The flare-up between China and Japan over disputed Diaoyu Islands has been temporarily extinguished. Restraint should be exercised by both sides to prevent the issue from being further politicized.
A friend of mine told me he was discriminated against while having sushi in a Japanese restaurant last week. Seven Chinese activists defending the Diaoyu Islands were still being detained by Japanese authorities. While eating, a passerby stared at him with obvious disdain. He later understood that being "politically correct," meant he should refrain from frequenting Japanese restaurants.
Cases of boycotting similar establishments and even products are not rare. The same friend once consulted with a colleague on purchasing a new notebook computer. The colleague told him, "well I am not 100 percent sure which brand has the best quality at the lowest price, but don't buy a Japanese one." Clearly, he believed that supporting a Japanese company was wrong and that changes can be made by active nonparticipation.
Despite the booming economic ties between China and Japan, the political relationship between the two countries often encounters seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koisumi's controversial visits to the Yasukuni shrine have caused a virtual fire-storm of disapproval in China, which suffered horrific atrocities while under Japanese occupation.
Chinese people find it difficult to understand why the Japanese government evades responsibility for the crimes committed by country's militarists during their World War II invasion of China. They argue that if Germany could apologize to the Jews for Nazi brutality, the Japanese should follow suit and express regret for their horrendous inhuman practices on Chinese soil. Some of them reveal their anger, or rather, frustration, by refusing to buy Japanese-made products.
Instead of a written apology, Koisumi increases tensions by proposing paying homage at the Yasukuni shrine regularly, where war criminals are honored together with the country's war dead. His actions have helped fuel nationalistic sentiments among the Chinese. In fact, the sentiment has become so powerful that it even affects national policy-making: the new leadership, which has been in power for more than a year, finds itself with little room to arrange a Koisumi visit. For the same reasons, Japanese technology was also reportedly denied for high-speed rail links between Beijing and Shanghai.
To make things even worse, the two East Asian neighbors have one more hurdle to clear before bilateral ties can improve: the Diaoyu Islands squabble. Japanese right-wingers are planning another trip to Diaoyu Islands. A Chinese group from Hong Kong was also prepared for another voyage to the disputed islands, but suspended its trip out of concern for the tensions occurring across the Taiwan Straits.
A quick solution for the controversy seems out of the question. But it helps to recall former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's comment on the quarrel. He proposed putting aside the differences over the sovereignty of the islands and leaving the dispute to future generations, saying they should be smarter and have better ideas on how to solve the problem.
Given the fact that bilateral ties are not healthy enough to resist further blows, what both sides need most right now is enough foresight to keep the issue from becoming further politicized. The two neighbors¡ªas well as the rest of East Asia¡ªcan't afford the consequences if the dispute spins out of control.
(The views here are only personal. They do not
necessarily represent CRI's official policy.)
As a graduate from China's
"cradle of diplomats," Foreign Affairs College,
he has a natural interest in China's national security
issues and foreign policies.
He believes in the correctness of Lord Palmerston's
axiom: nations have no permanent allies, only permanent
interests. But he also believes a conflict of national
interest could be addressed in a win-win means instead
of a zero-sum game.
Can China rise peacefully? Will the Confucian values
provide us with the wisdom to avoid war, disease and
poverty? He observes.
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