Time bomb damages Japan's ties with China

China and Japan will renew their security talks and consultations on their ties and regional affairs this month. The talks have been stalled since the Japanese government illegally "nationalized" part of the Diaoyu Islands in 2012.

Toshihiro Nikai, chairman of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party's General Council, is due to visit China in May, as head of a 3,000-strong Japanese delegation that will include tourism and local government officials. He said the trip was an attempt to improve the frozen bilateral relations at a news conference in Tokyo on Feb 25.

Back in 2007, when the two countries observed the 35th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties, Nikai, as chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee of the LDP, signed an agreement with China's National Tourism Administration Director Shao Qiwei on exchange visits by more than 20,000 people from both countries.

The friendliness between the two countries such frequent visits helped cultivate, however, has drained away due to the territorial dispute and Japanese politicians' denials of history.

Some non-government organizations have been trying to revive the spirit of friendship by working on the thorny issues that have soured relations.

A Japanese civic group, which is dedicated to carrying on and developing the spirit of former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama's statement on the country's colonial rule and aggression in other Asian countries in the 20th century, will send 10 scholars to China this week. These scholars will visit such cities as Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai from Monday to Friday to help build trust between the two countries, or at least in the people-to-people relations.

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of the World War II, Murayama's statement in 1995 apologized for the tremendous damage and suffering his country caused the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations, through its colonial rule and aggression.

The civic group is worried that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abemay avoid these descriptions in the statement he is expected to issue in August on the 70th anniversary of the end of the war. Abe has said he plans to focus on his nation's postwar contributions to peace and future plans.

Since Murayama issued the statement, it has defined Japanese government's official view about the war and has been upheld by the successive Cabinets. Murayama's soul-searching on Japan's war history played a big role in winning Japan trust in the international community. It helped Japan mend fences with China and South Korea.

But Japan's ties with the two countries have suffered under the Abe administration due to his revisionist interpretation of the war and his visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The history issue has become a time bomb that can damage Japan's relations with China and South Korea when Japanese politicians deny or justify Japan's role and responsibilities in the war.

Motofumi Asai, a veteran Japanese diplomat, is on the group's China trip. He is not optimistic about ties in the near future.

"The severity of the history issue in the country is that there are many conservative people in the political parties like the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Party of Japan and Innovation Party. The end of the Abe administration will not necessarily mean that the history issue will disappear," Asai said before leaving for Beijing.

The visits and talks this spring seem to send a ray of hope for a better China-Japan relationship. But the Abe administration may still set off the bomb.

The author is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief. caihong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/09/2015 page9)