Two Tigers, One Mountain: A (Very) Brief Introduction to Sino-Japanese Relations
For two thousand years, China and Japan have existed in relative peace and harmony. This is not unexpected, as China and Japan share common ties in culture, language, religion, and traditions. However, such relatively amiable relationship between the two nations ended around the turn of the nineteenth century. Japan’s victories in its wars with China and Russia, as well as its alliance with the Allied Powers during World War I, were testaments to its modernity and its subsequent rise as the new great power in Asia. In contrast, China’s century of humiliation and domestic turmoil that marked its decline as the center of Asia could not be more antithetical. Japan reached the height of imperialism during World War II, acquiring colonies stretching from Korea to the Philippines. Memories of wartime brutalities and atrocities, such as Comfort Women, the Rape of Nanking, and the Bataan Death March, are still very fresh in former Japanese colonies.
World War II and its associated historical memories further severed ties between China and Japan. World War II gave rise to newly independent and decolonized nations, and nationalism became an important ideology for national cohesion amongst these newly independent states. Japan’s inconsistency in addressing and compensating for its war crimes, as well as China’s tendency to use Japanese war atrocities to stoke domestic nationalism, prevented both nations to regard their shared history objectively and to reach a long-term reconciliation. Although there were periods of relative friendliness between the two nations, they were short-lived.
The current leaders of the two nations both have personal ties to World War II, which in many ways could influence their foreign policy towards the other nation. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s grandfather was an influential statesman in wartime Japan. Following the war, he accused of war crimes though never officially indicted. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s father played an important role during World War II in the Chinese resistance against Japanese imperialism. The personalities and political leanings of the two leaders, along with the recent Japanese textbook controversy and disputes over the Senkaku Islands, paint a rather gloomy picture of current Sino-Japanese relations.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-japans-shinzo-abe-unfinished-family-business-1418354470
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21226068
http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/why-japans-textbook-controversy-is-getting-worse/
Weiss, Jessica. Powerful Patriots. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139
