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COMMENTARY
Why Japan's
'so sorry' doesn't wash in
China
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - At a recent conference in
Indonesia, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi apologized to Asian countries for his
country's invasions during World War II. It was
certainly a positive gesture, but it is unlikely
to appease the Chinese government totally.
The Chinese government does not really
want apologies about the past, it wants the
Japanese to call their invasion an "invasion" and
not minimize it. Beijing also does not want to see
future visits of senior politicians to the
Yasukuni Shrine, where there are buried together
veterans of Japanese wars and some convicted Class
A war criminals.
It is difficult for
Westerners to nail down what Beijing's position
vis-a-vis Japan actually is, because West and East
are literally a world apart on the matter of
confessing to historic mistakes versus burying
them. For its part, Beijing no longer calls the
Tiananmen movement in 1989 dongluan (riot
or major disorder), as did the official rhetoric
at the time, but fengbo (disturbance,
incident or controversy), or sometimes even simply
liusi (June 4); similarly, Beijing no
longer brings up the issue of the Cultural
Revolution (1966-76) or the Great Leap Forward
(late 1950s), meaning that Beijing wants these
mistakes buried in the past.
The idea of
burying mistakes, avoiding bringing them to the
open to avoid embarrassment, is hugely different
from the Western attitude. In general, Westerners,
following Freudian analysis and the Christian
concept of confession, think mistakes should be
solved by revealing them in public (to the
confessor or analyst). Chinese, and possibly East
Asians in general, just want to bury them and
never mention them again. There is no culture of
confession like that which held sway in the West
for hundreds of years. There, confession was the
first step to redemption; in East Asia,
confessions never brought forgiveness or
redemption but just swifter punishment.
These sentiments emerge against the
backdrop of conflicting ambitions. Both China and
Japan are not satisfied with their present role in
Asia, and hope for different and greater status.
Japan is fed up with being considered a
political dwarf, and wants better representation
for its economy, which is still the second-largest
in the world, larger that those of China and India
put together. (China supported India's request for
a permanent seat at the United Nations Security
Council, while opposing the Japanese bid.)
China is afraid that Japan's ambition for
higher profile could be inspired by its imperial
past to bully (if not invade, which is now out of
fashion) its neighbors, including China. There are
concrete instances supporting these fears. Take
the issue of iron ore. At the beginning of the
year Japan's steel industry and the world's
largest iron company, the Brazilian Companhia Vale
do Rio Doce, reached an agreement on the price of
iron ore: on the basis of the 18.6% global price
growth of last year, they increased the price by
71.5%, registering a historic price for iron ore.
This increase in price will create great
difficulties for the Chinese steel market and
industry, which is highly inefficient, but it
could be digested by Japan industry, which is more
efficient. The Chinese feel this is bullying its
steel industry out of the market.
And the
troubles continue. The Japanese have made a joint
decision with the United States openly to consider
Taiwan a troubled area - and a key strategic
concern of both nations. That's the truth, but it
took away the fig leaf that Taiwan is solely
China's domestic issue. Furthermore, on the very
days of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China,
Tokyo declared that Japan would open the area
around the Senkaku (in Japanese)or Diaoyu (in
Chinese) Islands, controlled by Tokyo but also
claimed by Beijing, to oil prospecting. All of
these are very concrete political and economic
issues, which are clouded and muddled by the
historical animosity.
If Tokyo gets a
permanent seat on the Security Council, will it do
worse than this? How much is the bullying on iron
related to the issue of the Yasukuni war veterans'
shrine? A lot, a little, none at all? China has
not publicly linked the two issues of the iron ore
and the demonstrations, and neither has Japan.
However, officials of both government admit there
is a tie. And, to roil the waters, the Chinese
claim the Japanese twisted Russia's arms to have
their hoped-for oil pipeline go to the north of
the Korean Peninsula and bypass China, contrary to
Chinese interests. China will be getting a railway
spur.
In fact, both rivals shy away from
all of this because both have skeletons in the
cupboard, embarrassing historical bones that
neither wants to display openly and discuss
frankly. Chinese steel mills wanted to undercut
Japanese mills and gain a larger part of the
global steel market; Japanese steel wanted to
avoid it and create difficulties for its Chinese
competitors. It is a commercial tussle, but in
such countries as China and Japan, given their
past, any tussle can become overburdened and
issues distorted by other feelings and fears.
How to make these undercurrents run
smoothly? Westerners, who have an interest in the
stability of the region, think they should bring
the issues into the open and discuss them frankly.
East Asians feel that approach would not work, and
besides, they are not accustomed to such openness
and shy away from it. They would rather go on
shadow-boxing about it, second-guessing each
other's movements.
If the West were not
involved, then the situation would be simpler. But
in this globalized economy, America and Europe are
involved, and they should try to get a clear
picture and not get hoodwinked by either of the
parties, while being aware of Asian sensitivities.
The issues appear to be the following:
Japan no longer can endure the perceived role
of political dwarf and wishes to fend for itself
against a rising China, especially since Japan is
not sure to what extent the US economy will still
dominate in 10 or 20 years, when China's economy
could well be twice or four times as large as it
is now.
China is pulled by its youth, who want
"revenge" against the "arrogant" Japanese; Beijing
is also truly worried that Japanese politics is,
or will be, hijacked by the right wing that
minimizes the past horrors in order to seek some
new kind of hegemony in the region. Things are
further complicated because there is a new game in
town. In the past centuries China was the regional
hegemon and Japan paid tribute to the greatness of
China. This changed about 100 years ago, when
Japan defeated China and took over Korea and
Taiwan. Then for the following decades, Japan was
the main political, and then economic, force in
the region.
This history raises the
question: How will the two countries fare against
each other? Will it be the old political paradigm,
these two countries vying for hegemony in East
Asia?
Can there be a new paradigm of
relations in Asia without considering "hegemony"?
How large is the region? Should it be
considered to include the South Asian
subcontinent? What is or will be the role of
Southeast Asia, the United States and Europe in
strategic geopolitical thinking?
Perhaps
these are the some of the real questions behind
the wave of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China.
Francesco Sisci is Asia editor of the Italian daily La Stampa
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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