let alone welcome, that prospect, in spite of the fact that China’s top leaders have declared publicly several times in recent years that China will welcome the autonomous and peaceful reunification of the peninsula. Although the expectation China has now about the future of the peninsula is ambiguous, undefined or even fragmentary, there are indeed two clear and determined “nos” which reflect the deeply embedded strategic suspicion held against the ROK: the peninsula must not function as a strategic fortress for the U.S. against China, and the peninsula must not damage China’s territorial and national integration by any irredentist or “pan-Korean” aspirations. China’s more recent and immediate strategic suspicions have focused on President Lee Myung-bak’s attitudes toward the United States and China. Though the China–ROK “Partnership of Strategic Cooperation,” declared by a Hu Jintao–Lee Myung-bak summit in May 2008, has supplanted the previous claimed “Partnership of Comprehensive Cooperation,” the mutual strategic suspicion has kept it to largely well-intentioned rhetoric. 7

“Undertaking Regime Collapse Research for U.S. National Defense Assessment”. Chosun Ilbo, 10 September, 2009 [Chinese version at http://chn.chosun.com].

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In some sense, the most threatening development is the mutual suspicion, resentment and even disgust between large parts of the people of the two countries. This has resulted from, and has been aggravated to a substantial degree by, the disputes over ancient history (primarily those over the Goguryeo kingdom) — although these have already been effectively controlled and much mitigated by the two national governments — and has been fostered by strategic suspicions. A South Korean public opinion poll8 indicated that a rough majority of people surveyed regarded China as the probable greatest threat against the ROK over the coming 10 years; while a Chinese public opinion poll9 produced the result that the ROK was listed as the most disliked country, somewhat surprisingly surpassing those who disliked Japan most. There is no stronger warning than these for both the statesmen and political elites in Beijing and Seoul, in terms of the prospects for the bilateral relationship.

Escalating the China–Japan Rapprochement What is the major feature of the current fundamental situation of China–Japan relations? From Shinzo Abe’s visit to Beijing in October 2006 to Wen Jiabao’s visit to Tokyo in April 2007, the improvement in China–Japan relations was really remarkable, but what has become evident since then are the limitations of this improvement. China–Japan political relations have not made sufficiently significant progress, especially in the East China Sea dispute, upon which both sides have futilely exerted their sincere and protracted efforts to try to make a breakthrough. The China–Japan political relations during the Junichiro Koizumi years can be defined as a “deteriorating stalemate,” while the relations since Abe’s visit to Beijing may be regarded as a “much improved stalemate”: much improved, but still a stalemate to a large degree. Both sides have lost momentum in pursuing “the win-win strategic partnership” declared during the months of the initial rapprochement, and have been less serious about escalating that

8

“South Korean Public Opinion Poll: China May Be the Most Threatening 10 Years Later”. Lianhe Zaobao (Singapore), 21 March, 2006. 9 “Poll Shows That the Chinese Dislike ROK More than Japan”. Chosun Ilbo, 11 December, 2007 [Chinese version at http://chn.chosun.com].

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rapprochement because of the difficulties in solving “hard” disputes and the domestic restraints caused by lasting strategic suspicions. Though the common task of addressing the global financial crisis brought the first substantial and concrete steps on the part of both China and Japan in the direction of Northeast Asian economic integration, and though the Japanese domestic “political revolution” brought what claimed to be a more Asia-oriented DPJ to power in Japan, along with fresh hopes for further and new cooperation with China, whether these developments could spill over sufficiently to the bilateral political field and usher in a genuinely new stage in the China–Japan cooperative relationship has yet to be seen. The situation is more optimistic than ever before, but the serious restraints on the relationship that exist mean that one must be cautious in making predictions. What should China as well as Japan do, both on their own account and with respect to multilateral cooperative security in the region? One priority is to deal with things strategically in the longer term. That means first of all, among a number of other major matters, to accommodate the respective core interests, national sensibilities and aspirations of both China and Japan by partially restructuring the fundamental framework of the bilateral relationship (“the 1972 framework”). The 1972 framework very clearly stipulates and upholds two of China’s vital interests in its relations with Japan: the history issue and Taiwan. Any possible new framework in China–Japan relations must still uphold China’s lasting vital interests on these two issues. But, because of the changes that have happened with respect to most of the fundamental circumstances over the past three decades, the 1972 framework has largely become insufficient or inadequate. It should be expanded, adding four sets of new norms as soon as possible. These are: (1) the norms for controlling the China–Japan confrontational dynamics and establishing “crisis management” mechanisms; (2) those for helping to produce constructive political/ strategic effects from the economic interdependence between China and Japan, and for cooperation in the fields of energy, environmental protection, technological cooperation and global development; (3) those for participating in and promoting regional and subregional multilateral cooperation among nations in East Asia; and (4) those concerning East Asian security, involving the two countries’ military strengths and their development,

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China’s attitude toward the U.S.–Japan military alliance, the scope and extent of Japan’s “military rights” that could be accepted by China, peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, and regional non-proliferation. Meanwhile, on the precondition that it respects China and conducts normal peaceful relations with it, Japan’s aspiration to become a “normal state” with peaceful relations with its neighboring countries, together with its legitimate rights and international political positions as not only a sovereign state but also one of the most important nations in Asia and in the world, should be recognized and respected in the expanded new framework.

Returning to the Issue of Confidence and North Korea: Recent Developments From January 2007 to the short-lived U.S.–DPRK agreement on February 29, 2012 made by the Obama administration and the new regime in Pyongyang shortly after Kim Jong-il’s death, there was a very remarkable transformation in the essential pattern of searching for a settlement to the North Korea nuclear problem — the transformation from a multilateral game to essentially a bilateral one, with China’s central position as the indispensable mediator, negotiation organizer and number one settlementpromoter being replaced by both the United States and DPRK as the only primary players and real decision-makers. In other words, the North Korean nuclear problem has to an increasing extent become in essence (and also more and more in form) a bilateral issue between North Korea and the United States, with the role of China remarkably reduced. The Six-Party Talks, prior to its long and indefinite dormancy beginning in mid-2009 due to North Korea’s declared withdrawal, had become more and more like a rubber stamp, endorsing again and again as taken for granted the pre-existing basic trade-off made by the U.S. and DPRK through their bilateral negotiations, though with some obviously far-fromessential revisions and polishing. It could be argued that both North Korea and the United States have marginalized China. Because of this, one might even say that the U.S.–China “joint stakeholder” relationship that emerged quite rapidly and vigorously after the fall of 2005 has been hurt to a certain extent with regard to the issue of the Korean Peninsula.

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Having talked sufficiently in criticizing China’s policy behavior relating to North Korea and the peninsula, Washington’s turnaround less than three months after the passing of the UN Security Council Resolution 1718 and its appeasement over the next two years should also be kept firmly in mind. The United States made perhaps the first remarkable violation of the sanctions stipulated by that Resolution, gradually and quietly abandoning the objective of assured complete denuclearization of North Korea. By its bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang, the U.S. also marginalized in substance all other vitally concerned powers and made the Six-Party Talks increasingly become more of a rubber stamp. Largely because of this experience, the Northeast Asian countries worried about Bill Clinton’s surprising visit to Pyongyang on August 5, 2009, and asked themselves, as an East Asian newspaper said about Japan and the ROK, “whether the United States might sell them out on the policy toward North Korea.”10 The Obama administration’s repeated assurances about this event are far from being able to eliminate this memory. American “leadership” in this direction could stimulate or even force China to take some “unilateral” action, as feared by Washington, in a far from unconsciously conducted diplomatic competition to win Pyongyang’s favor, leaving five-power joint action and even perhaps denuclearization itself as a casualty to some degree. In fact, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Pyongyang in early October 2009, which prompted the ROK government to publicly express its nervousness: “‘We are expecting China to explain the details of its economic cooperation programs with North Korea and whether they violated the Security Council resolutions,’ Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a group of South Korean news media editors.”11 The recent picture of China and the United States with regard to the North Korea problem, including that of its nuclear program, is one of remarkable divergence. This began sometime in 2009, probably not long before Premier Wen’s visit to Pyongyang, when China made a sharp separation of the nuclear problem from the maintenance and development of 10

“Japan and ROK Fear US Bypass Them to Be Intimate with North Korea”. China Times (Taiwan), 7 August, 2009. 11 Choe, S.-H. (2009). “China Aims to Steady North Korea”. The New York Times, 6 October.

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China–DPRK relations, making the latter for the first time since 2003 the clear and undisputed priority in its North Korea policy. With Kim Jong-il’s suddenly almost warm attitude toward China, reflected in his exceptionally frequent personal receptions of nearly all high-level Chinese visitors and his personal attendance at public activities relating to China in Pyongyang, and the dramatic increase of China’s economic assistance and investments, the long-cold China–DPRK relations entered their warmest stage since at least 2005. China thereby seems to be “emancipated” to a remarkable degree from its persistent policy dilemmas produced by its competing interests, without achieving any progress on either denuclearization or the reform of North Korea, while increasing the weight and perhaps also the effectiveness of a “damage-limiting strategy” toward the North for curtailing the possibilities of a severe internal crisis. This divergence has been amplified by the changed American posture toward North Korea. Only one month after the seemingly hopeful trip to Pyongyang by U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth in December 2009, the Obama administration publicly dismissed North Korea’s peace negotiation proposal, saying that it would discuss a peace treaty with North Korea only after the North returned to the Six-Party Talks and began dismantling its nuclear arms program. At the same time, it also rejected Pyongyang’s demand that the United Nations lift sanctions before it returns to the table. More hawkish messages followed from President Obama himself. In an interview with The New York Times on his new policy for reducing the role of nuclear weapons in the U.S. national security strategy, including immunity of non-nuclear states from American nuclear attack, he said that he would make exceptions for “outliers like Iran and North Korea.”12 This means that nuclear attack against North Korea remains a U.S. option in what it defines as extreme circumstances. Moreover, while China has unquestionably transformed its North Korea policy, or at least policy priorities, in the direction of boosting the survival of the Pyongyang regime (mainly to prevent severe damage to its own vital interests in the event of a collapse in the North), foreign policy elites 12

“Obama Calls for Limiting Role of US Nuclear Weapons”. Agence France-Presse, 6 April, 2010.

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in the U.S. and (to a remarkably greater extent) in the ROK have become somewhat obsessed with the prospect of taking over the North after the collapse of its regime, of which there is a greater perceived possibility since Kim Jong-il’s death. The consensus on the part of Washington and Seoul is the reunification of the Korean Peninsula under a free market economy, liberal democracy and “ROK direction.” Policy elites have occasionally emphasized the vital requirements of keeping intact the U.S. troop presence and U.S.–ROK military alliance long after the reunification or take-over. China’s relations with the DPRK are explicitly regarded as one of the few greatest obstacles to be overcome (if possible) by “strategic dialogue” and other diplomatic means. In the wake of other incidents such as the sinking of the Cheonan in March 2010 and Kim Jong-il’s visits to China in May and August 2011, the distance in policy and position between China and the U.S./ROK over the North Korean problem has grown, with their divergence from each other since at least late 2008 (and especially October 2009) virtually complete. Just one fact is sufficient to prove how wide this gap has become: during the ROK investigation process into the cause of Cheonan’s sinking, China received Kim Jong-il in Beijing with the traditional “supreme protocol” which no leader of any other foreign country has ever received in the PRC’s capital. This also probably revealed that in the minds of Beijing’s leaders, helping to maintain the fundamental domestic stability of the increasingly difficult DPRK had become so vital and urgent that it was perceived as something that had to be done in spite of the damage necessarily inflicted upon the ROK’s popular feelings toward China and China’s political relations with that country, to say nothing of the negative influence on China’s international image. To China, it really was a case of choosing the “lesser evil.” China firmly opposed any sanctions resolution by the UN Security Council against the DPRK for the Cheonan affair, and refused to accept any non-obligatory Security Council Chairman’s statement that clearly condemned the DPRK for it. When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited China in May 2010 shortly after the ROK government had issued its investigation report on the sinking of the Cheonan, with North Korea high on her agenda, she found that a wide gulf separated Beijing from Seoul and Washington. “If the USA and South Korea push China

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strongly,” as this author was quoted as saying by USA Today on May 20, “then the distance could shorten a little, but the gap will remain substantial.”13 China’s commitment to its relations with the DPRK was further strengthened by Kim Jong-il’s visits, and it is hard to imagine that the present Chinese leaders will turn their back against North Korea any time soon. China has been somewhat unfortunately conditioned by these visits and its understandable worry about the increased potential for instability in North Korea. Sooner or later, China will take substantial measures to try to “compensate” for the above-mentioned damage and negative influence, because its relations with the ROK and the U.S. on the North Korea issue are also quite important. However, the Chinese leaders will definitely not take any such action now, or even in the near future. The implication of these recent developments in China’s policy is obvious and somewhat discouraging. Any desirable improvements in China’s foreign policy with regard to the DPRK and ROK, i.e. revising its approach towards the former and reducing the mutual strategic suspicions with the latter, have become much more difficult. International politics, driven by dynamics within and outside the participating states, are full of unpredictable changes, and China will continue to struggle with various dilemmas in an uncertain regional security environment. But one thing is certain: without a smoother relationship with the neighboring Korean Peninsula and Japan, the prospect of China as a real world power will be impossible, regardless of how much China has benefited from its advantageous position and vigorous economic performance during the global financial crisis and its aftermath.

13

Quoted in MacLeod, C. (2010). “Seoul: Evidence Points North in Sinking”. USA Today, 20 May.

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Yahuda, M. (2006). “The Limits of Economic Interdependence: Sino–Japanese Relations”. In A.I. Johnston and R.S. Ross (eds.), New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Zaller, J.R. (1992). The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge University Press, New York. Zaller, J.R. (1994). “Elite Leadership of Mass Opinion: New Evidence from the Gulf War”. In W.L. Bennett and D.L. Paletz (eds.), Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Zhang, J. (2008). The 30th Anniversary of China–Japan Relations: Economy (1978–2008). China Social Science Academic Press, Beijing. Zhao, S. (2004). A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Zhou, Y. (2009). “Japan’s Environment Diplomacy and the Cooperation between China and Japan”. In J. Liu (ed.), Contemporary Japan Foreign Relations, World Knowledge Press, Beijing.

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Li, G. and Wang, Y. (2009). “Minzhudang Jueqi Ji Dui Zhongri Guanxi de Yingxiang [The Rise of DPJ and Its Influence on Sino–Japanese Relations]”. Riben Yanjiu [Japan Studies], vol. 3, pp. 14–17. Li, J. (2006). “Zhuhan Meijun Zhanlue Linghuoxing de Neihan ji Yingxiang [The Meaning and Impact of the Strategic Flexibility of the US Forces in Korea]”. Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], vol. 4, pp. 50–54. Lind, J.M. (2009). “The Perils of Apology”. Foreign Affairs, vol. 88, no. 3, pp. 132–146. Masayuki, Y. (2003). “Iraku Mondai ga Semaru Nihon no Sentaku [Japan’s Choice Urged by the Iraq Problem]”. Chuokolon, vol. 118, no. 4, p. 80. Matthews, E. (2003). “Japan’s New Nationalism”. Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, pp. 158–172. Michishita, N. (2009). “Playing the Same Game: North Korea’s Coercive Attempt at U.S. Reconciliation”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 139–152. Miller, B. (1994). “Explaining the Emergence of Great Power Concerts”. Review of International Studies, vol. 20, pp. 327–348. Mochizuki, M. (2007). “Japan’s Shifting Strategy toward the Rise of China”. Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 30, no. 4/5, pp. 739–776. Moravcsik, A. (1993). “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach”. Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 473–524. Mulgan, A.G. (2008). “Breaking the Mould: Exclusive Bilateralism to Modest Minilateralism”. Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 52–70. Nakasone, Y. (2006). “The Route to an East Asian Community”. Global Asia, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 16–18. Norling, N. and Swanström, N. (2007). “The Virtues and Potential Gains of Continental Trade in Eurasia”. Asian Survey, vol. 47, pp. 351–373. Park, J.S. (2005). “Inside Multilateralism: The Six Party Talks”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 75–91. Pempel, T.J. (2007). “Northeast Asian Economic Integration: A Region in Flux”. Asia-Pacific Review, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 45–61. Qi, H. (2009). “China’s ‘New Neighboring Diplomacy’”. Contemporary International Relations, vol. 19, no. 5, p. 92.

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Ravenhill, J. (2002). “A Three Bloc World? The New East Asian Regionalism”. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 2, pp. 167–195. Reiss, M.B. (coauthor) (2010). “An End Game for Korea: Reverse-Engineering the Korean Conundrum”. The American Interest, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 4–5. Ruggie, J.G. (1992). “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”. International Organization, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 561–598. Shambaugh, D. (2004/2005). “China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order”. International Security, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 64–99. Shen, D. (2009). “Cooperative Denuclearization toward North Korea”. The Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 175–188. Snidal, D. (1991). “International Cooperation among Relative Gains Maximizers”. International Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, pp. 387–402. Suzuki, S. (2007). “The Importance of ‘Othering’ in China’s National Identity: Sino–Japanese Relations as a Stage of Identity Conflicts”. Pacific Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 23–47. Swanström, N. and Weissmann, M. (2005). “Conflict, Conflict Prevention and Conflict Management and Beyond: A Conceptual Exploration”. Concept Paper, Central Asia–Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program. Takahara, A. (2009). “Hu Jintao’s Visit to Japan and Future Bilateral Relations”. Yueyang Jujiao: Riben Luntan [Overseas Focus: Japan Forum], vol. 7, p. 3, Chinese version. Tanaka, A. (2003). “Iraku Senso to Nichibei Domei [Iraq and U.S.–Japan Alliance]”. Kokusaimondai [International Affairs], vol. 524, pp. 65–67. Terada, T. (2003). “Constructing an ‘East Asian’ Concept and Growing Regional Identity: From EAEC to ASEAN+3”. The Pacific Review, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 251–277. Van Evera, S. (1984). “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War”. International Security, vol. 9, pp. 58–107. Van Ness, P. (2008). “Designing a Mechanism for Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia”. Asian Perspective, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 107–126. Voten, E. (2005). “The Political Origins of the UN Security Council’s Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force”. International Organization, vol. 59, pp. 527–557. Wang, H. (2000). “Multilateralism in Chinese Foreign Policy”. Asian Survey, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 475–491.

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Wang, J. (coauthor) (2010). “An End Game for Korea: Reverse-Engineering the Korean Conundrum”. The American Interest, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 6–7. Wang, Z. (2009). “Chaoxian Erci Heshi Tanyuan yu Waijiao Sikao [Probing the Causes of North Korea’s Second Nuclear Test and Thinking the Diplomacy]”. Xiandai Guoji Guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], vol. 7, p. 40. Weitz, R. (2009). “Growing Pains”. The Journal of International Security Affairs, vol. 47, pp. 2–3. Xian, F. and Dai, J. (2009). “Chaoxian Bandao Weiji Zouxiang Tanxi [Analyzing the Crisis Trend on the Korean Peninsula]”. Heping yu Fazhan [Peace and Development], vol. 3, p. 12. Yang, B. (2009). “Yingdui Bianju: Quebao Zhongri Guanxi Pingwen Jiankang [Dealing with a Changing Situation: Ensuring Healthy and Stable Development of China–Japan Relations]”. Dangdai Shijie [Contemporary World], vol. 9, p. 19. Yuzawa, T. (2005). “Japan’s Changing Conception of the ASEAN Regional Forum: From an Optimistic Liberal to a Pessimistic Realist Perspective”. The Pacific Review, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 463–497.

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Index

1972 Framework 8, 77, 169, 172–176, 180–182, 184, 185, 191, 205 2006 Framework 8, 77, 169, 172, 173, 191

BMD 115, 117, 125 Bush, George W. 194 CEPEA 157, 158 Cheonan 209 China–Japan Strategic Dialogue 67 collective defense 88 collective leadership 136 confidence building 5, 9, 87 confidence-building measures (CBMs) 1, 91–93, 97, 99, 102 cooperative security 88, 205 crisis communication 8, 9 crisis management 3, 5, 8, 9, 17–20, 22, 67 crisis prevention 9

abductees issue 115, 117, 118, 126 Abe, Shinzo 1, 55 ad hoc coalitions 87, 90, 92, 95, 96, 98, 102 ad hoc multilaterals 87, 90, 92, 95, 96, 102 alphabet soup 130, 133 American pivot 78 APEC 146, 148, 149, 156 ASEAN 88, 89, 92, 102 ASEAN Plus Three (APT) 31, 88, 98, 146, 155–158 ASEAN PMC 88, 91 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) 87–89, 91–94, 99, 102, 150, 151 Aso, Taro 182 ASPC 92 ASTOP 88, 97, 98

declining hegemon 50 denuclearization 105, 107, 109, 110, 113, 115, 118, 120–122, 127 deteriorating stalemate 204 EAEC 148, 149 EAFTA 158 East Asia Summit (EAS) 31 East Asian Community 69, 92, 170, 173, 190, 191

Beijing–Tokyo–Washington triangle 78

221

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222

Index

East Asian free trade area 65 East China Sea 38, 62, 67, 68, 70, 85 economic interdependence 37, 47, 53 elite cues 42, 48

KEDO 134 Kim Jong-il 206, 208–210 Koizumi, Junichiro 38, 169, 172, 176, 180, 182, 183, 185 Korean Peninsula 3, 7, 8, 88, 96 Li Keqiang 185

FPDA 88 FTAAP 156 Fukuda, Yasuo

1, 182

Gao Quanli 141 GMS 146 Hatoyama, Yukio 130, 169, 182 hegemonic war theory 50 Herodotus 193 High-Level Economic Dialogue 67 history issue 38 history textbook 85 Hu Jintao 1, 183, 185, 186, 189 hub-and-spoke 88, 91 identity politics 71 imperialism 76 incentives 13, 23, 27 integration 13, 20, 22, 23 Japan–China Joint History Research Committee 20 Japan–China Policy Dialogue 16 Japan’s Disaster Relief Rescue Team 28 JGSDF 94 Jiang Zemin 172, 176, 183, 185, 186 JMSDF 95, 97 JSDF 97

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mainstream effect 41 Mao Zedong 197 Mekong River basin 65, 155, 161–163 minilateralism 87, 90, 92, 98, 100, 102 multilateral mechanism 86 multilateralism 130, 131, 135, 142 Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests 172, 173, 176–179, 181–184, 190, 191 national identity 76 NEASED 22 NEASPEC 158 New Miyazawa Initiative 154 non-proliferation 107, 122, 127 noodle bowl 132, 141 Northeast Asia nuclear-weapons-free zone 69 Obama, Barack 198, 206, 208 PLA 97 PLAN 95 polarization effect 41 policy-making elites 40, 43, 48 PSI 88, 97 public diplomacy 69 public opinion 38–49, 53, 61, 68, 69

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Index

qualitative minilateralism 102 qualitative multilateral institutions 87, 89 qualitative multilateralism 92 qualitative multilateralism institutions 101 ReCAAP 88, 98 regional cooperation 14, 15, 17–20, 22–25, 27–29, 31, 33, 34, 129, 136, 140 regional identity 23, 34 regional integration 136, 140, 141 regional security 199, 210 regional structure 129–131, 133, 135–137, 139–141, 144 regionalism 129, 130, 132, 135, 144 risk management 146, 147, 157, 165 Roy, J. Stapleton 195, 196 Senkaku (Diaoyu or Diaoyutai) Islands 16, 25, 85, 189 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) 86–88, 90–92, 98, 99, 101, 146, 150, 153, 163, 164 Shanghai Five 87 Sino–Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship 75 Six-Party Talks (SPT) 3, 5, 6, 24, 32, 65, 88, 96, 98, 105, 107, 109, 118, 120, 124–126, 134, 145, 160, 161, 202, 206–208

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223

socialization effect 96, 97 spillover 97 spillover hypothesis 96 strategic reciprocity 100 Taiwan 3, 4 TCOG 88, 92 Track II 22 transparency 143 TSD 88, 90, 92, 98–101 type of cooperation 30 unification (of the Korean Peninsula) 107, 108, 111–115, 118, 122–124, 127 United Nations (UN) Security Council 38, 67, 207, 209 UNRCA 93 U.S.–Japan Defense Guidelines 86 Washington card 72, 79 Washington Consensus 195 Wen Jiabao 1, 204, 207 win–win 61, 70 WPNS 88, 97, 98 Xi Jinping 185, 186 Yasukuni Shrine 22, 38, 74, 77, 85 yuai (fraternal) diplomacy 170 zero-sum game 86, 101

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