Japan says it will end China aid
Abe calls for economic, political cooperation in Beijing visit
BEIJING — It has been eight years since China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. Yet the Japanese government continued to provide China with development assistance usually reserved for poorer countries. Until now.
In Beijing for the first official visit by a Japanese leader since 2011, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged China’s economic dominance by announcing an end to the aid. Instead, he pledged to forge deeper economic and political cooperation, in what is widely seen as a hedge against the Americafirst policies of President Donald Trump.
The announcement — coupled with new cooperation agreements Abe signed Friday with his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang — signaled a significant shift in a relationship that has been haunted by war and occupation and is still strained by territorial disputes and other issues, which, publicly at least, have receded into the background.
The subtext to the budding detente was Trump, whose approach to foreign relations has pushed the two historic rivals closer together.
As the U.S. president has walked away from global trade pacts and tangled with traditional allies over tariffs, Japan and China have decided to set aside some of the tensions that have governed relations between them for years. Now they are cooperating more closely on trade issues and developing business partnerships that could help buffer against the instability that Trump has introduced to the region.
“From competition to cooperation, the Japan-China relationship is shifting to a new phase now,” Abe said at an appearance with Li following a ceremonial welcome on Tiananmen Square that included a cannon salute and a review of troops under crisp blue skies.
“We are neighbors; we’re partners who will cooperate with each other, rather than be a threat to each other,” Abe said.
The Japanese leader, who had long sought an official visit
to the Chinese capital, was accompanied by foreign and trade ministers and more than 1,000 businesspeople, who he said had come to discuss joint infrastructure and other projects in countries throughout the region.
That signaled a greater focus on trade and investment, and a departure from the 40-year program of aiding Chinese development. Many saw that aid program, which began in 1978 in what both countries described as a new start to their relationship, as a form of atonement for Japan’s brutal invasion of China in 1937, which set the stage for World War II in Asia.
Japan has “ended its historical mission” to assist China financially, Abe said at a reception after his arrival on Thursday night. “Now, Japan and China are playing indispensable roles for economic growth not only in Asia but also in the whole world,” he said.
Li said on Friday that relations were “back to their normal trajectory.”
“I hope for even more progress,” he said, specifying President Xi Jinping’s signature “One Belt, One Road” program for investing in infrastructure and other projects across Eurasia. Japan has pointedly refused to sign on to the initiative, which faces growing skepticism in some countries.
But Abe signaled a willingness to support new joint projects as long as China conducts them within international standards of transparency, environmental protection and economic viability, a spokesman later said.
In a significant sign of closer economic cooperation, the two countries’ central banks also agreed to swap 200 billion renminbi, or 3.2 trillion yen — the equivalent of $29 billion — for use in times of financial emergencies. Other agreements covered protection of intellectual property and the environment.
Few expect the two countries to overcome their divisions easily or swiftly. During his meetings on Friday, Abe raised the issues of human rights as well as security, particularly surrounding the islands in the East China Sea that both countries claim, spokesman Takeshi Osuga told reporters later.
“Without stability in the East China Sea, there can be no true improvement in the relationship,” he said, paraphrasing Abe.
Abe has visited China four times, meeting Xi on the sidelines of various international gatherings, but this was the first invitation extended for an official bilateral meeting. Osuga deflected a question about the role Trump’s policies played in nudging the two countries into
closer cooperation.
In the nearly 40 years since Japan began funneling foreign aid to China, it has provided $32.6 billion to support infrastructure, humanitarian projects and environmental protection.
Analysts in both countries said the decision to end the aid made sense in today’s context.
“Up to now, the relationship between Japan and China was that Japan was the modernized, developed country leading China in its modernization,” said Akio Takahara, a professor at Tokyo University who specializes in Chinese politics.
China has traditionally been reluctant to acknowledge the scale of Japan’s assistance, except to imply that Japan offered it out of a sense of responsibility following the bloodiness of World War II.
Yu Tiejun, vice president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University and a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that many Chinese knew little about the aid — “China hasn’t been telling much about the Japanese aid to its people,” he said — but that it was considered to have had a positive impact over the years.
Even so, he added, “China should have graduated a long time before.”