Security in East Asia after the Cold War:China's New Concept of Security and Japan's Response

Akio Takahara
Professor, Rikkyo University

Prepared for Workshop on“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”
Hiroshima Peace Institute
Hiroshima, Japan
March11-12, 2004
The rise of China in the late 20th century and the early 21st century is a significant phenomenon thatsurely will be recorded in the standard textbooks of world history. It is one of the most salient
elements in the dynamics of the international society in the post-cold war era. In fact, China’s rise
was facilitated by the end of the cold war. Adding to the positive external factors such as the
progress in globalisation, Chinese leaders that prevailed in the power struggle boldly promoted
marketisation and opening-up of the economy believing that economic growth was necessary to
avoid the collapse of the Communist rule that took place in Europe.

As far as their foreign policies are concerned, the Chinese leaders have striven to achieve andmaintain a peaceful international environment ever since the late 1970s when they determined
economic development as their prime goal and adopted reform and opening-up policies as the means
to achieve it. At the same time, the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping emphasized repeatedly that
economic development was primary and defence build-up was secondary. This set of policies looked
fairly consistent in the eyes of the Chinese. Viewed from the neighbouring countries, however, it
eventually turned out to contain a basic dilemma: China needed peace to achieve economic
development, but once China developed, the awakening giant was perceived by its neighbours as athreat to their peace and development.

Partly in response to this dilemma, China made a significant shift in its foreign and security policies
in the latter half of the 1990s. In their foreign policy, the Chinese switched from their traditional
strategy to ‘befriend distant states while attacking those nearby’ (yuanjiao jingong), and started todeepen their friendly ties with their neighbours not only bilaterally but also in multilateralframeworks. On the other hand, they launched the so-called new concept of security. This in content

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2overlapped with cooperative security, as it consisted of elements such as mutual trust, mutual benefit,
equality and cooperation between nations, and the peaceful solution of conflicts through dialogue.
The formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the switch to a positive policy stancetowards the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) were policies that were related to the advent of this newconcept. The first aim of this paper is to analyse in detail the factors in the shift of China’s foreignand security policies.

This paper aims secondly to investigate Japan’s foreign policy and security policy in the post-cold
war era. A particular focus will be set on her response towards the shift in China’s approach. The
raison d’être of Japan’s alliance with the United States was questioned after the fall of the Soviet
Union, and the alliance seemed ‘drifting’ in some people’s eyes. Domestically, the domination of
power by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ended and Japanese politics was in a state of flux,
while the Japanese economy floundered about after the bursting of the ‘bubble economy’ in the early
1990s. It appeared that many Japanese people had lost their way and confidence in the
overwhelming tide of globalisation.

In relation to their security policy, Japanese politicians and bureaucrats suffered a psychologicalblow in the early 1990s when their financial support in the Gulf War was not appreciated by a largepart of the international society. At the same time, there emerged an argument for creating a
multilateral security framework in response to the advent of a new security environment in theregion. Japan was a strong promoter of such framework which eventually took the shape of ARF.
Then in the mid-90s, Japan went along with the United States to reinforce their alliance. For sure,
psychological dependence on the US remains strong even now especially in the face of the nuclear
crisis on the Korean Peninsula. However, the rise of regionalism in East Asia, which became salientin the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis, has had an undeniable impact on the Japanese thinking ofregional security. Such is the context in which Japan faces the rise of China. In the second part of thepaper, I shall look into some specific responses on the part of the Japanese towards the shift in
China’s diplomatic and security policies. I shall then conclude by discussing the possibility of
coordinating the policies of Japan and China.

1 China’s Pursuit of Military Prowess

China’s economic rise in the 1990s was accompanied by a steady modernization of its military. Sinceliberation in 1949, the Chinese have always been serious in its pursuit of military might. This
probably stems from a combination of factors. Geographically, China is a huge continental country
that faces an ocean, with long national borders. Historically, China seems obsessed with its past,“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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3determined not to repeat the humiliating experience of semi-colonization. In addition, the military
has maintained a strong influence in politics, which stems partly from the fact that the Chinese
Communist Party gained and has maintained its power through its own military forces, that is thePeople’s Liberation Army (PLA).

In the late 1990s, the Chinese leaders acknowledged the importance of military power in thefollowing formula: there was an increasingly severe competition of comprehensive power among
nations, which consisted of economic power, military power, and the integrity of the nation.1 China
identifies itself as a regional, developing power moving on to become a global power (Zheng andYang 2000: 186), and in this contest, it is determined to develop each of these elements ofcomprehensive power.

In the early 1990s, the Gulf War was studied carefully not only by those in uniform but also by Jiang
Zemin, the Chairman of the Central Military Commission and heir to Deng Xiaoping. In early 1993,
the new military strategy was established under Jiang’s instructions. The new strategy included thedefence of maritime rights and interests, and extended the area of defence from the mainland to airand especially the territorial and economic waters (Takahara 1994: 50). The new strategy wasapplied to the policy regarding military modernization. In a nutshell, Jiang ordered that the PLA
should be transformed from a ‘manpower intensive military’ into a ‘science and technology intensive
military’ (Jiang 1999: 2). The effect of the new strategy appeared in February 1995, when thePhilippines announced that the Chinese had constructed a building on Mischief Reef, which thePhilippines had claimed to be their territory.

The central focus of China’s military build-up, however, has been a possibility of hostilities with
Taiwan. Under the leadership of President Li Denghui, Taiwan pursued the path of democratisation
and Taiwanization in the 1990s. Li revised the constitution of the Republic of China in 1991 andmade it clear that the constitution only applied to the area that was then effectively under the rule ofthe Kuomintang government. This implied that the Nationalists admitted the Communists had thelegitimacy to rule the mainland, which provided the basis for the 1999 statement by Li that therelationship between Taiwan and the mainland amounted to a special, state-to-state relationship(Takahara 2000: 44-6). Beijing regarded unification with Taiwan as one of the most important policy
targets, and could not overlook such leadership of Li Denghui.

For China, the US loomed large behind the de facto independence of Taiwan. To this day, the largest
Remark by Jiang Zemin, People’s Daily, 5 June 1999. Later Jiang added anotherelement to the formula, namely, science and technology.
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4threat to China’s security is perceived to be the implementation of what they call the hegemonism
and power politics of the United States, and particularly its possible intervention in the Taiwan issue.
In the minds of the Chinese leaders, the US regards Taiwan as an important element in thegeopolitics in East Asia and that the US is utilizing Taiwan to restrain China (Zheng and Yang 2000:
288).

The strengthening of the Japan-US alliance in the mid-1990s exacerbated the irritation of theChinese, who suspected that the new arrangement prepared the ground for US and Japanese militaryintervention once the hostilities broke out across the Taiwan Strait. Not only did they protest
vehemently to the US and Japan, but following Li’s visit to the US in 1995, Beijing launched a seriesof military exercises aimed at the liberation of Taiwan, which were timed to intimidate theTaiwanese before their presidential election in spring 1996.

The adoption of hard line policies was related to the succession of power in China. The complete
transfer of power from the so-called Second generation of leaders to the Third generation was
officially announced in September 1994, and Jiang Zemin, the ‘core of the Third generation ofleaders’, chose Taiwan as the first major policy area to assert his own style of leadership. Hisconciliatory eight-point proposal in February 1995, however, bore little fruit (Yamamoto 1999:
223-31). Critique of the dovish policies came not only from rival leaders, but a nationalistic
sentiment among the public had grown as a result of the staggering, double-digit economic growththat started in 1992. The Chinese enhanced their national pride and the public started to express theirwish to see their leaders ‘say no’ to the US and to Japan.2 It was significant that public opinion
emerged as a factor that cannot be ignored by the leaders in China’s foreign policy making.

2 The Strategic Readjustment: China’s Policy Shift in the late 1990s

The military build-up and the flexing of muscles by China, however, met protest and raised
suspicion among its neighbouring nations. A month after the Philippines announced the Chinese
occupation of Mischief Reef, the foreign ministers of ASEAN issued a joint statement urging thecountries concerned to halt any action that would threaten the peace and security of the South China
Sea. In the first half of the 1990s, in fact, some ASEAN countries had started to welcome theenhancement of the American military presence in the region (Cheng 2001: 438). The annual surveyof public opinion conducted by the Japanese government in 1996, which was the year when the PLA

China Can Say No, a book filled with animosity against Japan and particularly
against the United States, became a bestseller in 1996. Books with similar titles andsimilar content followed suit.

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fired missiles into the seas close to Taiwan, indicated that only 45.0 per cent felt an affinity for China,
while 51.3 per cent did not. To date, these are the lowest and the highest points of affinity and lack ofaffinity, respectively, for China.3

Isolation was something that China could not afford particularly when the US and Japan were
adjusting and reinforcing their alliance. The US had also come up with an idea in November 1995 toutilize APEC as a forum for security dialogue, and this was unacceptable to the Chinese since
Taiwan was a member of APEC (Takagi 2001: 88). The prospect of isolation and alienation in theregion urged the Chinese to change its receptive attitude towards the ARF. In 1996, China became aco-chair of the ARF Intersessional Support Group on Confidence Building Measures together with
the Philippines. In the following year, when the Chinese hosted the meeting of this Group, Chinese
officials stressed that the ARF should play a central role in maintaining the stability of the region(Soeya 2000: 65).

It was in the few years between 1996 and 1999 that China’s new concept of security gradually took
shape (Asano 2003: 18-23). The new concept was based on the two joint declarations of China andRussia issued in April 1996 and April 1997, when Yeltsin and Jiang mutually visited the capitals of
the two countries. Since then Jiang has repeatedly stated that, unlike the old concept that is based onmilitary alliances and the solution of conflicts by military means, the core of the new security
concept is mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation (Jiang 2002: 540-1). Then theoutbreak of the Asian Financial Crisis added another factor to the concept, that is comprehensive
security, and among others, economic security (Takahara 2003: 99-100). Thus, the new security
concept provided the basis for promoting the multilateral frameworks for dialogue in non-traditional
as well as traditional areas of security, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation for Central
Asia, and the ARF, ASEAN + 3, and the Japan-Korea-China trilateral talks in East Asia.

The relationship with the US constituted another factor in China’s policy shift. While China steadily
built its military capabilities in case of need, it did not want confrontation on any front with theUnited States too soon. Knowing that there is a huge gap in the comprehensive state power of thetwo nations, China’s policy towards the US has always been a conciliatory one. When they first met
in 1993 at the occasion of the APEC summit in Seattle, Jiang Zemin told Clinton that the principlesof the China-US relationship should be increasing trust, decreasing trouble, developing cooperation,and no confrontation. Along with the rise of confidence and nationalism among the public in the
mid-1990s, Jiang sought for an equal partnership with the US to enhance his prestige and power at
The survey results for the years from 1988 to 2002 are available online at:
http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h14/h14-gaikou/images/zu05.gif, visited on 21 July 2003.

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6home. This effort was rewarded by his state visit to the US in 1997, and the reciprocal state visit by
Clinton the following year.

However, a series of events in the first half of 1999 shattered China’s hopes for establishing astrategic partnership with the US. NATO decided on its new strategic concept that justified theirbombing of Yugoslavia, which actually started during Jiang’s visit to Europe in March. The Chinese
leaders levelled severe criticism against this new concept because they were also accused of ‘humanrights violations’ in Tibet and Xinjiang, and was confronting a democratised Taiwan. In April,Premier Zhu Rongji failed to conclude the tough negotiation with the US for China’s admission to
the WTO during his visit to the US, and was severely criticized for it at home. And in May, theChinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed, after which the Chinese leaders had no illusions about
the unstable nature of its relationship with the US.

Since the summer of 1999, the Chinese leadership has seriously sought to improve the bilateralrelations with its neighbours and promote the formation of multilateral frameworks in the region.
Jiang told Prime Minister Mori Yoshirô at the United Nations Millenium Summit in September 2000
that the rise of Asia was only possible with the friendship and cooperation between Japan and China,
and that the leaders of the two countries must take a long and broad view of the bilateral relations.
When Prime Minister Zhu Rongji visited Japan in the following month, he raised regional economic
cooperation as one of the three target areas of joint cooperation, and stressed that he looked forward
to strengthening the coordination with the Japanese side within the framework of cooperation in East
Asia.4 During Zhu’s visit, China agreed on the friendly exchange of naval vessels, which Japan had
been proposing for some time.

Thus, while China is making a serious effort to enhance its comprehensive state power, it has beenpromoting the idea of comprehensive and cooperative security since the latter half of the 1990s.
Specific measures included the conciliatory approach in handling the bilateral relations with its
neighbouring nations, and the formation of, and cooperation in, regional, multilateral forums. The
factors that urged this change included the fear of isolation in the post-cold war strategic
environment and increased self-confidence in engaging in multilateral forums. The rise of China andher deepening involvement in the regional economy constituted the basis of these factors. In addition,
China had to live with an unstable relationship with the sole superpower, the United States, which
was increasing its tendency for what the Chinese called hegemonism and power politics.

4

The remarks by Jiang and Zhu are available on line at:
http://www.china-embassy.or.jp, visited on 5 May 2002.
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3 Japan’s Response to China’s Rise and Policy Shift

In the wake of ‘4 June’ in 1989, Japan’s distinct policy was not to isolate China from the world. This
was the case despite the dramatic deterioration in people’s perception of China as a result of theincident. The Japanese government held on to its policy of engaging China, and she was the firstamong the industrialised countries to end the sanctions and resume economic assistance. Despite the
newly introduced ODA policy to take into account such factors as the development of weapons ofmass destruction and arms exports by the recipient country, these principles were not strictly applied
to China. This was because China’s stable development was regarded as vital to the interests ofJapan and the region. It was in the same spirit that Japan was consistently supportive of China’s
joining the GATT and later the WTO.

In terms of bilateral relations, Japan responded positively to China’s strong request for a visit by theEmperor to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the normalisation of relations in 1992. This took
place despite opposition from some members of the Liberal Democratic Party saying that theEmperor’s visit should not be used politically (Tanaka 1994: 145). In his banquet speech in Beijing,
the Emperor acknowledged that there was a period when Japan brought about great hardship to theChinese people, and remarked that this caused deep sorrow in his mind. He continued that, based on
deep remorse, the Japanese had firmly resolved that they should never repeat such a war andreconstruct the country as a peaceful nation (Nittyû Kankei Kihon Shiryôshû: 794-5). In thefollowing year, Prime Minister Hosokawa, who led the first coalition government in almost 40 years,
expressed deep remorse and apology to those who suffered from Japanese invasion and colonial rulein his speech to the Diet (Nittyû Kankei Kihon Shiryôshû: 802).

During this period, there was a significant move in terms of regional security. The ARF met for the
first time in 1994. It took the shape of a forum of ASEAN, but a good part of the original initiative
stemmed from Japan (Takagi 1999: 25-6). From the viewpoint of the Japanese, they would rather
play the role of a shadow actor (kuroko), since they thought Japan’s initiative in forming a regionalframework was not yet welcomed by the nations that suffered from Japanese aggression in WW2.
One of the important aims of ARF was to obtain the participation of China. Co-opting a big
neighbour in this manner was called the Gulliver approach, which had been adopted earlier by theSoutheast Asian countries when they established ASEAN to engage Indonesia (Okabe 1996: 155-6).
The advisory group on defence issues that was formed under Prime Minister Hosokawa presented its
report to the successor, Prime Minister Murayama in July 1994, advising that Japan should seek for a“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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8multilateral security forum in the region while maintaining the alliance with the United States.5

The reconfirmation of the Japan-US alliance proved to be the largest issue in the Japan-China
relations in the 1990s. For the Japanese policy makers, what mattered most was perhaps the politicalsignificance of the alliance with the United States. They had to explain to the public what thealliance meant after the cold war. They feared that economic friction with the US and the problems
that arose from the US bases in Japan and especially those in Okinawa could lead to stronger
anti-US feelings and questioning of the alliance. Since they regarded that cancelling the alliancewould fundamentally change the status quo in Japan and in the region, with which they and most of
the other countries had been rather comfortable, they willingly cooperated with concerned membersof the US government to adjust the alliance to the new situation.6

There is small doubt that when the Japanese and the US governments talked about possible‘circumstances surrounding Japan’ in the new guideline for defence cooperation, they were mainly
alluding to a war in the Korean Peninsula, where a crisis had just been overcome in 1994. As regards
China, the April 1996 Japan-US Joint Declaration on Security referred to her in the following way:

They [Hashimoto and Clinton] emphasised that it is extremely important for the stability
and prosperity of the region that China play a positive and constructive role, and, in thiscontext, stressed the interest of both countries in furthering cooperation with China.7

Certainly it was with great sensitivity that the two sides composed this sentence, since it had turned
out that the declaration was to be signed only a month after China launched their missiles off thecoasts of Taiwan and the US sent two aircraft carriers in the area. Neither Japan nor the US wishedto promote the ‘China threat theory’ by their joint declaration.

Not only the Americans, however, but also the Japanese were generally increasing their concern
about China’s future in the mid-1990s. What caused this concern included the frictions arising from
China’s nuclear testing, over which Japan held back its grant aid to China, and the intensive
anti-Japanese, patriotic propaganda to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of WW2. No
matter what the intention of the patriotic education was, it effectively imprinted a very negative

The report is available on line at:
http://www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~worldjpn/documents/texts/JPSC/19940812.O1J.html,
visited on 22 July 2003.
6 See Funabashi (1997).
7 http://www.jda.go.jp/e/policy/f_work/sengen_.htm.
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9image of Japan and the Japanese on the minds of the Chinese, including the children.8

The backdrop to Japan’s uneasiness about China at the time was the impressive economic growth of
China, which was generally welcomed by the Japanese but ironically stood in stark contrast to thequagmire that the Japanese economy had fallen in. The Chinese missile tests, aimed to intimidate
Taiwan, took place just next to Yonakuni Island, the western tip of Japanese territory. This, together
with the nuclear tests, enhanced the militaristic image of China in the minds of the Japanese.

Once the reconfirmation of the Japan-US alliance was all but a fait accompli, Japan and China
moved towards reconciliation and entered a new period in their relationship. The Japanese Prime
Minister at the time was Ryûtaro Hashimoto. When Hashimoto met Jiang Zemin in Manila inNovember 1996, Hashimoto told Jiang that he attached as much importance to Japan-China relations
as he did to Japan-US relations. He also stated that his cabinet shared the understanding of history
with the Murayama cabinet, which had expressed deepest remorse and sincere apologies for Japan’scolonial rule and invasion in the past. Hashimoto’s China policies were articulated in his speeches
that were made just before and during his visit to China in September 1997. He pointed out that
Asian countries, and among others Japan and China, should be doing four things: to understand thevariety of polity, economy, history, religion and culture that exist in Asia; to increase theopportunities for dialogues; to promote cooperation and mutual learning; and to create a common
order. Based on this framework, he proposed a regular annual summit meeting and the strengtheningof the security dialogue between Japan and China. In addition to the dialogue and cooperation onbilateral issues, he argued that the two countries should discuss regional and global issues and tackle
them jointly and constructively.

The backdrop to this idea was the on-going globalisation and the growing drive for regional
integration as a result of the former. Perhaps the Chinese were still cautious when they responded
negatively to the Japanese proposal to establish an Asian Monetary Fund not long after the eruptionof the Asian financial crisis in July 1997. But the Chinese soon came to accept the spirit of regional
cooperation, changed their minds about the Asian Monetary Fund, and eventually agreed on theextensive list of mutual cooperation which was announced at the time of Jiang’s visit to Japan inNovember 1998.

As is well known, however, Jiang Zemin’s visit to Japan turned out to be a bumpy ride. He was

I often encounter Chinese youths who reveal that the Japanese they have met are
actually much ‘nicer’ than the image that they had learnt about and had seen in the
Chinese media. They may be mistaken, of course, but the point on education still holds.

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10angry that the Japanese did not agree to include the word, ‘apology’, in the Joint Declaration on
Building a Friendship and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Development, and that the thenPrime Minister Keizo Obuchi only apologised orally during the official summit meeting. While inTokyo, the President repeatedly reminded the Japanese about their wartime deeds and the need tocontain militarism, which was regarded by many Japanese as unnecessary, impolite and irritating.
Jiang was angry especially because Obuchi had apologised in writing when President Kim Dae Jung
visited Japan a month earlier.

From the viewpoint of the Japanese, Japan had expressed its apologies to China in many occasions,
including the Emperor’s visit to Beijing, while these had not been done to the Koreans. Even when
the word, ‘apology’, was not uttered, the spirit had been clear and was accepted by the Chinese
leadership of the times. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to normalise the relations andsign the Peace and Friendship Treaty. The 1972 Japan-China Joint Communiqué reads, ‘The
Japanese side realises keenly its responsibility as to the serious damage it inflicted on the Chinese
people through the war, and feels deep remorse’ (Nittyû Kankei Kihon Shiryôshû: 428). It is wellknown that Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai then decided to give up their claim for reparations, which
was a great relief to the Japanese side. When Deng Xiaoping came to Japan and met the Emperor
Showa in 1978, he said, let bygones be bygones and from now on we should look forward andconstruct the peaceful relationship between the two countries (Nittyû Kankei Kihon Shiryôshû:518-9). Many Japanese were greatly moved by the magnanimity of these great leaders, but, incontrast, they were much disappointed with Jiang Zemin’s tenacity. In addition, Kim Dae Jung had
made it clear that the Koreans would not take up the history issue in the future, while Jiang wasapparently unwilling to make this promise.

Obuchi was also under pressure from within the LDP not to give in to China this time. With China’s
accelerated growth in the 1990s Japanese, like people elsewhere, could imagine the emergence ofChina as a major global power. Many Japanese felt the historical issues were sometimes used in
China to strengthen Chinese nationalism, and to pressure Japanese for economic concessions.9 As
China grew stronger, Japanese could imagine further political pressure and economic competition
from China, creating doubts about the wisdom of a continued low posture towards China. The newperspective was strengthened as the proportion of Japanese who were adults in World War II
declined and the proportion of children born after the war who felt they were not responsible for the

One precedent had taken place in 1987, when Deng Xiaoping brought up China’s
abandonment of reparations in demanding greater assistance from the Japanes during
a conversation with Junichiro Yano, the then leader of the Komei Party (Nittyû Kankei
Kihon Shiryôshû: 707).
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war grew.

The irritation among some Japanese had also stemmed from what seemed to be China’s tactic tobelittle Japan and befriend the United States. This took place as if it was a means to beef up theimage and authority of Jiang Zemin after his re-election as Party General-Secretary in September
1997, seven months after the death of Deng Xiaoping. In the following month, Jiang made astopover in Hawaii on his way to meet Clinton and visited Pearl Harbour, the implication of which
was rather obvious. After the Asian financial crisis, the Chinese media repeatedly reprimanded Japanfor its irresponsibility in letting the exchange rate of the yen fall. When Clinton reciprocated the
Jiang visit the following year, he bought this argument and praised the Chinese for maintaining thevalue of RMB, and accused the Japanese for inaction (Takahara 1999: 58-9).

Such irritation on the part of the Japanese was one factor in the discussion over the reviewing of
ODA to China. Some members of the LDP complained vociferously that it was no use providing
ODA to the Chinese who took it for granted and were never grateful. Some ignored the earlier
discussions on the application of ODA principles to China and insisted that ODA should not beprovided in the light of China’s military build-up and arms exports. Negative reports in theright-wing Sankei Shimbun about the Chinese using the ODA for military purposes fuelled theindignation. In fact, considering the rapid growth, huge savings and the foreign exchange reserves ofChina, and Japan’s economic stagnation and huge budget deficits, the economic rationale for aiding
China looked rather thin. Nevertheless, the wise men’s group, convened by the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to review the ODA to China, concluded in early 2001 that the ODA should be continued forthe stability and prosperity of China and of the region. At the same time, the group recommended
that the foci of the ODA should be shifted to environmental conservation and social development,
and that its amount should be adjusted in accordance with the fiscal conditions of Japan.

During this period, however, Japan’s inclination towards regional cooperation continued, and thegood news for Japan was that China turned herself into an active participant in regional forums. At
the occasion of the ASEAN+3 meeting in Manila in November 1999, China agreed for the first time
to attend the Japan-Korea-China triangle summit meeting. At the same meeting the following year in
Singapore, it was agreed by the three parties that this meeting should be made a regular, annual event,and that the year 2002 be made a year of exchange among the three countries. The significance of
this year was threefold: Japan and Korea jointly would host the World Cup Football Games; Japanand China would celebrate the 30th anniversary of the normalisation of relations; and Korea andChina would celebrate the 10th anniversary of normalisation. China, in its meeting with ASEAN,
proposed that they should aim for a free trade treaty, while ASEAN came up with a responding“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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12proposal to include Japan and Korea as well in forming an East Asian free trade area. After all, both
Japan and China understood that regional cooperation was the trend of the times.

Since 1999, despite the hiccups that occurred now and then, such as the irregular remarks on history
by some Japanese politicians and the great publicity given to them by China, which helped toinflame the issue, or China’s strong protest against the Japanese-American joint research of TMD, orJapan’s strong protest against Chinese naval and research vessels intruding into Japanese waters,
both governments have basically maintained a conciliatory approach towards each other. There is a
growing concern, however, about the vicious circle of frictions and distrust between the two nations
at the level of the general public. This should be associated with the rise in nationalism in the twocountries, which in turn could be attributed to the shared sense of uncertainty in the face of drastic
systemic restructuring required by globalisation. Not only Japan’s but also China’s policy makers
could no longer ignore public opinion, and they had to think quickly of ways to foster mutual
understanding and trust if they wanted to expand their room for manoeuvre.

In addition to the nationalistic sentiments of the public, there seems to be at least two reasons why
the efforts of the two sides have apparently not synchronized fully. First, despite Koizumi’s
statement about the general target of economic integration, there is a powerful lobby in Japan toprotect the interests of the farmers, who have strongly argued against the liberalization of trade in
agricultural products. Quite ignorant of China’s tenacious attempt at talking ASEAN into negotiatinga free trade area, Japan introduced tentative safeguard measures on three agricultural items, against
which China retaliated by lifting the tariffs for Japanese industrial products such as cars and mobile
phones. During his visit to Singapore in January 2002, Koizumi proposed what he called an initiative
for a Japan-ASEAN comprehensive economic partnership, to which he said the Japan-Singapore
economic agreement just signed would be an example. It was not so difficult with Singapore since it
hardly has any agriculture, and the path to an agreement with ASEAN as a whole will be tough andwinding. Thus, objection from the agricultural sector has now become the strongest constraint on
Japan’s pursuit of regional integration. This is not the case with China, since the political system issuch that the authorities need not pay too much attention to the farmers, whose interests are in factseriously underrepresented.

Second, the Japanese are still uncertain about the desirable security arrangement in the region. Japan
faces an enigmatic North Korea, and it cannot be denied that many Japanese are increasingly worried
about a stronger China. Some regard that reconfirming the alliance with the US was essential inmaintaining the power balance in the region. At the same time, there is an increasing number ofpeople who believe that Japan should promote the formulation of a multilateral security framework“Prospects for East Asian Nuclear Disarmament”

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in East Asia. Such people include scholars and politicians,10 among others the former Director of theJapan Defence Agency (Nakatani 2002: 17). The development of such thinking is certainly helpedby China’s conciliatory approach towards regional issues of security and bilateral issues of history.

Conclusion

China made a significant turnabout in its diplomatic and security policies in the latter half of the
1990s and started to present itself as the champion of cooperative security in East Asia. This wasaimed partly at containing the China threat theory, which had arisen in the 1990s as a result ofChina’s impressive success in economic growth. Because of its size, history and the belief in thevalue of might, China’s success posed a threat to its neighbours and disrupted the peacefulenvironment that China had needed in achieving its primary goal of economic development.

On the other hand, Japan and the United States also faced a basic dilemma on their part. In terms of
security concerns, they do not like to see China develop its military might to challenge the status quo
in the region. On the other hand, Japan and the US are willing to strengthen their economic ties with
China. This will contribute to China’s economic development, which inevitably will lead to the
expansion and modernisation of the Chinese military. The US may be able to bear this dilemma
longer because of its wide lead in military capabilities and her geographical distance from China.
Japan, however, lacks these conditions and will not be able to put up with the pressure for long.

Logically, there is only one way to solve this dilemma of strategic confrontation and economic
engagement: that is to establish a multilateral security framework in the Asia-Pacific on top of theexisting bilateral alliances. In this way, Japan will neither confront China strategically by depending
exclusively on the United States, nor confront the United States by strengthening ties with China andthe other countries of East Asia. Japan, together with China and the US, should take the initiative in
implementing such an arrangement.

In order to materialise this idea, at least two things needs to be done. First, it is imperative that thevicious circle of friction and distrust be reversed between the Japanese and the Chinese. It seems tome that there is a basic psychological problem to be solved: the Japanese feel superior to the Chinese
in terms of their economic and social development, while they feel inferior about culture, civilisationand the status and role in international politics; the situation is the opposite with the Chinese, whofeel superior to the Japanese in terms of tradition and civilisation and their influence in international
For instance, see Asahi Shimbun (2000), Takahara, Fujiwara and Lee (2003), andTanaka et al. (2002).
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14

politics, but feel inferior about the level of economic and social development. Both sides get much
worried when they perceive that their superiority is being undermined.

It would take time to alter these mind-sets, but the only solution here is to engage at all levels,
actively promote dialogue and boldly question any seed of misunderstanding. An example is the
mistaken statement that the Japanese do not admit there was a massacre in Nanjing in 1937. How
many Japanese actually deny the massacre? Extremely few, must be the answer. No doubt, theJapanese should not forget the history of the war with China, and deepen their understanding about
the cause of the folly. The Chinese, on their part, should not forget the recent 50-odd years ofJapanese peace and contribution to the region, and should see history as a trend and take thepost-war years as an important reference in judging Japan.

Second, both sides must keep on pursuing their programme of regional cooperation. It cannot bedenied that there is an element of rivalry in the relationship between Japan and China. On that basis,the development of regionalism is expected to overcome chauvinism and promote the positive
interaction between multilateralism and bilateral relations. It would also help if the two nations could
embark on exciting joint projects, such as the establishment of the Asian Monetary Fund and thetraining facilities for the UN Peace Keeping Operations. There is also a possibility that theircooperation in solving the nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula through multi-party dialogue willserve as a catalyst for establishing a permanent framework for cooperative security in East Asia.

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