China, Japan mend fences, but pitfalls ahead

China, Japan mend fences, but pitfalls ahead

Benjamin Kang Lim and Masayuki Kitano, Reuters/Jakarta/Tokyo

The leaders of China and Japan pulled relations between the Asian giants back from the brink at a weekend meeting, but analysts said bitter memories of Japan's wartime history and rivalry for influence will keep ties fragile.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appear to have papered over their countries' worst row in three decades during talks in Jakarta on Saturday, a day after Koizumi made an unusually public apology for Japan's past atrocities in Asia.

"The leaders' summit went well, in that they were able to hold it. They avoided the worst-case scenario," said Kiyoshi Takai, a professor at Hokkaido University in northern Japan.

"But China is saying 'match words with action' and that means the discussions will again return to the Yasukuni issue. So what Prime Minister Koizumi decides about that is the key," he said, referring to the controversial war cemetery shrine in Tokyo.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper in an editorial added: "What seems to have happened is that a band-aid was applied to the wound to stop the bleeding. But the injury itself has not been treated at all. The risks are high that the wound will worsen and that it will open up again at some point."

During their one-hour meeting, held at the end of a gathering of Asian and African leaders in Jakarta, Hu told Koizumi that remorse expressed for Japan's wartime past should be translated into action. The Chinese leader said Japan should "never do anything again that would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people".

Hu also urged Japan not to support formal independence for self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing has claimed as its own since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Koizumi used both hands to shake the hand of a stiff and expressionless Hu and told a news conference later that he and Hu agreed to make efforts to develop the bilateral friendship instead of aggravating antagonistic feelings.

Koizumi did not say if he would stop visiting the shrine which has been the source of much of the friction.

"The differences in their standpoints are still quite large," said Zhu Feng, director of the International Security Program at Peking University. "China still wants Japan to take concrete actions, for example to stop the visits to the shrine."

Relations with China chilled markedly after Koizumi took office in 2001 and began annual visits to the shrine. He has not visited this year.

Ties between the Asian giants plunged to their worst since relations were normalized in 1972 after three weekends of violent anti-Japanese protests across China, putting at risk economic links worth US$212 billion in annual trade.

The demonstrations were sparked by new school history textbooks that critics say sugarcoat Japan's wartime history and over other irritants, including Tokyo's campaign for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Around 300 people marched against Japan in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai on Sunday in the latest demonstration. Police made two arrests.

Beijing says 35 million Chinese were killed or wounded during Japan's 1931-45 occupation of much of the country.

The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party, said on Sunday it was understandable for students and the masses to want to express their emotions after Japanese right-wing forces had hurt their feelings.

But the newspaper added: "Patriotism requires strong emotions but even more, it requires reason. When expressing righteous indignation, the law should not be exceeded."

China launched a campaign to cool down tempers one day before Koizumi apologized.

Chinese police issued a strong warning on Thursday that those who took part in unauthorized protests would be punished and that it was illegal to use cell phone text messages or Internet bulletin boards to organize demonstrations without approval.

China also sent veteran diplomats to give lectures on the benefits as well as the history of Sino-Japanese ties to Communist Party members and officials as well as university students, who were urged to focus on their studies.

Asked about Chinese government comments that action was more important than words, Koizumi, speaking in Indonesia's tsunami- hit Aceh province on Saturday, said:

"In the last 60 years, we have became an economic superpower and not a military state. (We are a) peaceful nation reflecting on the experience of the war."