TOKYO - With no sign of a thaw in chilly
relations with Tokyo, Beijing appears to be
isolating Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi in a bid to discredit him and his
policies.
This shift in China's Japan
strategy has become increasingly evident in recent
weeks and is expected to translate further into
action leading up to Koizumi's exit from the
political stage in
September. He is to step down
as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP), and thereby as prime minister.
The message Beijing apparently wants to
get across is: without Koizumi, Sino-Japanese
relations would have flourished, and whoever
succeeds him in the autumn has a good chance of
turning liabilities left behind by Koizumi into
assets by learning from his negative example and
refraining from visiting the war-related Yasukuni
Shrine.
Koizumi has visited the Shinto
shrine in Tokyo - where 14 Class A World War II
criminals, including former prime minister General
Hideki Tojo, are enshrined along with some 2.4
million other war dead - once every year since
taking office in 2001. China and South Korea have
harshly condemned the shrine visits by Koizumi as
glorifying Japan's past militarism.
Top
Chinese leaders for nearly a year have shunned
Koizumi and refused to meet him, even during
international conferences held in third countries.
Japanese Foreign Minister Machimura Nobutaka's
planned visit to Beijing in late October was also
canceled because of Koizumi's Yasukuni visit days
earlier.
It is believed that at a secret
meeting in Beijing in late December, attended by
Chinese Ambassador to Tokyo Wang Yi, China adopted
its new Japan strategy of not only bashing but
isolating Koizumi by excluding him from exchanges
it launched with various Japanese sectors,
including political and business. The goal is to
persuade his successor not to visit Yasukuni
Shrine.
The Chinese leadership is closely
watching who will succeed Koizumi and what policy
the successor will take toward China. Among the
four leading potential candidates to take over
from Koizumi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe
and Foreign Minister Taro Aso are conservative
hawks with anti-China views and supporters of
Koizumi's visits to the shrine, while former chief
cabinet secretary Yasuo Fukuda and Finance
Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki are moderates with
pro-China views and critics of Koizumi's Yasukuni
visits.
China recently invited one of
Japan's pro-China ministers to Beijing and other
politicians with similar views are expected to
visit soon for talks with top Chinese leaders.
China also recently had a visit by a senior
Japanese politician with close ties not only to
Koizumi but to Abe, apparently in the hope of
preparing for the post-Koizumi era, although he
was not received as enthusiastically.
Several major Japanese associations
promoting Sino-Japanese friendship are to send a
high-powered delegation to Beijing late this
month. The delegation will include former prime
minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, former home affairs
minister Takeshi Noda and former foreign minister
Masahiko Komura. The three are critical of
Koizumi's China policy. They are expected to
receive a red-carpet welcome in Beijing, including
an audience with President Hu Jintao. Noda also
made a Beijing trip in early February. Former LDP
secretary general Makoto Koga, an arch-foe of
Koizumi within the LDP, also plans to visit
Beijing in early May.
Beijing is widely
believed to have given up hope of mending ties
with the Koizumi government. Chinese officials
apparently view Abe, by far the most popular with
the Japanese public of the four possible
successors, as most likely to take over. In fact,
Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo made a point of
meeting Abe during his recent visit to Japan. He
was keen to learn whether Abe would visit the
Yasukuni Shrine if he becomes prime minister.
China's new Japan strategy became clear
when Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and
Industry Toshihiro Nikai visited Beijing late last
month. Nikai, the highest-level Japanese official
to visit China since Koizumi upset Beijing with
his last Yasukuni visit, met with Chinese leaders
including Premier Wen Jiabao, Commerce Minister Bo
Xilai and State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan. Hidenao
Nakagawa, chairman of the LDP's policy research
council, also visited Beijing at the same time as
Nikai for a first meeting of an exchange forum
between the countries' ruling parties. The forum
was established in 2004, but had never been held
because of deteriorating Sino-Japanese ties.
Chinese leaders apparently treated
Nakagawa, a close aid to Koizumi, differently from
Nikai, a pro-China politician; they visited at the
same time. Nakagawa had hoped to meet with Wu
Bangguo, chairman of the National People's
Congress, China's national legislature, and Vice
President Zeng Qinghong, but the meetings did not
materialize. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing also
canceled a scheduled lunch meeting with Nakagawa.
During Nikai's stay in Beijing, a Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "Correctly
handling history is the important political
foundation of Sino-Japanese relations." In his
talks with Nikai, Wen criticized Koizumi's shrine
visits, calling them "unfortunate", according to
the Japanese trade minister. "Japanese-Sino
relations are described as being in an extremely
difficult situation," Nikai said. "But we agreed
that we should cooperate with each other" so that
ties can improve, he added.
Nikai and
Chinese officials agreed to hold formal high-level
talks - on hold for five months - in Beijing early
this month on the simmering gas dispute in the
East China Sea. Formal talks had been suspended
after Koizumi's last visit to Yasukuni Shrine in
October. The Chinese also agreed with Nikai on
boosting economic cooperation, particularly in the
fields of investment, energy conservation and
environmental protection. They also agreed to hold
a joint symposium on energy conservation and
environment protection in May in Japan.
The Sino-Japanese gas dispute in the East
China Sea has fueled tensions between the two
Asian giants. At issue are Chinese natural-gas
projects in the disputed waters near the so-called
median line, which was drawn by Japan but has not
been recognized by China. The line is meant to
separate the two countries' overlapping
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
The disputed Senkaku Islands, called Diaoyu
Islands by the Chinese, are on the Japanese side
of the median line.
Of the various issues
currently plaguing bilateral ties, this dispute is
potentially the most volatile and could even lead
to a military confrontation. The fact Beijing has
broached the idea of resuming gas talks this month
may be taken by some as indicating a softer stance
on the dispute. But as things stand now, any
breakthrough in the logjam is very unlikely.
In a move aimed at providing a legal basis
for protecting Japan's test-drilling activities in
the East China Sea, the LDP has proposed a bill to
protect vessels used by marine resource explorers
and fishermen in Japan's EEZ. The LDP is seeking
the enactment of the bill in the current ordinary
session of the diet, Japan's parliament.
The purpose of the new legislation is
thought to be aimed at supporting Teikoku Oil Co,
which was formally granted concessions last summer
to start experimental drilling in the East China
Sea, in an apparent bid to counter natural-gas
exploration conducted nearby by a Chinese
consortium. Teikoku Oil has not yet started
experimental drilling because the Japanese
government has so far been cautious about actual
experimental drilling for fear of further stoking
tensions with China.
Several days before
visiting Beijing, Nikai, whose ministry is in
charge of natural-resources development,
emphasized the need to resolve the dispute with
China through talks. "Some people say Japan should
bravely conduct experimental drilling [in
opposition to China]. But I will not choose that
course of action."
Meanwhile, concerns are
growing in Japanese business circles about
possible ripple effects of the tense political
situation on booming economic ties - as calls for
a harder line on the gas dispute are also growing
louder within the LDP.
Hisane
Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist,
commentator and scholar on international politics
and economy. Masaki's e-mail address isyiu45535@nifty.com.
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