Japan looks back on 50 years of ties with China
On the streets of Tokyo and Beijing, the ties between Japan and China remain complicated and often contradictory, 50 years after the two Asian countries normalized relations as part of the process that brought Communist China into the international fold.
On the streets of Tokyo and Beijing, the ties between Japan and China remain complicated and often contradictory, 50 years after the two Asian countries normalized relations as part of the process that brought Communist China into the international fold.
Chinese official media and textbooks memorialize the victims of Japan’s brutal invasion during World War II, even as young urbanites slurp “ramen” soup noodles in a two-story restaurant row made to look like Tokyo’s narrow alleyways.
In the real Tokyo, Japanese flocked to a festival last weekend to try Chinese dumplings, even as they worried about the growing military prowess of their much larger neighbor and its designs on the self-governing island of Taiwan – which happens to be a former Japanese colony.
I’ve lived in Japan for 30 years, half of my life in Japan and another half in China” said Zheng Bin, baking a Chinese leek pie at the festival in Yoyogi Park.
“I think both countries have worked hard since. I sincerely hope we can keep up the effort.”
Zheng now runs six Chinese restaurants in the Tokyo area.
Politics influences people, though, and critical views are on the rise as the two countries mark the 50th anniversary on Thursday of the agreement to establish diplomatic relations, which followed U.S. President Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to China earlier in 1972.
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A survey last year by Japanese think tank Genron NPO found that 90% of Japanese had a negative image of China, and 66% of Chinese felt the same way toward Japan, up from 53% the previous year.
Japanese college student Momoe Unou went to the Tokyo festival to scout out the food – she wants to sell Chinese dumplings and buns at an upcoming event with exchange students from China.
Until a high school trip to China, her view of the country was based solely on textbooks and TV news – and it wasn’t a positive one. Once there, she was struck by the eagerness of her Chinese counterparts to communicate, prompting her to major in Asian studies.
“I would have thought of China as a scary nation if television news were my only source of information about it,” she said.
The Japan-China Exchange Festival returned last weekend after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers hope it will help restart cultural exchange despite tense political ties as Japan is pulled into a growing rivalry between the U.S. and China.
Festival adviser Yasuo Fukuda, a former prime minister who is an active proponent of better ties with China, said the pandemic has reduced communication between the two nations.
“Lack of dialogue increases risks of misunderstanding … and things that do not happen under normal circumstances could happen,” he said in an interview with the AP.
“I hope this festival provides an opportunity for you to think of that day 50 years ago and find our path for the future,” he said in remarks at the opening of the two-day event.
Recent decades have brought Japanese food and pop culture, including movies, TV shows and “manga” comics.
But Japan’s soft power is not immune from its wartime history. Chinese police detained a woman posing for photos in a kimono at a Japanese-style commercial area in the city of Suzhou in August, shortly before the anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II.
The incident sparked a heated discussion online, with some saying that a love for Japanese culture doesn’t make a person unpatriotic, and others accusing the woman of hurting the feelings of the Chinese people close to a wartime anniversary.
Social media has been the main platform for discontent about Japan. Tens of thousands of people left unfavorable comments about former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe after his assassination in July, because of his association with nationalists who deny or minimize the atrocities committed by Japan’s military in China.
Image: AP
