Well done Kan

On Friday, Japan freed Zhan Qixiong, the Chinese fishing boat captain, who was arrested on Sept 7 near the disputed Diaoyudao islands in the East China Sea, thus playing its part in ending the escalating diplomatic row between the two Asian superpowers. Unlike what some analysts have claimed, the Japanese move should not be taken as giving in to Chinese pressure; on the contrary, it should be seen as a significant step by the Naoto Kan administration toward ameliorating the deteriorating ties with China. Now the onus lies with the Chinese leadership to play its part in improving ties with Japan, which means loosening its stance regarding the whole incident. China should now lay the matter to rest by giving up on its demand for an apology and compensation, and tone down the anti-Japanese rhetoric in the official media.



China and Japan, not only neighbors, but also the world’s second- and third-largest economies respectively, have a lot of shared interests in trade and regional security and as such it is in their best interests to find a peaceful, diplomatic solution to all existing bilateral problems, including the territorial dispute over the islands in the East China Sea. The way in which the fishing boat incident escalated was clearly due to a failure of crisis management on the part of both countries, which let a minor incident blow out of proportion and got tinted with nationalism in both China and Japan. Therefore, the need of the hour for both countries is to have a crisis-management apparatus in place, and when and if such situations arise in future, deal with those calmly and resolve them diplomatically.



So far, history and nationalism are at the center of the two countries’ dealings with each other, which only makes the problems between them more complicated. Instead, the leaders of both countries should put the future, not the past, at the center of their foreign policy vis-à-vis each other. One of the biggest obstacles to good neighborly relations between China and Japan are the issues surrounding Japan’s invasion of China during the 1930s and 1940s. Therefore, it would be wise for the governments to sort out the differences in their respective history textbooks and resolve the outstanding historical issues for once and all. Otherwise, the relations between the two countries will never fully blossom. Once the historical issues are sorted out, all pieces will fall in place and the future generations in both countries will be able to resolve all bilateral problems without history, honor, face and nationalism clouding their judgments.

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