Japan, China call for new era in their relationship

Thursday 08th May, 03:41 AM JST

TOKYO —

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed Wednesday to boost overall bilateral relations, with Beijing giving positive words for Tokyo’s postwar peace in a joint statement for the first time. The two leaders also discussed bilateral disputes in their summit talks in Tokyo, and while they stopped short of reaching solutions, reported progress on a thorny row over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea.

Tibet was also a topic, with Fukuda welcoming recent discussions between the Chinese government and Dalai Lama envoys, and Hu announcing continued contacts over the problem that has triggered international concern.

The meeting was held on the second day of Hu’s visit to Japan, the first such trip by a Chinese head of state in a decade.

‘‘Prime Minister Fukuda and I believe that Sino-Japanese relations are at a new historic starting point,’’ Hu told a press conference.

A joint statement calling for the promotion of ‘‘strategic, mutually beneficial ties,’’ adopted after the talks, said the two countries are ‘‘partners of cooperation and will not be threats to each other.’’

Japan’s wartime past did not figure prominently in the statement, touted as the fourth such landmark paper since they established diplomatic relations in 1972.

The two countries ‘‘will look squarely into history and look toward the future,’’ it said, without any mention of Japan’s responsibility for wartime atrocities.

In another departure from previous such documents, China said in the statement that it ‘‘positively assessed’’ the path Japan has taken as a peaceful nation for 60 years after the war.

Differences over the interpretation of Japan’s wartime militarism and its invasion of China had weighed down relations for years, before they entered a recovery path with a 2006 visit to China by then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Wednesday’s statement said that to bolster trust, a mechanism for regular mutual visits will be established and the leaders will hold summit talks often, including during international conferences, it said.

Fukuda and Hu reported progress in the bilateral dispute over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea, although they said a complete solution has yet to be reached.

‘‘There has been great progress through useful talks between the two countries, and there is an outlook for a solution on this long-standing problem,’’ Fukuda told the press conference. ‘‘We agreed that we will discuss details and try to reach an agreement as soon as possible.’’

Both Japanese and Chinese officials declined to explain what the specific progress was.

Japan and China have agreed to jointly develop the disputed area where economic waters claimed by both countries overlap, but they remain apart on exactly where to do so.

The Japanese and Chinese leaders also agreed on cooperation to solve food-poisoning cases in Japan triggered by Chinese-made frozen meat dumplings, they said.

On Tibet, Fukuda said he welcomed China’s dialogue with the Dalai Lama’s envoys as ‘‘the first step toward full-fledged dialogue,’’ and urged Hu to improve the situation through more talks.

Hu said the contacts will continue after the talks Sunday in the southern Chinese city Shenzhen, but also repeated that Tibet’s spiritual leader must ‘‘show through action’’ that he is not instigating violence.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama and his supporters of having organized violence that rocked Tibet in March in an attempt to split Tibet from the rest of China, an allegation the Nobel Peace Prize laureate denies.

In his talks with Fukuda, Hu made the most positive remarks yet over Tokyo’s bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, saying Beijing ‘‘hopes Japan will play a bigger, constructive role’’ in the United Nations, according to a Japanese government official.

Fukuda, meanwhile, offered Japan’s cooperation for the success of the Beijing Olympics, and said he will consider attending the opening ceremony of the Summer Games.

The two leaders agreed to promote the six-party process aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. China is the host of the multilateral negotiations, which involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

The two countries also issued a separate document on cooperation on climate change, in which China said it ‘‘takes note’’ of a Japanese proposal to halve the world’s emission of global warming gases by 2050 from current levels.

The comment was seen as a policy shift because China has earlier opposed setting global emission-reduction targets.

Earlier, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko welcomed Hu and his wife Liu Yongqing at a ceremony held at the Imperial Palace. The emperor told the Chinese leader in talks held later that Japanese children are ‘‘delighted’’ by the Chinese decision to offer Japan a pair of giant pandas, the Imperial Household Agency said.

In the 20-minute talks, the two, however, did not take up thorny issues of historical perception or the Beijing Olympics. Hu also did not offer an invitation to the imperial couple to visit China, agency officials said.

The emperor told Hu that he is ‘‘happy that friendship and mutual understanding between Japan and China will deepen through the visit.’’

The emperor also recalled his visit to China in 1992 and said, ‘‘I remember well that I received a warm welcome.’’ Hu was quoted as telling, ‘‘It was a very good visit and the Chinese people remember it very well.’’

Meanwhile, Hu expressed regret over the recent death of a giant panda at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo, and told the emperor that the Chinese government will offer giant pandas ‘‘so that Japanese people can continue to enjoy’’ seeing them.

The offer had already been conveyed by Hu to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda during an informal dinner on Tuesday.

Japan has asked that pandas be leased from China following the death on April 30 of the only panda left at the zoo, which had had at least one panda on display since a pair was first given by China in 1972 to commemorate the normalization of Japan-China relations.

Hu, who has also visited Japan in 1998, said he remembered discussing with the emperor ‘‘the long history of exchanges’’ between the two countries.

Hu and the emperor also talked about Jian Zhen, a Chinese monk called Ganjin in Japanese who founded Toshodaiji Buddhist temple in the city of Nara in 759, agency officials said.

In a welcome ceremony, attended also by Crown Prince Naruhito and Fukuda, the national anthems of the two countries were played and Hu received the salute of an honor guard of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force.

Latest 15 of 33 Total Comments Show All

gdx9902 at 05:06 PM JST - 9th May

Actually TonyUS, ever since Chinas cultural revolution 60 some odd years ago, China had to rebuild from scratch. It marked a very significant era in chinese history the likes that we havent the slightest clue. That is why I am comparing China now and the western countries then. During their emergence after the cultural revolution, the chinese had to rediscover and remake their identity. The current developed countries have already advanced decades perhaps centuries ahead of China, and at the moment and China is playing catch up. By mentioning the histories of US and the west, there is a trend which clearly states, no country has ever become great without some large atrocity of human rights in its history. Every great nation and or civilization in this world to date has been built upon the blood and sweat of others. It sounds cold but that is human nature, period. Way I see it, whats happening in tibet and taiwan is a natural process of a growing and developing country. Im just surprised that the tibetans havent been wiped out. As for the support of terrible regimes, well it:s all economics, not long ago in the 80s the US republican government under Regan put Saddam Hussein in power, and lets not forget who trained the Osama Bin laden, thats right, good old CIA/NSA, and the current Iranian government, was again put in by the western powers at the time, after the assination of their king who actually advocated womens rights and was one of the first nations on this earth to give women equal rights and the right to vote back. reference " The last shah of Iran" by Houchang Nahavandi. But Ill get back to economics later.

And when you mentioned civilized, what do you mean by that? there are many people who can argue that the world today has yet to be civilized. when it comes to economics and power, no country is "civilized" per say. Good example is the IMF, and the above mentioned examples.

To answer your question tclh, yes, they do not have a clue. The reason I say this is because most of them only see a small piece of the picture, and automatically think it`s the be all end all of things. In other words, I find people like to complain about the symptoms instead of going after the root cause. To support the reason why I say the west has no clue, is because of our underlying principles and philosophies. The west has always been governed by Aristotle and Socrates, while the East was dominated by Confucius and Mencius. Both philosophies are similar on the surface, but very different at the core, especially in the overall definitions of what is good, acceptable, and bad. But i will not go into that debate, and respectfully digress. Too often we see people that are inundated by the media, and biased media at that, and immediately judge, based on the assumption that everyone else wants what they intrinsically value. But the stark reality is everyone does not want the same things, and it would make life easier on many people if they realize this.

As for the root cause of this situation, I personally dont know, but I do have a few theories. The first is with the flaw of applying western ideologies to asian countries. With that said, I do not think communism nor democracy can really work 100% in Asia. Basically I support the socialist evolution that China is taking in changing their political system to suit their culture. Many people like to label them communist, but the truth is they are far from being true communists. I think people forget that communism and democracy were born from the core values brought forth by Socrates and Aristotle. Asias core values are based on Confucius, which has different core values. Mixing the two has not been 100% sucessful. But this is just the political side, and I personally don`t see much merit to this. Personally because there has not been a system of governing people that is immune to the effects of human greed, yes democracy included.

My second theory is the current global economic system, which I believe is more of the root cause that any other. Our current global economic system is a legacy left behind from the day of the british empire. That infrastructure is still in exsistence and in use today in our daily economic dealings world wide. So, if China and Japan were to sync thier economic policies, this can cause lead to China and Japan in influencing the current economic structure and how we do business in the world today. This is why I believe, the US and the west is so adamant at keeping the status quo, so that this current economic structure is maintained. I also believe that this is scaring the socks off everyone in the west because it may be a repeat of the economic system just prior to the opium wars. I find this explaination more plausable since, whether we like it or not, economics plays a very large role in determining political policies of every country in the world today. Good examples are the IMF, US lobbyists, OPEC, etc.

In closing, I would like to say, I neither support nor condemn what China is doing now. But what I am for is economic progress, though that will take by my estimates another 1-2 decades for China to be fully catch up to the rest of the world，politically, socially and economically. As for trusting them, and secrecy, well, there will always be secrecy what ever the country. china has closed off the world before, and it can do it again, and they wont care. Personally if china wants to be secretive, then let them, its their business not ours, how many secrets do other countries have? Lots. Do we question them? No. Why? because we are inundated by the news constantly and distracted by media. So with that, how can we trust any country? I would say to anyone who can truly trust a country is a fool to do so.
tclh at 08:26 PM JST - 9th May

Your post is so long and covers wide ranges of issues and it can take forever if we want to discuss all of them in details.Human society is always changing faster and faster everyday .Confucious system( almostdead and burried),socialist system,communist system,Chritianity,Buddhism ,Science and technology...etc are constantly mixed,eliminated,chosed,accepted through times with trial and error.In the West we have freedom of speech.We can constantly research,accept or eliminate at will what we think is good or bad ,true or false,relevant or irrelevant.If China wants to be trusted,it too should have freedom of speech like Japan does.Ofcourse you don't trust anyone or any country 100%,it is human nature to keep secrets but there are distinctive differences between free and democratic society and communist country.
OssanULTRA at 12:00 AM JST - 10th May

"So a message to the people of the west, that complain about the situation in Tibet, before you complain, just take a good look at what you as the western culture has done in the world already and fix that first before you openly criticize something you haven't the slightest clue about."

How do you "fix" events that occured hundreds of years ago? Thw "West" pretty much is incapable of repeating such things again. Neither Japan nor Germany are psycologically capable of conquering neighbors as they did just 70 years ago bercause their regimes have changed. But when we talk of China, or Myanmar or North Korea, we are talking about RIGHT NOW AS WE TYPE.
gdx9902 at 12:39 AM JST - 10th May

To OssanULtra:

That's the problem isn't it, if it was so easy to fix, it would have been done a long time ago. but it's not. But before we try to fix a problem we first have to understand it, fully. And I do not fully agree about the west repeating such things. As I mentioned in my post, a good way of subjugating people is with money. That's what the IMF is all about. I have had personal dealings with them, and I tell you it is not all that pleasant. The IMF front is a resource of money to be loaned to a country who is in need of money to develop all under good will. But there is a stipulation which they do not hesitate to fully capitalize. Any country that decides to borrows from the IMF must develop in accordance the IMF dictatorship(and I am not using this lightly), and this is without regards to any of what the people say. Who dictates the IMF? The G8 countries. Countries that deviate in favor of the people instead of the G8 economic interests have their governments conveniently removed, good example is IRAN and it's last shah. But you can research that on your own. As for the western powers trying to fix the problems, I haven't seen them try.

To fix it, there is no easy way. I just find people who complain like to take the easy way out, and most of the time they can barely help themselves, and have many problems in their aspect of life that they need to scream at something and everything. The only way I sse to fix any problems is first fix yourself. With that you are an example. Next is you need some form of economic power, ie Forbes 100 list. Money talks, that's simple. (I can hear many people screaming BS!!!) But it's a fact of life. Or you be there, and play the political game. I am actually amazed at the number of people who openly criticize things actually end up doing nothing about these problems, except the odd protests, but that doesn't do anything, it just makes things worse. It's just a glorified pissing match, and any working professional knows the results of that.

To Tch: Yes there are distinct differences between a democratic society and a communist society. But the end result is the same. Control. It's always been that way since the birth of civilization. I just find democracy hides atrocities and control methods much more better and effective than communism does. It's easier to blame the one guy at the top than different parties because you think you know who is looking out for your interests, but come on, we all know every democratic politician looks out for number one and the lobbyists. Yeah well you can say if you don't like him now, we can vote for the next guy, but the problem is 4-5 years is not enough to change a way of life. Technology and products change fast, but a way of life. Who are you kidding. it takes a minimum a decade, for any of those changes to happen, because those are changes in people, and they only occur if they want to. Furthermore, the similarities between the two political ideologies are the definitions of what is Good and Bad for people. I suggest reading Karl marx's book. And as for Confuciusm is actually alive an well today. You see it all around you each time you come into contact with an asian. It is as deeply rooted as the ideologies put forth from Socrates thousands of years ago. You don't see because you probably don't recognize it. Heck I have a tough time, but if you observe enough, you will see it.

Now in regards to China wanting to be trusted, personally I don't care, because it's just what they say, not what they do. to me actions speak louder than words. But the path I see China following I do hope eventually China can be trusted, but now, I don't see it. Economically there is a higher percentage especially if there is a win win situation(win-win meaning both make money). But I know one thing, complaining, and protesting, isn't going to help elevaite the suffering that is taking place. Furthermore, I think what's happening in tibet is nothing compared to the past atrocities that have happened before. Good example is the people in Myanmar suffering from the cyclone and the government not able to help. Now to many of you, you're probably thinking why the government refused help, it all goes back to the IMF.
gdx9902 at 12:41 AM JST - 10th May

Just a side note, after reading some of averNetwork's post he can tell you better than I some of the atrocities done by the west that have been hushed up. But I think he can tell you also in regards to the IMF, which values win in the end, what the people want or G8 economic values.
gdx9902 at 12:42 AM JST - 10th May

sorry my bad, it's apecnetworks
tclh at 06:53 AM JST - 10th May

In the old Confucius system,the King had absolute power above any of his subjects,in the house the father had absolute power over his wife(or wives) and his children,in school teacher had absolute power over his students,the woman was bottom class citizens...you don't see ANY of the above in today Asian society or asian family,even in China.Like any other place on this planet people lives are always influenced and shaped by politics and religions and Science& Technology and it is constantly changing.Christianity ,Western civilization is very much PART of asian 's today society,just like in the West people start to show interests in Asian cultures,in Buddhism,Asian values.
gdx9902 at 01:58 PM JST - 10th May

To: Tch

Confusiusm is a philosophy, not a political system. You are confusing the two. I suggest you read on who and what Confucius is.
apecNetworks at 04:35 PM JST - 10th May

To Gdx9902:

I appreciate your assessment of economic policy coordination. It is similar to what I was thinking, but hard to quantify. It does explain what the US is thinking in terms of a response.

1998-99, the IMF got in the way of what I was doing and was surprised to find them there. It turned out ok. I do know about the IMF.

You did state correctly, I am aware of the things discussed in your posts, but not familiar w/ Confucious philosophy at the level you are discussing. This oversight will be corrected.
illsayit at 05:46 PM JST - 10th May

I think the words spoken concluding a recent tv programe of Japanese and Chinese politicians in debate sums it up, "Kimochi no mondai". I think they talk well, quite modern, considering how badly some countries talk.
tclh at 08:03 PM JST - 10th May

gdx9902,I don't know why you try to seperate confucianism from confucius political system which China had used for thousands of years."We rise with our thoughts,with our thoughts we make the world'said the Dalai Lama,it is very true,it is correct .Confucianism was very much attacked,destroyed in China and in Vietnam quite sometime ago during time if earlier communism.Today when you see an Asian study hard for his /her degree that is because that person want to have a good job in the future,not because Confucius said so.Or"do not do to others what you don't want others do to you"you put that question to China about Tibet .Family ties also were destroyed by communism for a while and now is on the way of recovery but very much different to before.As I stated human society is constantly changing,
gdx9902 at 09:27 PM JST - 10th May

To tlch:

There was never a Confucius political system. Confucius was a philosopher. Like I said, please read about Confucius, and Communism by Karl Marx. By that you can clearly see what China has now is no longer Communism.

To ApecNetworks:

Thank you for the kind post, I think many of the root misunderstandings arise from different value systems of east and west. I hope the US does not make the mistake of assuming that everyone has the same value system they do. if that were to occur, hell may break loose.
TonyUS at 02:26 PM JST - 11th May

Anyone ever hear of active engagement, which has brought China to where it is today??

maybe that is too simple to understand for some

You may critisize the west, but owe very much to them for what Asia is today. Especially China.
gdx9902 at 09:50 PM JST - 11th May

Oh I completely agree, The west has helped China in unprecedented ways. But purpose of my criticizing the west was not to lay blame or turn the tables, tho it may seem so. The purpose of me criticizing the west is to provide most of the posters here a more complete picture of what is going and to show that everything is no black and white as most people see things. Many events good and bad have reasons, and some of them, from my understanding go way back several even thousands of years. As per my previous post people are too quick to judge once they see a small photograph. Instead of asking why, what is the cause, and see the big picture, they complain.

I recall reading from an article from the NY times ,which I believe sums up the current cultural conditions very well, and it pleases me this delicate balance is still there. They mentioned that East and West breathe life into each other when the other falls stagnant, the reason being of it's radical differences in thinking, philosophy, etc. I hope this trend never goes away. But if people are too quick to judge like the protestorrs, and complainers, I fear it will separate the east and west further apart. This will in effect put a lot of strain and may even break the current economic system.
TonyUS at 12:08 PM JST - 12th May

oh well to much to touch on when it comes to China and its system and control over its people, along with why the heck we even deal with such a country when we never dealt with the Soviet Union, as I see them as the same!