Japan, China reach agreement over shrine

The Global and Mail BEIJING -- Japan and China have agreed to climb down from the peak of their political confrontation, reaching a tacit understanding to avoid public battles over t

6 October 2006


The Global and Mail


BEIJING -- Japan and China have agreed to climb down from the peak of their political confrontation, reaching a tacit understanding to avoid public battles over the Yasukuni Shrine.

Japan's new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, appears to have made a significant concession to China on the shrine. Analysts say he must have offered a private assurance to Beijing that he will refrain from high-profile visits there, although he could perhaps make personal visits without publicity.

China has strongly objected to any official visits by Japanese leaders; the shrine honours Japan's Second World War dead, including a number of convicted war criminals.

The agreement is a diplomatic breakthrough for the two countries, helping to patch up a dispute that has poisoned their relationship for the past five years. At the height of the showdown last year, China's biggest cities were filled with tens of thousands of stone-throwing, anti-Japanese protesters.

Mr. Abe, who became Prime Minister last month, confirmed yesterday that he will travel to Beijing and Seoul on Sunday and Monday to meet the leaders of China and South Korea for talks.

Significantly, it will be his first overseas trip since becoming Prime Minister. The two summits will be a giant step forward in the Tokyo-Beijing and Tokyo-Seoul relationships, which had turned increasingly frosty in recent years. The summits will also help to defuse the widespread concern about Mr. Abe's conservative and nationalistic leanings, which could provoke further tensions in East Asia.

"All of us -- Japan, China and South Korea -- concluded that we should begin new steps toward the future," Mr. Abe told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. "We intend to move forward in a future-looking relationship."

Japan's business groups have put heavy pressure on Mr. Abe to solve the Yasukuni issue, which has jeopardized growing business ties between Japan and China. The trade and investment links between the two countries have been crucial to Japan's economic recovery in the past two years.

In addition, both countries have probably concluded that the tensions and hostilities of last year were becoming too dangerous. Japan knows that it will need China's co-operation on a range of issues, including a territorial dispute over gas fields in the East China Sea and a Japanese bid for membership on the United Nations Security Council.

Because of Yasukuni and other disputes, there has not been a full summit between the leaders of China and Japan since 2001, although the leaders have occasionally met on the sidelines of regional meetings.

South Korea, too, has objected to the high-level visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and it has refused for almost a year to hold summit talks with Japanese leaders.

Mr. Abe hinted yesterday that he may have compromised on Yasukuni by promising to avoid making any publicized visits to the shrine. The Japanese news agency, Kyodo, said the new Prime Minister "remained evasive on whether he will visit the Shinto shrine and indicated Wednesday that he will stick to his strategy of staying vague on the subject."

China's Foreign Ministry seemed to confirm a compromise. "China and Japan have reached consensus on overcoming the political obstacle to the bilateral relationship and promoting the sound development of friendly co-operative relations," the ministry said yesterday. "Political obstacle" is the phrase the ministry typically uses to refer to the Yasukuni issue.

"The Chinese are hinting that there was an agreement behind the scenes that China can accept," said Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta who specializes in China-Japan relations.

"I can't imagine that China would do this without getting acceptable terms from Japan. Otherwise, how could President Hu Jintao accept a visit at such short notice The Chinese had to get something in return. It's a huge concession from Japan."

One of the main items on the agenda of the summits on Sunday and Monday will be the threat of a North Korean nuclear test.

Pyongyang announced this week that it plans to hold a test of its nuclear weapons. This will be "one of the most important topics" at the two summits, a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said.