Recently China and South Korea have been leading the drive to prevent Japan from gaining a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has publicly criticized Japan for trying to secure a UN Security Council seat while the Chinese have staged a series of anti-Japanese demonstrations in several major cities in China. These actions are likely to have considerable political ramifications for the East Asian region.
The anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese and Korean public has been smoldering for decades. The flames of this resentment have been fuelled as a result of Japan's approval of a new history textbook, its constant territorial disputes with neighboring countries, its bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat and annual visits by senior political figures to a Tokyo shrine honoring Japan's war dead. There are indeed several very intricately intertwined reasons behind the recent wave of anti-Japanese sentiment. But the politicization in China and South Korea of their grievances has left its mark on Tokyo-Beijing and Tokyo-Seoul relations.
Roh is anti-Japanese mainly because of South Korea's territorial dispute with Japan over the Tokdo Islands in the Sea of Japan. Faced with growing domestic economic problems and a vigorous opposition, Roh, with his minority party in parliament, could only adopt an anti-Japanese stance.
However, the economic and trade cooperation between Japan and Korea have greatly improved in recent years. Since former president Kim Dae-jung made his first visit to Japan in 2000, both sides have managed to co-exist without engendering any new conflict. Moreover, over the past two years, Korean artist Bae Yong-jun and the pop culture he represents have surprisingly taken Japan by storm. Obviously, the root of the problem of the Tokyo-Seoul relations is simpler than that of the Tokyo-Beijing relationship.
In February, just when the Chinese were celebrating the Lunar New Year holidays, the Japanese government suddenly dispatched troops to take over the lighthouse on the disputed Diaoyutai (Senkaku) Islands. However, Beijing manipulated its media not to respond, so that the public did not react fiercely. Why did Beijing seem to be avoiding confrontation with Tokyo over the lighthouse issue? Firstly, Beijing hoped that Tokyo would be supportive of its anti-secession legislation, which was already in the pipeline. Secondly, Beijing was concerned over whether Tokyo was planning to stop large parts of its development aid to China. Now these two issues have been settled and the anti-Japanese protests have taken center stage. In China, people are not generally allowed to take their opinions to the streets. Without the government's go-head, it is impossible for people to stage large-scale demonstrations, particularly in four major cities in China. Therefore, it is possible that the recent rallies have been orchestrated by the government.
Nowadays, Chinese foreign-affairs personnel differ widely over Japan policy. Even though the conventional approach of treating Japanese relations from a historical perspective is still dominant, there are some officials who believe a new approach should be adopted in bilateral relations.
Both China and Japan are now, for the first time, considered two of the world's great powers. We do not know yet what impact the new situation will have on the East Asian region. Whether China will rise peacefully or whether its actions will unnerve its neighbors depend on Beijing's Taiwan policy and the development of Sino-Japanese relations.
Antonio Chiang is the former deputy secretary general to the National Security Council.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
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