Japan should show its sincerity by putting its words into action

Japan might be the country that has the deepest first-hand understanding that China’s development represents opportunities for the region and the world. No matter how far the United States goes to sow the seeds of discord between the two countries that historical experience always has a contemporary and practical bearing on how Tokyo tries to balance relations between China, its most important economic and trade partner, and the US, its largest security ally.

That’s evidenced by what Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in his meeting with President Xi Jinping in Bangkok on Thursday, ahead of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting that opens on Friday and Saturday in the Thai capital.

Acknowledging that Japan and China pose no threat to each other and need and should live together in peace, Kishida stressed that Japan cannot grow and prosper without China, and vice versa, and that Japan welcomes China making positive contributions to the world through its own development. Notably, on the Taiwan question, the Japanese leader reiterated that the commitment made by Japan in its joint statements with China has not changed at all.

Yet those remarks are in stark contrast with Tokyo’s actions recently in doing Washington’s bidding to contain China — ranging from hosting the anti-China Quad clique to inviting the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization to Asia to including Taiwan in its domestic security documents and security pacts with the US and provoking Beijing over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea which it has seized.

So there are enough reasons to question the sincerity of Japan’s intention to strengthen dialogue and communication with China in order to jointly steer Japan-China relations in the right direction.

President Xi pointed out what needed to be done to put the development of Sino-Japanese ties back on the healthy track in the meeting. As Xi said, the two sides should treat each other with sincerity and respect, abide by the principles of the four political documents between them, draw on historical experience, view each other’s development objectively and rationally, and uphold the political consensus that “the two countries are cooperative partner rather than a threat to each other”, and show political wisdom to settle their disputes appropriately.

The close historical, cultural and people-to-people connections between the two countries and the complementarity of their economy, technology and industries mean they have great potential to strengthen their mutual trust and win-win cooperation. Now is the time for the two sides to translate the consensus the two leaders have reached on the necessity to build stable and constructive China-Japan relations into concrete actions.