While on a visit to Japan in 1978, the then Chinese Vice Premier, Deng Xiaoping, pointed out that for 2,500 years, China and Japan had had a history of good relations, except from 1895 to 1945. Since Japan’s defeat in the second World War, both nations have been involved in discourse over the future, but relations have only soured further. China thinks Japan is an aggressor. Japan insists on improved relations under a changed international order. Can anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese rhetoric come to an end? Can emotions cool down at both ends? Will the ice ever melt down?
Let’s bury history because it often repeats itself and creates new tragedies. Postwar Japan and China developed hostility that ran high during imperial wars and they failed to cultivate new wisdom for tranquility after the wars ended. They often talk about war memories still fresh in the minds of the second generation.
Interestingly, Japan wants India and Pakistan to improve relations and solve the Kashmir dispute amicably. So does China. Both have been improving relations with India but Pakistan and India are locked into historical differences not dissimilar to the Japan- China situation. Nevertheless, Japan-China economic ties have touched new heights without having repaired political ties. Pakistan and India still have not, despite some talk of it in the recent past. The ‘baggage of bad memories’ is always afresh between them and China never wastes an opportunity to deliver a reminder to the Japanese of the misery caused. These are not circumstances upon which a modern relationship can be built at the moment. They are marred by acute differences and moved by their own historical narratives; wounds they are still nursing possessively.
For Japan, World War II ended with two atomic bombs; defense was de-militarized, and 28 of their leaders were given sentences for their alleged role in wars including two elected Prime Ministers. This was how ‘justice’ was done and the edifice of the postwar international order was orchestrated by full punishment upon Japan. Punishments meted out to the nation were more than what a human mind could have imagined; nuclear devastation and the complete de-militarization of the nation.
And still, China, liberated after the defeat of Japan, usually appears dissatisfied with the severity of these punishments. China did normalize diplomatic relations with Japan in 1972, but political differences were unsettled. They are always fresh and ready for nonconstructive debate. Japan’s occupation of China created many unending mistrusts between the two nations. For example, the Chinese strongly object to paying tributes to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where it alleges, Japanese war criminals, especially 14-A Class, are buried. The shrine was built in 1869 to commemorate soldiers who died in Japan’s conflicts between 1853 and 1945. Later, most of the Tokyo Tribunal ‘heroes (for China, ‘criminals’), were buried there. For China, the shrine is a symbol of Japanese militarism and ultra-nationalism.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the shrine in 2001 and incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the shrine last year. Official homage to the shrine negatively impacts diplomatic relations and stirs much controversy between them.
There is still more to historical points of contention between the two nations, including the narration of the Nanjing massacre of 1937. A tribunal decided the matter, yet a new record alleges the massacre was mere fiction and never happened. Henry S. Stokes, for instance, in his book Falsehoods of the Allied Nations, Victorious View of History, as Seen by a British Journalist, claims the Nanjing massacre never took place, describing the event as a propaganda tool of the KMT Government against Japan. In other records, it is claimed that the Japanese army massacred over 300,000 people in Nanjing. Stokes calls it ‘fabricated propaganda,’ while on the other hand, there are many records written on the tragedy. The Nanjing War Tribunal, established in 1946 by the Government of Chiang Kai Shek, confirmed the massacre of over 300,000 Chinese by the Japanese imperial army.
And presently, Japan wants to reinterpret Article 9 of its postwar Pacifist Constitution under Prime Minister Abe to become an assertive military power to participate in collective self-defense as a normal state. The Japanese Cabinet has made the decision on July 1st to that end. China wants to lead its own international order in Asia-Pacific but Japan too, wants to dominate the region with US support and allies. Implications for the Japanese Cabinet decision will be ascertained in the coming days. One can only hope reactions are tempered.

The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad and former Fellow of the Japan Foundation in Tokyo and the Korea Foundation in Seoul. He specializes in East Asian affairs.