Why China should move beyond wartime past and forge closer ties with Japan

Amicable relations and reduced tensions are good for both countries, Asia and the world. Critically, if China and Japan remain hostile, it will only play into the hands of the US

Lijia Zhang

Published: 5:30am, 10 Dec 2023

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December 13 will be the 86th anniversary of the rape of Nanking. After all these years, the relationship between China and Japan is still trapped in the long shadow of history. On each side, public opinion of the other is close to rock bottom. Amid strained relations, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in San Francisco last month, their first face-to-face meeting in a year, to pursue mutually beneficial ties.

It was a move in the right direction. When both countries face so many common challenges – from economic woes and demographic problems, to the growing scourge of climate change and regional security issues – they have to ask themselves whether persistent tensions or closer collaboration would be better, not just for each other, but also for Asia and ultimately the world.

History has played a role in the less-than-warm relationship. China sees the root of the problem as Japan’s failure to properly apologise for its war crimes. And yet the apology issue is itself complex. In the decades immediately after the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), China did not seek an apology from Japan as it considered itself the victor.

But its attitude changed after 1989 as Beijing placed more emphasis on nationalism. Since then, Tokyo has apologised and expressed regret on many occasions for the war crimes of imperial Japan.

But to Chinese ears, most of it, with the choice of weak words, sounds insincere – a reflection of the feelings of some senior conservatives in Japan who simply did not want to apologise.

What has not helped Chinese feelings are the visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to commemorating Japan’s war dead, by Japanese leaders including prime ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone and Shinzo Abe, and what many see as Japan’s whitewashing of its history textbooks.

06:06

Place of controversy: Japan’s Yasukuni Shrine

Meanwhile, many Japanese have come to feel that Beijing wants to keep the apology issue alive simply as a political tool with which to batter Tokyo.

China and Japan also face geopolitical differences. As the world’s second- and third- largest economies respectively, China and Japan both harbour regional leadership ambitions. They also have a long-running dispute over an uninhabited island chain in the East China Sea that China calls the Diaoyu Islands, and Japan the Senkaku Islands.

Unsurprisingly, there is very little trust between the two nations.

Richard McGregor, author of Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan and the Fate of US Power in the Pacific Century, believes Japan has been a great failure in China’s foreign policy. “If China had been able to reassure Japan and build trust, then the Japanese would no longer support the stationing of US troops in their country,” he told me in an interview. The implication is that US power in Asia would have been finished.

03:11

Xi and Kishida reaffirm Japan-China strategic relations in rare leader talks after Apec summit

That is one possibility. Back in the 1990s, plenty of Japanese politicians would have liked to befriend China as they saw that their future was in Asia. Beijing’s hostility, however, pushed them to embrace America wholeheartedly.

It’s time for Beijing to walk out of the past and forge closer ties with Tokyo. Beyond the fact that China is Japan’s largest trading partner, it has many reasons to be on good terms with this neighbour. As an Asian country with a long history with China, Japan can potentially play a role in softening crises, such as over Taiwan.

Reduced tensions would lessen the overall threat perception and allow a relaxation of all actors’ security positions in the region. An amicable Sino-Japanese relationship is vital for regional stability and prosperity. If the two remain hostile, it will play into the US’ hands.

02:50

China agrees to a summit with South Korea and Japan after rare trilateral meeting

Official ties between the two nations remain bleak, but so does the relationship among the two peoples. Anti-Japan sentiment has been running high in China over the past few decades, and this has not been improved this year by Japan’s decision to release treated waste water from its Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Although many experts said it was safe to do so, Beijing thought otherwise. There was an outpouring of anger on social media. One barbecue shop owner in Dalian even took things a step further, putting up a sign saying: No Japanese customers, please.

In recent years, public anger against Japan has been such that even wearing a kimono can get a person attacked and labelled unpatriotic or a lackey of Japan. Bashing Japan has become fashionable. In my view, behaviour such as putting up “no Japanese” signs and attacking kimono wearers are childish and uncivilised, and hurt China’s image as a rising global power.

01:51

China mourns thousands killed in Nanking massacre ahead of World War II

I am not suggesting that Chinese people should forget the pain we suffered at the hands of the imperial Japanese. I, for one, shall not forget. As a Nanjing native, I still remember the harrowing stories my grandma told me. Back in 1937, as she tried to flee the city, her infant daughter in her arms, a bomb fell nearby. A neighbour only metres away disappeared, blown to pieces by the blast.

Tokyo should apologise unequivocally and unreservedly for the atrocities committed in China and apologise specifically for the Rape of Nanking.

While it is understandable that so many Chinese feel resentful towards Japan, it is unwise to let this anti-Japan sentiment spiral out of control. National interests should come before personal feelings, and it is in China’s best interests to improve its relationship with Japan.

Lijia Zhang is a rocket-factory worker turned social commentator, and the author of a novel, Lotus