The Dragon's Shadow: the Rise of China and Japan's New Nationalism, Which I Hope Will Make an Important Contribution to Our Understanding of This Strategic Issue
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THE DRAGON’S SHADOW: THE RISE OF CHINA AND JAPAN’S NEW NATIONALISM Benjamin L. Self with an Afterword by Dr. Richard P. Cronin November 2006 ii | THE DRAGON’S SHADOW: THE RISE OF CHINA AND JAPAN’S NEW NATIONALISM Copyright ©2006 The Henry L. Stimson Center ISBN: 0-9770023-3-0 Photos by US Navy, Ben Lauray (Creative Commons Legal Code-Attribution 2.0), Anonymous (Creative Commons Legal Code-Attribution 2.0). Cover design by Rock Creek Creative. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent from The Henry L. Stimson Center. The Henry L. Stimson Center 1111 19th Street, NW 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 phone: 202-223-5956 fax: 202-238-9604 www.stimson.org TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents................................................................................................iii Preface ................................................................................................................ iv Chapter 1: Introduction and Conceptual Framework ......................................... 1 Chapter 2: Structures, Processes, and Agents in Japanese Policy-making.................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 3: Legacies of the Past in Japan-China Relations ............................... 27 Chapter 4: The Resurgence of Japanese Nationalism....................................... 51 Chapter 5: Reluctant Realism........................................................................... 67 Chapter 6: New Threats and New Responses: Japan’s China Policy After 1998 .......................................................................................................... 81 Afterword by Dr. Richard P. Cronin ................................................................ 89 iv | THE DRAGON’S SHADOW: THE RISE OF CHINA AND JAPAN’S NEW NATIONALISM PREFACE Dear Colleague, The evolving relationship between Japan and China is now recognized as one of the key factors in Asia's future, with critical implications for regional and even global peace and security. The United States has important stakes in how this relationship develops, and how both Beijing and Tokyo manage its many parts. I am pleased to introduce a new publication by the Henry L. Stimson Center, The Dragon's Shadow: The Rise of China and Japan's New Nationalism, which I hope will make an important contribution to our understanding of this strategic issue. The Dragon's Shadow: The Rise of China and Japan's New Nationalism was written by Ben Self, senior associate at the Center. Ben has previously written extensively on the Japan-China and US-Japan relationships and was the co- editor of Alliance for Engagement. In this new work, he examines the Japan- China relationship from the Japan side of the story in particular. He looks at the history of Japanese policy in recent decades, the current dynamics of economic and political interaction, and places the story in the context of evolving Japanese national identity and contemporary norms. He also addresses US policymakers and offers ideas of how the US-Japan alliance can be a relevant instrument in managing the strategic aspects of Japan-China relations. I am grateful to Ben for his dedication to this project, written while he was overseas and without the normal access to the research and support services of a Washington think tank. I am also very appreciative of the efforts of Rich Cronin, senior associate, Alan Romberg, director of the Center's East Asia program, Marvin Lim, program coordinator, and Junko Kobayashi, research intern. They all made important substantive and editorial contributions as we brought the project to completion. The Dragon's Shadow provides deep insights into complex, dynamic and previously unexplored motivations vis-à-vis Japan’s policy toward China—most importantly, Japan’s search for identity. We hope it will prove useful to policymakers, experts and concerned citizens regarding the changing geopolitics of East Asia. Sincerely, Ellen Laipson President and CEO INTRODUCTION AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK | 1 — 1 — INTRODUCTION AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK apan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited China in October 1992 J to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations. It was the first time ever that a Japanese head of state had been to China. The visit was successful not only in advancing the international rehabilitation of Beijing following the Tiananmen massacre, but also as the culmination of Japan’s long-term strategy that aimed at co-opting China and opening it up to Japanese trade and investment. This strategy derived in large part from the Japan’s desire to overcome the ill-will created by its often brutal military occupation of China that began with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and lasted until the end of World War II. The government of Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi’s most immediate purpose of realizing the imperial trip was to consolidate Japan-China relations for the post-Cold War era, but trip also had important domestic political aspects. The trip responded specifically to numerous Chinese invitations that were aimed at overcoming the international opprobrium following the May 1989 Tiananmen incident.1 The imperial visit was thought at the time to have been successful, but the result proved to be short lived. Six years later, when Chinese President Jiang Zemin became the first Chinese head of state ever to visit Japan, the atmosphere could hardly have been more different. Although Jiang’s visit was to reciprocate the Imperial visit of 1992 and was timed to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, Jiang’s behavior and the Japanese reception showed Japan-China relations to be fraught with tension and riddled with rivalry.2 What explains the collapse of Japan’s longstanding posture of accommodation and co-optation? The proximate cause—at least of the sharp contrast between the two visits—was history. The Emperor’s carefully scripted remarks in 1992 expressed his “deep sorrow” and “regret” for the “great suffering” caused to the Chinese people; this was thought by many Japanese to have been the ultimate 1 Young C. Kim, “Japanese Policy Towards China: Politics of the Imperial Visit to China in 1992.” Pacific Affairs: An International Review of Asia and the Pacific vol.74 no.2. (2001), 225-245. 2 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, August 12, 1978. <http://www.infojapan.org/region/asia-paci/china/treaty78.html> 2 | THE DRAGON’S SHADOW: THE RISE OF CHINA AND JAPAN’S NEW NATIONALISM expression of remorse, and to have closed the door on the long postwar era of penitence. By the time of President Jiang’s November 1998 state visit to Tokyo the Emperor’s gesture of remorse six years earlier no longer counted for much with China. Nor did more fulsome but still obliquely formulated statements by Japanese leaders such as that by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama during a visit to Beijing in 1995. In a statement marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Murayama both acknowledged that Japan had committed “aggression,” and expressed his own personal “heartfelt apology.”3 Japan’s relations with China had not gone well in the intervening years, and the Japanese government was not in an accommodative or penitential mood. Although the abrupt turn in Japan-China relations had deep roots, as will be seen, the most dramatic changes occurred in the mid-1990s as a result of profound changes in Japan’s external environment and internal politics. At the time of Jiang’s visit, the difference in Japan’s relations with China and South Korea—the two countries that had suffered the most from Japanese imperialism—was striking. Only a month before Jiang’s ill-fated visit, a summit meeting between Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo and South Korea’s President Kim Dae-Jung had gone extraordinarily well. Perhaps most important to the success of Kim’s visit were the decision by the Obuchi government to mark the occasion by issuing an unprecedented written statement of “remorseful repentance and heartfelt apology” for what Koreans had suffered from Japanese colonial rule4 and Kim’s willingness to accept it and put the past behind them. Jiang Zemin reacted with anger to Japan’s refusal to extend to him the same written apology that it presented to Kim Dae-Jung. Neither Jiang nor the Chinese foreign ministry bureaucrats were mollified by the Japanese argument that the written apology to Kim responded to his politically courageous decision to put aside the history issue and work for a “future-oriented relationship.”5 Everywhere he went, Jiang charged that the denial of a written apology demonstrated Japanese revisionism, and he lectured his hosts about China’s suffering and the need to keep history front and center in their bilateral ties. The response of Japan’s foreign minister, Komura Masahiko, was pointed. He explained to reporters that the South Korean President had “made it clear that he would like to settle past history,” whereas with President Jiang, this “was not necessarily the case.”6 3 “Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama ‘On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the War’s End’ (15 August 1995), Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 4 Nicholas D. Kristoff, “Burying the Past: War Guilt Haunts Japan,” New York Times, November 30, 1998. <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/warguilt.htm>