Shared destiny bound to bring neighbors together

Significant change

The three defense documents, namely the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Program Guidelines and the Mid-Term Defense Program, overturned Japan's pacifist postwar strategy and set out aims for Japan to have one of the world's largest military budgets.

According to the five-year plan, Japan will not only acquire counterstrike capabilities, a significant departure from its pacifist Constitution, but will also spend 43 trillion yen ($313 billion) over the next five years to strengthen its military, buying cruise missiles capable of striking its neighbors and developing hypersonic weapons among others. This will bring Japan's military spending to about 2 percent of its GDP, a big change from its practice of the past 60 years of military spending accounting for 1 percent of its GDP.

The move toward remilitarization and the signal that this move has sent out have drawn strong responses from its neighbors in Asia.

"Historically, Japan has stepped into the wrong path of militarism, conducted aggression and expansion, and committed crimes against humanity," a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Tokyo told China Daily.

"It had brought serious disasters to our region and to the world. This time Japan has significantly changed its security policy and strengthened its military capabilities. It (suggests) that Japan is walking away from a peaceful development track and will inevitably invite concern and opposition of all peace-loving people.

"We solemnly urge the Japanese side to learn lessons from the past, not to use the so-called China threat to cover its own military expansion, and return to political consensus between China and Japan that we are mutual partners and we do not pose threats to each other. Japan needs to avoid becoming a troublemaker and a disrupter of regional security and bilateral relationships."

Contrary to Japan, which has shown a clearly hostile escalation in its national strategies on China — from "worry" to "serious concern" and "grave concern" to "the biggest strategic challenge" — China's policy toward Japan has been consistent.

Politically, as Xi said when he met Kishida, China emphasizes the principles of the four political documents the two countries have signed and believes that the consensus reached by Beijing and Tokyo that the two countries should "be partners, not threats" must be turned into concrete policies.

"China does not interfere in other countries' internal affairs, nor does it accept any excuse by anyone to interfere in its internal affairs," Xi told Kishida.

Economically, Xi said, China and Japan should "step up dialogue and cooperation in keeping the industrial and supply chains stable and unclogged, so as to realize complementarity and mutual benefits at a higher level".

Wang in Beijing said Xi's report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China this year expounds best on what China will do to solve economic challenges, while at the same time contributing to the world economy.

"It is a solemn commitment to the international community, and it applies to not only economic cooperation with Japan but also to China's business activities with other countries."

In the report, Xi said China adheres to the correct course of economic globalization. It strives to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation; advance bilateral, regional and multilateral collaboration; and boost international macroeconomic policy coordination. It is also committed to working with other countries to foster an international environment conducive to development and create new drivers for global growth. China opposes protectionism, the erection of fences and barriers, decoupling, the disruption of industrial and supply chains, unilateral sanctions and maximum-pressure tactics.

Echoing the report, Yuki Izumikawa, head of the business department of the Japan Association for the Promotion of International Trade, said anti-globalization, populism and nation-first policies cannot solve the challenges humanity faces. Rather, the notions of "common prosperity" and "building a human community with a shared future" that Xi has proposed are the correct solutions, he said.

"China is the world's second-largest economy and the world's largest developing country. Globalization without China is fake globalization, and the real purpose of globalization is to realize a more just and equal world. Therefore, globalization cannot be separated from China's leading effort."

Izumikawa said he hopes China will play a greater role in promoting "real globalization" or the "new globalization".