Japan laments loss of China’s ex-premier Li Keqiang as go-between to mend frosty ties

Li was seen as a crucial channel of direct communications and a driver of closer economic ties between Japan and China
Another Chinese leader in Li’s mould is not expected to emerge in an era of Xi Jinping’s rising authoritarianism, analysts say

Japan

Julian Ryall

Published: 12:00pm, 2 Nov 2023

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Japan’s political and business worlds have expressed their sorrow at the sudden death on October 27 of former Chinese premier Li Keqiang, one of the few senior Communist Party leaders in the last decade that Tokyo perceived to be open to more constructive trade and political links.

Li’s political star had waned in recent years before his exit from office in March, coinciding with Sino-Japanese relations deteriorating over issues ranging from territorial disputes, the arrest of Japanese businessmen on espionage charges, trade rows to security concerns.

Japan’s extension of its condolences to China reflected not only its desire to mend frosty bilateral ties but also a yearning for the emergence of another Chinese leader like Li, who was seen by Tokyo as a key intermediary between the two countries during his years in office, according to analysts.

Following Beijing’s announcement of the death of 68-year-old Li from a heart attack, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last Friday sent a message of condolence to President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang saying he was “deeply saddened” at the news.

Kishida pointed out that Li had visited Japan in 2018 to mark the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-China Treaty of Peace and Friendship, adding that Li had “long played an important role in the development of Japan-China relations”.

Flags across China, including in Hong Kong and Macau, will fly at half-mast on Thursday when Li’s body will be cremated. All party and state leaders will bid Li farewell before the cremation but there will be no top-level memorial meeting in Beijing for the funeral.

03:31

‘People’s Premier’: former Chinese premier Li Keqiang dies of a heart attack at age 68

In a statement issued last Friday, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China said: “We strongly felt Li’s earnest expectations for Japan-China cooperation. We appreciate the many contributions he made toward friendship and exchanges between Japan and China, as well as economic cooperation.”

Li’s connections with Japan date back to 1985 when he visited Tokyo as a senior member of a Communist Youth League delegation, whose focus was on improving bilateral economic ties. As the top party official in Liaoning Province in the mid-2000s, Li was seen as a key political figure for top Japanese executives, with both sides discussing various business issues on a number of occasions.

On his subsequent visit to Japan in 2018, Li submitted an opinion article to the Asahi newspaper in which he wrote: “If the relationship between the two largest economic powers in Asia, of China and Japan, developed into a stable one, it would benefit not only the peoples of those two nations but would also promote world peace and stability as well as global development and prosperity.”

In another interview with the same newspaper, he mentioned Beijing’s willingness to look beyond wartime controversies plaguing ties between the two nations, saying: “The perspective we need to have is not just to see the Japanese as evil, but to think about how humanity could have been capable of committing such atrocities.”

To its disappointment, Japan noted that Li had been sidelined under Xi’s more authoritarian approach, said Stephen Nagy, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University.

“Li understood that the Japan-China economic relationship is one of economic co-dependency and that both sides need to work on that to sustain their growth,” he said.

“But over the last 11 years, that relationship has become more problematic and now we are seeing Japanese businessmen being arrested under China’s new espionage laws,” he pointed out. “That is damaging to the relationship and it has to be affecting the Chinese economy.”

Instead of a mutually beneficial economic relationship, the focus of China-Japan ties has shifted to security concerns over territory and the Taiwan question, Nagy said.

“It has become more ideological under Xi and that is destabilising the economic relationship, and that is not good for either side,” he added.

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo, said Xi’s sidelining of Li was a source of regret for Japanese leaders. Both countries have “lost” a channel for direct communications via Li, according to Hinata-Yamaguchi.

“Japan’s leaders would really like to have a senior Chinese politician that they could speak with directly, but that is very hard because Xi’s entourage follows his directions,” he said. “I’m not optimistic that that sort of connection can be re-established in the near future.”