History Behind the News: Japan-China Relations

The meeting between Abe and Xi last week in Beijing has been reported differently in Japan and China, but it was recognizedas a "cold" encounter.

 

For many decades, Japan has managed its foreign relations (especially with China) under a policy of "seikei bunri" (separation of politics and economics). Recently, several political issues have disrupted Japan's relationship with China, however. The "hot" issues of dispute between the governments at Beijing and Tokyo are fueled by nationalist sentiments among citizens, and draw on a long and bitter history.

THE KEY ISSUES and BRIEF HISTORIES:

Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands

These uninhabited islands have become important because they lie near potential oil and gas reserves. Although the current intensity of the dispute is new, the history goes back over a hundred years.

Japanese claims to the islands go back to 1895, when Japan was expanding as an empire.

After WWII, along with Okinawa, the islands were under US trusteeship, and were returned to Japan (along with Okinawa) in 1971.

However, China argues that the islands have been part of Chinese territory since ancient times, and should have been returned when Taiwan was (after WWII, however, Taiwan also claims the islands separately).

2012: Right-wing Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara threatened to use public funds to buy the islands for Japan. The Japanese government stepped in to buy them to prevent Ishihara's more dangerous idea. 

However, this still provoked the Chinese government to read this as an aggressive move, and has led to the intense conflicts over the islands now.

Yasukuni Shrine

Every time a Japanese politician -- particularly a prime minister -- visits Yasukuni Shrine, it causes political conflict with China (and also Taiwan, South Korea, and North Korea).

Although Yasukuni Shrine was founded by the Meiji Emperor in the late 19th century to honor all those who died for the emperors since the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the link between WWII and Yasukuni is what provokes the most conflict.

Many different kinds of "war dead"are enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine, but the fact that Class-A war criminals fromthe Fifteen-Year War are included brings to mind the war crimes committed inthe name of the Japanese Empire in the 20th century.

Certainly, it is politically useful to have anti-Japanese sentiment in China. The Chinese government can focus popular anger on the wartime history with Japan, and avoid criticism of its own wrongdoing. However, this can also backfire.

Nevertheless, the Chinese government is responding to what is often real pain and anger. 

It is true that, unlike in postwar Germany, young people in Japan now learn very little about Japan's imperial history in school.

Without knowing the history, how can young Japanese people work through Japan's position in East Asian politics? How can they work out their own opinions on the past?

A particularly contested event between China and Japan is the Nanking Massacre, also sometimes referred to as the "Rape of Nanking." On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army captured Nanking, the capital of China at the time. Most likely exaggerated claims exist on both sides, and numbers of estimated dead vary. The most extreme claim (by a vocal minority) is that the Nanking Massacre never happened. However, based on survivors' and military veterans' accounts, and estimates made at the International Military Tribunal of the Far East in 1948, historians think around 200,000 people may have died. This was not a battle, and most who died were not soldiers. Many were women and children, many were killed in painful ways, and thousands of women were raped, often by gangs of soldiers.

One witness was a German businessman, John Rabe, who lived in Nanking and was protected by his status as a member of the Nazi party. He created a Safety Zone to protect Chinese people from the Japanese military.

The intense violence of the Japanese military occupation of Nanking needs to be discussed as a part of not only Japanese but also East Asian history. Japanese imperialism and militarism depended on certain attitudes toward non-Japanese Asians.

How much did you learn about this history in school? How do you think you can understanding this history can help relations between Japan and China?