Japan and China agree to build a 'beautiful future'

[Strengthandhonour]

Japan and China agree to build a 'beautiful future'

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing and David McNeill in Tokyo

Published: 12 April 2007



Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Premier Wen Jiabao agreed yesterday to build a "beautiful future" together after the first visit by a Chinese leader to Japan in seven years. But Japan's Second World War record cast a shadow over efforts to mend relations.
This visit is all about breaking the ice between the two Asian powers, one the established regional titan and the other a rising force in global politics. To go by the language, it looked like the start of a beautiful friendship but people remain wary about the long-term prospects for Sino-Japanese relations.
Mr Wen said he wanted a "true ice-melting trip" to build on Mr Abe's successful visit to Beijing last October. But in China, there was no doubt where the burden of responsibility lay.
"Melting ice needs more warmth from Japan," said the People's Daily.
Chinese students have protested over what they see as Japan's failure to say sorry for the war.
For now, everything in the garden is sprouting cherry blossoms. The message from yesterday's banquet was emphasising the cultural links between the two neighbours and their shared history.
"In today's meeting with Premier Wen, we were able to agree to push forward many specific points of cooperation towards building a mutually beneficial strategic relationship," Mr Abe said in a jovial speech.
China has found it easier to deal with Japan since Mr Abe's appointment. Sino-Japanese relations bordered on hostile under Mr Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who refused to halt visits to the Yasukuni war shrine. Japanese war criminals are honoured there alongside the war dead, something the Chinese have long resented and seen as a symbol of Japan's failure to atone for its militarist past.
"China-Japan ties are at a crucial point of inheriting the past and opening up the future," Mr Wen said. "How the ties develop will have an important effect on the future of our two nations and Asia."
In a joint statement, China and Japan agreed to confront history and look ahead to open the path for a "beautiful future" in bilateral relations, and to work together to build a mutually beneficial strategic relationship.
Despite signs of warming relations, the Chinese appear to have chosen, for the time being at least, to ignore the glaring issue of Mr Abe's remarkable efforts last month to play down Japan's participation in wartime sex slavery. In comments that seemed to contradict a 1993 acknowledgment of complicity and an apology to 200,000 so-called "comfort women" from various parts of Asia who were forced into Japanese army brothels, Mr Abe said the actual kidnapping was committed not by the Japanese army but by private contractors.
China has been careful not to let its anger about that and other issues spill over into matters economic, as it need Japan's market and its investment to keep the economy simmering at its current level. If you factor in Hong Kong, China is Japan's biggest trading partner with total trade adding up to around £120bn, overtaking the United States in the past couple of years.
The two countries agreed to strengthen co-operation on energy and environmental protection and said they would hold their first high-level economic dialogue in Beijing by the end of the year. A major bone of contention has been the development of oil and gas fields in the disputed waters of the East China Sea. On this issue they pledged to speed up talks and report back by autumn.
Japan offered to use new equipment to speed up the process of disposing chemical weapons abandoned by its army during the Second World War, a proposal welcomed by China.
In these talks, one should never underestimate the importance of the symbolic. China agreed to give Japan two crested ibises and both agreed to co-operate in protecting the endangered birds.
While the atmosphere was one of harmony, the issue of Yasukuni Shrine persisted. Mr Abe paid his respects at the shrine before taking office but has pointedly refused to say whether he will follow Mr Koizumi and visit as prime minister, despite repeated requests by China not to do so.
Mr Abe's core support is among Japanese conservatives, who demand he visit the shrine, just as they did with Mr Koizumi. So history could yet undo the new common ground discovered by these two Asian superpowers.




source: Japan and China agree to build a \'beautiful future\' - Independent Online Edition > Asia