How Japan and China can put past behind them and move on
There is hope yet, if people on both sides of the Sea of Japan push politicians to improve ties
Can China and Japan, the second- and third-largest economies in the world, ever set aside their historical enmity and work together closely for the collective good of all in this part of the world?
This is not an idle or naive question. In fact, it is quite apposite in view of the escalating tension between them over territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, with each sending more and more fighter aircraft and warships to those contentious waters to test the other’s resolve, thus increasing the chances of a confrontation spinning rapidly out of control.
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And the answer?
Alas, in the short to medium term of, say, the next five to 10 years, it is a regrettable no. Over a longer period, I would venture a qualified, if somewhat optimistic, yes. It is not written in the stars that the two nations, with so much in common culturally, including characters in the written Chinese language that the Japanese have adopted as kanji, are destined to be at daggers drawn forever.
No doubt, the odds against a rapprochement are heavy. They had fought two bitter wars since July 25,1894, resulting in huge casualties, especially on the Chinese side. The widely accepted estimate of Chinese deaths in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), as recounted by Oxford historian Rana Mitter in his celebrated book on this bloody conflict, is 14 million to 20 million. In sharp contrast, Japanese invasion forces suffered only about 1.7 million deaths, according to a Japanese Imperial Army declaration then.
The savagery of the Japanese invaders could not but leave deep scars in the Chinese psyche. Indeed, painful memories linger among many Chinese even now, though this is not the case for the majority of today’s Japanese, not least because they have been brought up in deliberate ignorance of what their forefathers did to China, Korea and other countries during that shameful period of their history.
