TOKYO – Earlier this year, when it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic was not going to pass quickly, the Japanese government delayed plans for what would be the first state visit by a Chinese leader to Tokyo since 2008.
Now, with Chinese military aggression on the rise and Beijing cracking down on Hong Kong, Japan is considering canceling Xi Jinping’s visit entirely, but with great caution.
“We are not in the phase of organizing a specific schedule now,” was as expressed by Toshimitsu Motegi, the chancellor this month.
While its main allies have taken a tougher line with China, especially the United States, which dramatically increased tensions last week by closing the Chinese Consulate in Houston, Japan has carried out a delicate balancing act, aware of economic power. from its largest trading partner and its own limited military options.
So, as Chinese ships have engaged in the longest series of forays into or near Japanese waters in several years, Japan has offered a moderate response, promising to be firm but “calm”. He did not join several western nations in an opening statement criticizing the draconian security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.
It has abandoned plans to buy an American anti-missile defense system, which had been considered in part a shield against China. And the government has tiptoed on the subject of Mr. Xi’s state visit, even as polls show that most Japanese believe it should be ruled out.
“Certainly Japan is in a dilemma,” said Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “We understand the fact that Japan is basically competing with China while cooperating with it. We are playing those two games at the same time. “
For other world powers, this kind of middle ground in China, in the face of its increasing authoritarianism and its growing bellicosity, has become less and less sustainable.
China has responded by holding back Australian imports and threatening a series of retaliatory actions against any country that moves to punish it. On Friday, China responded to the closure of its Houston consulate by ordering the United States to close its consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
To some extent, Japan’s kind response to China echoes its broader approach to foreign policy, in which it tends to avoid direct conflict or public reprimand from other nations. He has also sometimes sought a mediating role, such as when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last December to try to ease tensions in the Middle East.
Not long ago, China and Japan, the world’s second and third largest economies, participated in a diplomatic thaw as cover against an unpredictable Trump administration. In 2018, Abe became the first Japanese leader to visit China in seven years, and the two leaders promised deeper economic and political cooperation. Mr. Xi’s invitation to visit Japan followed soon after.
Now, given China’s muscle tension as the world worries about the pandemic, some have expressed disappointment that Japan has not rejected its neighbor more vigorously, for example by permanently canceling Mr. Xi’s visit. In recent weeks, China has engaged in deadly clashes on its border with India in the Himalayas, and has sent ships for 100 consecutive days, the longest period in years of such incursions, to patrol the waters around the Senkakus, administered islands by Japan, but contested by China.
Japan “should say ‘we can’t have it if China continues this kind of behavior,'” said Jeffrey Hornung, an analyst at RAND Corporation, referring to Mr. Xi. But Mr. Hornung acknowledged that Tokyo would not want to provoke China’s anger, either.
“If you look at what China is doing with India or Hong Kong, Japan doesn’t want to be at the tip of China’s spear right now,” Hornung said. “They know what they could do around the Senkakus in terms of swarming it with ships.”
In Hong Kong, Japan did not join the United States, Australia, Canada, and Britain in an opening statement criticizing the national security law.
He later led an effort to draft a statement by the foreign ministers of the Group of 7 countries expressing “serious concern” about the law, and the Liberal Democratic Party that rules Japan passed a resolution this month saying it could not “stay margin seeing the situation “in Hong Kong.
In response to Chinese incursions into the East China Sea, Japan has mobilized self-defense forces fighter jets to patrol the area. However, he continues to use soft language in his protests against the Chinese government.
Yoshihide Suga, Mr. Abe’s chief cabinet secretary, told reporters that the Japanese government had “strongly asked” that Chinese vessels “stop approaching Japanese fishing vessels and quickly leave Japanese territory.” He added: “We would like to continue to respond firmly in a calm manner.”
Parts of the Japanese government have highlighted China’s growing hostility. Earlier this month, the defense ministry warned that China was trying to “alter the status quo in the East China Sea and South China Sea,” calling China a more serious long-term threat than South Korea. North.
However, Japan’s recent decision to abandon its plan to buy a US anti-missile defense system, known as Aegis Ashore, led some to wonder whether it would now be more exposed to possible attacks from both North Korea and China.
The decision may have seemed to some to be a genuflection for Beijing. But soon after, the ruling party’s defense committee discussed whether Japan could acquire weapons that would allow it to attack a missile launch site, if it detected signs of an impending attack by a neighbor.
Those discussions are in the early stages, and would require a thorough review by constitutional experts to determine whether such an ability would violate the pacifist clause in the Japanese Constitution.
“While the cancellation of Aegis Ashore could put Japan in a more vulnerable position, if Japan takes this opportunity to acquire other capabilities, the result could be even more worrying for China,” said Kristi Govella, assistant professor in the Department of Studies. Asians from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
One area where Japan has taken action against China is the economy. Earlier this year, he passed a law restricting foreign investment in industries that the government designates as important to national security, a move that many saw as a target by China. It has also offered financial incentives to companies, especially those in crucial sectors, to move their operations out of China to Japan or Southeast Asia.
“The Chinese economy is recovering while other countries are still deteriorating,” said Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at the Nomura Research Institute, an expert group. “Now China is in a good position to buy companies in other countries, so the government is cautious about critical industries related to national and military security.”
Still, Japan doesn’t want to push too hard.
In addition to being Japan’s largest trading partner, China sent more tourists to Japan than any other nation before the pandemic closed the borders. Last year, about 115,000 Chinese students studied at Japanese universities. The government, which imposed entry bans on almost 150 countries during the pandemic, is now discussing the possibility of admitting travelers from various Asian countries, including China.
“A couple of years ago, there seemed to be room for Japan to be seen as a mediator because relations between the United States and China had become very bad,” Govella said. But with China’s increasing aggression, “it really is an actor that has different values and dubious intentions in the region,” he said.
As China follows this more belligerent policy, Japanese analysts say they hope Beijing learns from Japan’s own history and does not try to expand its power too much, particularly through repressive means.
China’s efforts to dominate the South China Sea, for example, are “a step in driving Western elements out of their sphere of influence, which they have been dreaming of for the past century and a half,” said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat who now teaches at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.
“His nationalist ambition will not end,” he said. “I am very concerned and no one can stop it as they were unable to stop us in Manchuria in the 1930s,” said Miyake, referring to Japan’s invasion of that eastern region of China.
“At the time, the more pressure we had, the more assertive, arrogant, and assertive we became, because we were too nationalistic and too undemocratic, and that was our destiny,” said Miyake. “China is following the same path.”
