This article originally appeared in the Japan Times.
By Stephen Nagy, September 24, 2024
The Japan-China friendship delegation met with Chinese Communist Party officials including Zhao Leji, the third-ranking member of the CCP, in Beijing in late August as part of efforts to stabilize bilateral relations.
Led by former Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and other lawmakers belonging to the Japan-China Parliamentary Friendship Association, the visit highlights the many contradictions and inconvenient truths in bilateral relations.
These inconvenient truths are shared by most of China’s neighbors. How Japan and other countries in Beijing’s periphery navigate the many incongruities in bilateral relations offers lessons for the U.S. and other Western nations as they formulate their own strategies toward China.
Contradictions in the ties between Tokyo and Beijing are endless. For example, just as Nikai and his accompanying lawmakers were about to visit the Chinese capital to stabilize the relationship, a Chinese military intelligence-gathering plane entered Japan’s airspace near the Danjo Islands without permission. Soon after the visit, a Chinese navy survey ship entered Japan’s territorial waters off its southwestern islands Saturday, marking the tenth intrusion by a Chinese survey ship into Japanese waters off Kagoshima Prefecture since November 2021.
Seen alongside the upcoming joint military drills between China and Russia in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk this month, as well as the daily incursions of Chinese vessels into Japan’s contiguous zone and territorial waters, one wonders about the nature and sincerity of Beijing. This also raises questions about the effectiveness of the Japan-China Parliamentary Friendship Association in alleviating bilateral tensions.
Similarly, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, China’s support for Russia raises questions about Beijing’s sincerity in strengthening international institutions and upholding international law. Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter prohibits the threat or use of force and calls on all members to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other states. This principle is crucial for the peace and stability that Japan and other countries rely on.
With regard to the issue of complexity in Sino-Japanese relations, according to Trading Economics July 2024 data, Japanese exports to China grew (7.2%), Hong Kong (27.0%) and Taiwan (29.9%). The total value is approximately $201.6 billion. Similarly, in 2023 China exported about $157.6 billion or 4.7% of its total trade to Japan. These neighbors are substantial trading partners despite low mutual favorability ratings and security concerns about each other in both countries pointed out yearly in the Genron NPO.
The complexities in the relations are also found in the supply chains that China continues to dominate. The sheer density of manufacturing in China, its efficient logistics and large and well-trained workforce means Japanese and other firms need to be partly based in China to produce goods cheaply and efficiently for global export. Southeast Asia, India and even Central European countries are possible alternatives over the long term, But big corporations, and small and midsize enterprises alike, 20,000 plus of them, are still dependent on China.
Japanese manufacturers also see the Chinese middle class as a lucrative market for their products. Replacing 300-400 million potential customers overnight, let alone in a five- or 10-year span is a herculean task that has no solutions at this time.
On the Chinese side, the economic slowdown and ongoing dependence on Japanese investment, as well as the human capital development and knowledge gained through engagement with Japan, are not easily replaceable. Cutting ties with Japan would result in job losses in China, a loss of learning opportunities from working in Japanese manufacturing facilities and the end of valuable soft skills like management, quality control and marketing expertise.
In the context of China’s structural slowdown outlined in Tanaka Naoki’s 2016 book “China Great Stagnation” or recent analyses of the Chinese economy by Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Rhodium Group’s report No Quick Fixes: China’s Long-Term Consumption Growth, China needs more, not less economic intercourse and ties with Japan and the West to sustain itself economically.
The inconvenient truth as the professor Ezra F. Vogel wrote in his book “China and Japan: Facing History,” Japan and China have reached a period in their bilateral relations in which they need each other and that they have much to teach one another.
Despite provocations and contradictions in the relationship with Beijing, Japan’s approach to China continues to focus on its free and open Indo-Pacific vision. This grand strategy envisions a heterogeneous Indo-Pacific region that is integrated through shared norms, centrality among Association of Southeast Asian Nations, infrastructure, connectivity and development.
Tokyo is investing in working with traditional partners such as the U.S., Australia, Canada and European partners to support and protect the maritime domain and those essential sea lines of communication through coordinated diplomacy, joint naval initiatives and building forum to discuss and promote cooperation.
Simultaneously, it acts as an international adapter middle power by working with and connecting developed states with emerging states and regions such as India, ASEAN and the Pacific Islands to promote development, environmental cooperation and initiatives that meet the needs of partners.
Deterrence remains a pillar of Japan’s defensive strategy and is outlined in the 2022 National Security Strategy. It includes challenges to the region’s security stemming from Chinese ambitions, as well as those posed by Russia and North Korea.
Notwithstanding, an over securitized approach to China risks damaging the highly complementary economic relations Tokyo and Beijing enjoy. This is why Tokyo joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that includes China and it continues to be open to the possibility of both China and Taiwan joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
As extra regional powers look to the Indo-Pacific and formulate their strategic approaches to the region, a Japan-China lens is a useful tool to understand that Tokyo and other regional capitals have nuanced and often contradictory approaches to their most important economic partner, which is also a source of great geopolitical anxiety.
Binary choices towards China and the region are not only the cardinal sin of diplomacy but a path toward dysfunctional bilateral relations with Beijing and ineffective Indo-Pacific relations more broadly. As Japan and other states in the region know well, their relations with China are characterized by contradiction, complexities and inconvenient truths.
China is an inescapable part of their geopolitical and geoeconomic destinies and as Carlo Dade of the Canada West Foundation writes, “you can try to run away from China (but) you will end up running into China.” This reality requires pragmatic flexibility, diplomacy and an investment in deterrence when possible and/or multilateralism.
Stephen Nagy is a Professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the International Christian University and a Senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.