Japan, China Drawing Closer : Ties Rated Best ‘in More Than 100 Years

Four decades ago, China and Japan were concluding the most brutal war in the history of their rivalry, a conflict in which Mao Tse-tung exhorted his troops to “fight the enemy to the last drop of our blood.”

But recently, a ranking Chinese official on a trip to Japan spoke casually of the war and the eight-year Japanese occupation of much of China, from 1937 to 1945, as “just a moment” in the history of relations between the two countries.

The official, Peng Zhen, a member of the Politburo of China’s Communist Party and chairman of the National People’s Congress, said China and Japan now have the “best relations in more than 100 years.”

That is no exaggeration. These two old rivals have become the best of friends. As a Western diplomat put it recently, “China has the best relations with Japan of any major nation, and Japan has the greatest access of any foreign country to China.”

Consider the following:

--In political terms, no other country enjoys the sort of entree the Japanese have to high-ranking Chinese officials. Diplomats from other countries speak with open envy of the ease with which Japanese diplomats and visiting officials get in to see Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and Communist Party Secretary Hu Yaobang.

--Economically, Japan is China’s principal trading partner. Indeed, Japanese companies are selling so many television sets and other consumer goods in China that the centuries-old mercantile dream of reaping the wealth of the China market no longer seems fantastic.

--Culturally, the two countries are drawing increasingly closer. Last year, about 350,000 Japanese tourists visited China, far more than from any other country and about a third of the tourist total. A Japanese youth delegation received prominence and favored treatment at China’s National Day celebrations last October.

--Over the last year, China and Japan have even taken some steps toward military cooperation. High-ranking defense officials of the two countries have begun to exchange visits and to make “inspection tours” of each other’s troops. Haruo Natsume, a Japanese vice minister of defense, will visit China this month to talk with Chinese military leaders about “strategy, the military situation in Asia and the Soviet military buildup in the Far East,” according to a Japanese statement.

All this is little short of amazing when viewed in the light of history. Over the last 400 years, China and Japan have gone to war three times. In the war of 1894-’95, China lost control of Taiwan, and in the war of 1937-’45 it suffered casualties of about 1.3 million dead and 1.8 million wounded.

Hostility toward Japan provided the principal impetus for China’s May 4 Movement, the 1919 series of demonstrations that galvanized Chinese intellectuals, students and writers. And anti-Japanese sentiment was an important element in helping Mao and his Communist Party win popular support away from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in the 1930s and 1940s.

The events of the first half of this century have not been entirely forgotten here. Until very recently, it was commonplace for Chinese officials to warn of the dangers of a possible revival of Japanese militarism.

Three years ago, Japanese education officials and publishers revised some textbooks in a way that virtually exonerated Japan of responsibility for starting World War II and seemed to gloss over atrocities by Japanese troops in China.

That episode rekindled memories of the war and touched off a furor in China. But it blew over after Japanese officials promised to correct the textbooks.

No ‘Residue of Hatred’

“I don’t think there’s the residue of hatred toward the Japanese here that you can see in the Soviet treatment of Germany,” a Peking-based diplomat said. “There seems to be a conscious effort by officials on both sides not to fan the flames.”

The only discernible source of friction these days between the two countries is a bit of low-key grumbling by Chinese officials that Japan is not investing enough money or transferring enough technology to China.

Some analysts believe the two countries could become rivals again in the 21st Century if China succeeds in developing its economy to the extent that it becomes a threat to Japan.

“There seems to be a school of thought in Japan that says you should not give the Chinese too much, that you may create a monster,” a diplomat from an Asian country said.

For the present, however, the Chinese government looks on Japan as a bridge to the West and a model for China’s ambitious modernization effort.

Admiration for Recovery

Indeed, Chinese leaders sometimes compare what they are attempting today with the Meiji Restoration, when Japan ended its self-imposed isolation and in the late 19th Century opened its doors to the West.

Chinese leaders also express admiration for Japan’s ability to rebuild and turn itself into an economic superpower after the devastation of World War II.

“Through hard work over the postwar years, the Japanese have built their country into a modern, economically developed land,” Hu has said.

Japan and China restored diplomatic relations in 1972, several months after President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to China and less than a year after China was admitted to the United Nations.

The current relationship of extraordinary closeness between the two countries dates from November, 1983, after the textbook controversy had cooled down. Hu, Deng’s protege and China’s second most important political leader, visited Japan, and Japanese officials lavished attention on the Communist Party leader.

“They treated him brilliantly,” an informed diplomat said. “It was Hu’s first exposure to a Westernized, developed country, and he was dazzled.”

After Hu returned to Peking, Japanese officials reaped the benefits of that hospitality. A few months ago, the Communist Party leader had dinner with Japanese Ambassador Yosuke Nakae three times in a single week.

By contrast, American sources say, U.S. Ambassador Arthur W. Hummel Jr. has had a single, rather stiff meeting with Hu in the past four years.

“Both they and we have a problem because of Hu’s (party) position,” one American source said. “The Japanese don’t seem to mind that.”

Following Hu’s example, a wave of other Chinese political leaders and Cabinet ministers have visited the Japanese Embassy and opened their doors to Japanese officials and businessmen. No other country can compete with the Japanese for access in China.

Deng, who visited Tokyo in 1978, has also shown favoritism toward the Japanese. Last December, after Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed an agreement on transferring Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, she announced proudly that Chinese officials had agreed to receive a high-level British trade delegation.

But when the mission of 10 leading British industrialists arrived last February, they found that their trip coincided with a visit by 100 members of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce. The huge Japanese delegation had an audience with Deng; the British did not.

In economic terms, Japan’s high-level contacts are paying off. Last year, China’s trade with Japan increased by more than 30% to about $13 billion. Japan has now cornered more than a quarter of China’s world trade. China’s trade with the United States was about $6 billion, less than half as much as Japan’s.

Others at Disadvantage

Economic competitors in the United States and Western Europe are at a disadvantage because of Japan’s proximity to China. And Japan’s emerging economic rivals in East Asia--South Korea and Taiwan--have no diplomatic relations with China.

That leaves Japan in an almost unassailable position in the China market, at a time when a growing number of people in this country of a billion people are spending an increasing amount on consumer goods.

Last fall, when the Chinese government announced its intention to let prices float more freely in response to market forces, millions of Chinese began buying durable goods in anticipation of inflation. The most common purchase was a color television set. The streets of Peking and Shanghai were choked with small trucks and carts lugging Hitachi, Sharp and National brand television sets or tape recorders.

For 1984 as a whole, Japan exported 2.3 million color television sets to China, seven times as many as in the previous year. By February of this year, 40% of Japan’s total television exports were going to China.

One Complaint

Chinese officials complain, nonetheless, that Japan is interested only in trade with China and is not investing as much money here as it should.

During his recent trip to Japan, Chinese politburo member Peng Zhen noted that while Peking does a quarter of its world trade with Japan, it gets only a tenth of its foreign investment and technology from Japan. The Chinese official said Japan’s investment and technology transfer in China are “far from enough.”

Deng, China’s top leader, said a few weeks ago that he felt that Japan was being shortsighted in its reluctance to invest money in China.

According to an informal survey last November, Japan has signed about 20 joint ventures in China, at least 13 of them in the last year. Private Japanese investment is estimated at $47 million out of total foreign investment of $1.1 billion.

Hong Kong is by far China’s largest single source of investment, and U.S. companies have also been more willing to commit money in China than have their Japanese competitors.

Nevertheless, Deng and his associates have so far not taken any action in retaliation for Japan’s reluctance to invest. On the contrary, they have continued to court Japan and to link themselves to Japan as closely as possible as they pursue their campaign to modernize China.

On April 23, in the middle of his visit to Japan, Peng paid a brief courtesy call on Emperor Hirohito, in whose name Japanese troops once carried out their invasion of China and occupation of much of the country.

According to the official Chinese press account of the meeting, Peng carried “warm greetings” to the Japanese emperor from all of China’s top leaders and “wished the Japanese emperor a long life.”