Some Good News: Sino-Japanese Thaw Begins

China and Japan, since the second world war, have had relations ranging anywhere from cool to ice cold. Chinese citizens have an extremely poor opinion of Japan, and occasionally boycott Japanese goods when the Japanese make tactless symbolic moves, like former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi's frequent visits to a Shinto shrine housing convicted war criminals of World War II, or Japan's 2005 bid for a UN Security Council seat. Japan has had great trouble trying to reconcile its 20th Century history with China and Korea, and both states have long seen Japan with great skepticism. Despite large and growing trade between Japan and China, the two states have simply been unable to get along.

But recently, Chinese and Japanese leaders have begun a (hopefully) long-term effort to try and improve their relationship. The move was made possible by the replacement of Prime Minister Abe with Fukuda , but was by the initiative of Chinese President Hu, who recently visited Japan in the first Presidential-level visit in over a decade to deliver a gift of pandas, play ping-pong with Fukuda, and conduct more serious diplomatic talk. The results, while infantile, have been excellent.


China's opinion of Japan has been extremely sour since World War II--certainly, there was good reason for it to be for some time; Japan's invasion of China was brutal and violent, and left millions of Chinese dead. But why has Japan not been able to reconcile this past, unlike Germany, who gets along quite well with its European neighbors? Part of the problem has been Japan's tendency to hide under the umbrella of the US-Japan Alliance; without strong and independent foreign policy stances, Japan has not been able to convincingly show a significant and lasting change away from its older imperial tendencies. Furthermore, controversial history books in some Japanese schools have a strikingly unapologetic stance on the second world war, and right-wing shrines (and other organizations) have glorified the history of many rather bad folks in the second world war, like Tojo. These issues have kept its East Asian neighbors skeptical, worried, and bitter--especially China.

But good relations between these countries is simply a good idea. High trade without strong diplomatic relations risks a souring (like if one industry's workers start losing jobs due to low tariffs), and certainly, both countries would benefit from lower military spending to hedge against each other. And so, Fukada and Hu finally managed to make a visit to talk turkey.

Hu has the advantage of a state-run media system, which has begun to drop good words about Japan into daily newspapers--Chinese popular sentiment towards Japan may improve if this campaign continues. But more importantly, China and Japan signed a joint Communique that looks to strengthen economic and political ties with lowering trade barriers, increasing diplomatic exchange volume, and increasing efforts for exchange student access. In addition, the Chinese and Japanese will work together to improve relations with North Korea.

Other East Asian states are seeing this visit with great hope for a warmer and more prosperous East Asia. Asia Times is cautiously acknowledging a "warm spring," and The Australian is boldly supporting that the visit is a "historic point." A Sino-Japanese friendship is likely to improve confidence in the future stability of East Asia, and encourage high-risk ventures like gas and oil mining in the South China Sea, and increased cross-national investment.

This thaw is particularly useful for Japan, whose economy has struggled for the past 10 years after decades of "miracle" economics. If it can shed its "pariah" status in East Asia and increase trade, investment, and joint development, it might be able to get its economy back on track and take off along with its East Asian neighbors.

For the United States, the friendship is likely to make it less relevant in East Asian affairs, and is likely to give China a greater mandate to lead. It seems East Asian states are, one by one, lining up behind China's growing leadership, and placing their bets that China of the future is going to continue to encourage peace, regional prosperity, and non-intervention in domestic affairs. If East Asia is right, these bets are going to pay off big in the next few decades, likely turning East Asia into the world's foremost industrial powerhouse.

The Rise of the Pacific

Security "experts" with access to large-scale media organs have expressed concern for at least a decade over the growth of China's navy, and its increasing ability to intervene in situations that we don't want them to--Taiwan, the Spratly Islands, and a few territorial disputes with Japan and South Korea. Non-experts that I've spoken to sometimes think that the US is vulnerable to being invaded by China. With boats. Seriously?

While everyone likes to pretend they're an expert on these things at cocktail parties so they can pick up some cute music major, misinforming other freedom-loving Americans with false vague impressions of the Pacific is the kind of thing that could get the United States into a cold war mentality--and perhaps create a self-fulfilling prophecy--with China.

The US public needs to relax a bit on the China issue. I shall explain why:



1) China's military is not that awesome. It might not even currently be able to conquer Taiwan on its own, and certainly wouldn't be able to if the local US Carrier Fleet (stationed in Yokohama) intervened. It has zero aircraft carriers, compared to the 12 that the US sports.

2) The Japanese, Russians, and Indians have navies, too. Remember them? Right, them. None of them are exactly China's biggest fans, particularly the Japanese. While they may get along, none of them is going to lay back and let one of them run around the Pacific building an unchecked empire. China's navy is divided into a north, south, and east fleet specifically because it has to deal with the Russians and South Koreans in the north, the Taiwanese and Japanese in the east, and the Indians (and Vietnamese, Philippinos, Indonesians, Malaysians; small on their own, but together, enough to be a harassment) in the south.

India currently has an aircraft carrier of its own, is building another one for late this year, and expects shipment of a third from Russia this year, as well. That's 3 aircraft carriers, which is exactly 3 more than anyone in the Pacific has, besides the US. They will not be a force to be trifled with.

The Russian fleet is rebuilding extremely quickly under Putin (and, soon, his puppet), and the Pacific fleet has a number of top-of-the-line Soveremenny destroyers and an extensive logistics/supply/repair fleet to keep them moving.

The Japanese have a stock of Destroyers that rivals the Chinese, despite constitutional blocks on their Self Defense spending. If this ban is lifted, they could quickly grow even stronger.

Ultimately, the US doesn't have to worry about the Pacific too much, as long as all four of these great states keep rising at a pretty even pace. India, in particular, has the growth potential to keep China almost completely in check on its own. So the Chinese won't be invading the US any time soon--I can't say much about Taiwan, but I don't share nearly as much concern over the little island as many American security experts.

And frankly, I'm pretty excited about this naval rise in the Pacific. If the US cannot possibly dominate the region, then the incentive for the US to spend as if it could drops dramatically. We could reduce our carrier fleet number from 12 to maybe 9 or 10, and let the status-quo-loving states of the Pacific keep things peaceful on their own.

Unlike their European counterparts, the powers of the Pacific see no need to free-ride off the military of the US, and they are choosing to depend on themselves for security. And if the primary concern for the US in the Pacific is peace and prosperity (which it should be; Democracy is nice, but it tends to form after prosperity in the Pacific-- see South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines), then self-management on the parts of China, India, Russia, and Japan, is fully in our favor, even if they don't get along that well.

The US should keep a carrier fleet or two ready to move in and make a stand where it has to should it need to, but being the unquestioned superpower in East Asia seems like a dilapidated policy which the US--for the sake of its taxpayers, if nothing more--should drop.