Sino-Japanese relations: fleeting flirtation or long-term engagement?

This weekend (21-22 May) the leaders of China and Korea are hosted by Japan for the Fourth Trilateral Summit, the first such Summit since the triple disaster of March 11. As a part of this visit, Wen Jiabao and Lee Myung-bak will travel to Fukushima to demonstrate their nation’s continuing support of Japan’s reconstruction.

Indeed, both China and South Korea have already contributed significantly during Japan’s disaster response in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, providing emergency relief teams and the provision of material support. The large (and unprecedented) level of support that China offered, especially the prompt dispatch of a Chinese search and rescue team, has led some to posit that warming relationships between Japan, China and Korea may be the silver-lining to Japan’s national tragedy. Especially with regard to China, with whom Japan’s relationship slumped precariously after a fishing infraction turned into a territorial dispute in November of 2010, the quake represented for some a possible circuit-breaker.

Certainly there has been an improvement in the relationship at the societal level. China’s media commented very favourably about the Japanese people’s resilience and lawfulness under the extreme duress of the power, food and water shortages – not to mention failing communications and concerns about family members. The Chinese media wondered aloud if China could ever reach such levels of civility. That peers in Asia were viewing the Japanese societal response favourably was a story which was in turn picked up the Japanese media and became a source of national pride for the many Japanese doing it hard. At that moment the empathy and mutual respect between the Japanese and Chinese (and others around the world) was at its zenith.

Yet in the longer term it is very unlikely that the earthquake will mark a turning point in the Sino-Japanese relationship. This is because tensions in the Sino-Japanese relationship are due to more than societal distrust but the basic strategic interests and perceptions of the two powers.

In this context it worth remembering that in the aftermath of the triple disaster China’s full offer of a PLAN hospital ship and expanded rescue team were not accepted by Japan.

This refusal by Japan was due the fundamentally different strategic orientations of the two countries and a (reasonable) lack of trust of the Chinese military in Japanese policy circles, not to mention the political implications of inviting Chinese military personal into Japan to work next to the US forces under Operation Tomodachi. Japanese politicians too would have had some difficulty in explaining a major Chinese presence after recent and damaging disputes – especially over the export of rare earth (a subject that Kan has flagged for discussion during the Trilateral Summit). Japan already made clear its order of preference (and trust) during the crisis, and despite the positive appraisals of Chinese assistance in the media, the fact is that Japan accepted only limited Chinese assistance due to a fundamental differences and competing interests.

Even the initial societal level warming up of the relationship is starting to cool. The Chinese media is reporting negatively on the choice of Fukushima as feature of the Trilateral summit, while discussion is Japan about how to cope a regional order that China is increasing being able to influence and in which Japan will play a junior role is heating up. Opinion within Japan is divided. The influential journalist Yoichi Funabashi has been arguing that Japan must ‘cleave to’ China in the future, but he acknowledges that a reorientation towards China would require political courage – a commodity in desperately short supply.

There is therefore no reason to expect that Japan’s even weaker domestic political and economic situation after the crisis will help to improve the Sino-Japanese relationship in the long term. Rather, despite the current warming of ties at the societal level, the most likely course for this important relationship is unfortunately the reassertion of old and competitive patterns of interaction.

Joel Rathus is a recent PhD graduate from Adelaide University, an EAF scholar and a regular contributor to the East Asia Forum. His other posts can be found here.