Japan, China bask in summit success -- not friendship
15 Apr 2007 09:30:52 GMT Source: Reuters
By George Nishiyama TOKYO, April 15 (Reuters) - For all the warmth of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's theatrical visit to Japan last week, commentators are still reaching for chilly metaphors. "I think the ice has melted considerably, but the water remains cold," China's ambassador to Japan, Wang Yi, told a Japanese TV news programme on Sunday. "We need to make it warmer and create a big, irreversible flow, that is our challenge." That the visit -- the first by a Chinese leader to Japan since 2000 -- took place at all is a testimony to the improvement in relations between two countries whose rivalry over energy, territory and regional influence stands in the way of friendship. The first step towards a detente, after years of tension over their wartime history, was taken last October when -- less than two weeks after taking office -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Beijing. Wen reached out further on his three-day return trip to Japan, where China is still widely viewed with suspicion, jogging in a park, chatting with a farmer and playing baseball with college students. But there were no breakthroughs in disputes between the two Asian giants, including their stand-off over the development of gas and oil fields in disputed waters in the East China Sea. While the two sides signed documents on cooperation on environment and energy issues, Wen and Abe agreed only to speed up talks over the East China Sea and seek a report on ways to jointly develop its resources. "Wen talked about melting ice, but the ice is floating on the water," said Shoichi Nakagawa, policy chief of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and known for his hardline stance against China. "I would like China to pick them up," Nakagawa told the same TV programme after Beijing's envoy had left, pointing to unresolved issues, including the East China Sea dispute. GUARDED OPTIMISM Shizuka Kamei, a former LDP heavyweight now in opposition, said only Japan had made efforts to bring a turnaround in ties. "Prime Minister Abe is refraining from doing things that would upset China. Japan is doing this unilaterally," he said, referring to how Abe has not visited Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine, which is seen by Beijing as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. Ties chilled during the five-year term of Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who paid annual visits to Yasukuni, reaching their lowest point in 2005 when thousands of youths staged anti-Japanese protests in China. "But is China doing something about things Japan find unpleasant? It's pressing ahead with stealing resources in the East China Sea despite Japanese protest ... I wonder if all the friendly performance is for real," Kamei said. Chinese analysts also expressed guarded optimism that Wen's visit had put relations on a surer footing. "We shouldn't be rashly optimistic. There are major disputes that can't be solved, certainly not soon," said Shi Yinhong of the People's University of China in Beijing. "But both sides are trying to find new space for cooperation -- including in environmental protection, energy and trade relations -- and that will create new space, a buffer to help contain these more difficult conflicts." Analysts said China's leadership needed to tread carefully between promoting friendship and not to be seen as soft to the Japanese given lingering anti-Japanese sentiment back home. Wen flew to western Japan for the final leg of his tour rather than taking the bullet train, a choice Japanese media said was made out of consideration for public opinion back home. Japanese operators of the trains are keen to sell them to China for its planned high-speed rail service, but their effort has met strong opposition from some Chinese. "It's still not at a stage where Wen can ignore the anti-Japanese sentiment back home," said Tomoyuki Kojima, a professor and Chinese expert at Keio University. (Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing)
