21 November 2005 Blog Home : November 2005 : Permalink
Ever since the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan has turned its back on Asia in general and China in particular: its pattern of aggression from 1895 onwards and the colonies that resulted were among the consequences.
To engage with China requires Japan to come to terms with its past, and Koizumi's visits to the shrine represent a symbolic refusal to do so. Japan is stuck in its past, and its past now threatens to define its future and that of east Asia.
Firstly it seems odd to describe Japan as turning its back on Asia and China in particular when the first war that Japan fought was in 1895 against err China and that the second against Russia was all about who would have influence in Korea and China. It is also worth noting that the China of the late 19th century was a state in apparently fatal decline and up until the death of Mao there has been very little to learn from China other than how misgovern a country so badly as to kill millions of its own inhabitants. It should not be a great surprise that Japan in the 1880s and 1890s thought there was little to learn from China but much to exploit since that was to put it bluntly the pevailing viewpoint of the rest of the world.The rise of Japanese nationalism should be seen alongside another trend: the increasingly close links between Japan and the US. Earlier this year Japan affirmed, for the first time, its willingness to support the US in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. It has also agreed to work with the US to develop and finance a missile-defence system whose intention is clearly the containment of China. It is not difficult to see the early signs of a new cold war in east Asia, with Japan and the US on one side and China on the other. It does not have to be like this. If Japan grasped the nettle of its past and ushered in a new era in its relationship with China, South Korea and the rest of the region, it would surely play a major role in the evolution of the most economically powerful region in the world. Instead it looks increasingly likely that Japan will remain in splendid isolation from its continent, weighed down by fear, suspicion and anxiety that its neighbours, above all China, will seek to lord it over Japan in the way that Japan did over them for over a century. Its only solace will lie in looking across the Pacific to the US, which is likely only to intensify its isolation. Japan faces an extremely uncomfortable future.
This concluding paragraph is flat out bizarre. Given the statements of the Chinese leadership and their actions in sending submarines and aircraft into Japanese territoral space repeatedly it is hard to imagine what other response Japan should make other than respond with efforts to contain what looks like a threat. Perhaps the difference between Japan and, say, Belgium, is that Japan can in fact mount a credible defense of its territory. However saying that Japan reamins in splendid isolation seems to show a lack of knowledge about corporate Japan's investments in Asia that is surely a lie. Japan's corporate titans, from Toyota and Sony on down have essentially moved much of their manufacting to lower cost factories in mainland Asia, from Indonesia and Thailand to China. This is a funny sort of isolation in my book.