Professor Zhang Yun analyzed Japan’s position amid China-US relations and historical disputes, arguing that Japan should maintain constructive and stable relations with both countries and serve as a bridge for dialogue to promote regional stability and development.
On September 22, US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held a closed-door meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York. On September 26, after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump spoke with Takaichi by phone and agreed to strengthen cooperation on China-related economic and security issues. (AFP)
Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit to the United States for the first time in 11 years, with President Donald Trump and the First Lady personally greeting him at the airport. The Chinese and US presidents made historic reciprocal visits within six months.
Just two days before the China-US summit, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi met with Trump in New York. Japan was concerned that China and the United States could grow too close, resulting in another “Nixon shock” through over-the-head diplomacy, as in 1972. According to reports, Japan therefore insisted on holding a meeting with the United States before the China-US summit, seeking to persuade Trump to focus on the “China challenge” and align the two countries’ policies toward China.
During the China-US summit, however, Trump referred to the Flying Tigers and recalled that China and the United States had been allies during World War II. In his remarks at the welcoming ceremony, President Xi Jinping said that China and the United States had fought side by side against fascist aggression during the war. At the state banquet, he explicitly mentioned that the two countries had jointly fought Japanese militarism. The fourth point of the consensus on eight outcomes reached at the China-US summit stated that the two leaders recalled that China and the United States had been allies during World War II and had fought side by side to achieve victory.
Many Japanese analysts believe that the United States has fallen into China’s “trap” concerning historical perceptions of Japan, and that the US-Japan meeting in New York apparently failed to achieve alignment against China. Perhaps to reassure Japan, Trump held another 20-minute telephone conversation with Takaichi on September 26.
Since November last year, China-Japan relations have faced an extremely difficult situation. By comparison, the Chinese and US presidents may have as many as four opportunities to meet in person this year.
As the three most important countries in the Asia-Pacific, China, the United States, and Japan are vital to regional stability and development. Japan’s best role in China-US relations is to serve as a bridge for communication. History has shown that this is the only role that can make trilateral relations constructive and enable Japan to play a greater role internationally.
The Origins of China-US Ping-Pong Diplomacy Lie in Japan
In his remarks at the White House welcoming dinner, President Xi Jinping specifically recalled that more than 50 years ago, China-US ping-pong diplomacy used “a tiny ball set the whole globe in motion,” opening the way toward the normalization of bilateral relations. China and the United States were undoubtedly the principal actors in this diplomatic initiative. Japan, however, also played a considerably constructive role, serving as a bridge that helped advance the normalization of China-US relations.
In March 1971, the 31st World Table Tennis Championships were held in Nagoya, Japan. Kenji Gotō, president of the Japan Table Tennis Association and president of the Asian Table Tennis Union, believed that without China’s participation, the World Championships would lose much of their significance as a world tournament held in Asia.
Despite formidable obstacles, including the absence of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the Japanese government’s hostile attitude toward China, and intimidation by far-right forces, Gotō resolved to travel to Beijing personally to invite China to participate, with the support of the leadership of the Japan Table Tennis Association.
In February, guided by the Three Principles for the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations proposed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, representatives of the two countries’ table tennis associations and friendship organizations signed meeting minutes. The Three Principles were that Japan should not be hostile toward China, should not participate in creating “two Chinas,” and should not obstruct the normalization of China-Japan relations. China subsequently sent a team to compete in the 31st World Table Tennis Championships.
It was precisely this interaction between China and Japan that paved the way for the friendly encounter between Chinese and American players in Nagoya. One year later, President Richard Nixon visited China, and China and Japan normalized diplomatic relations in the same year.
It is worth noting that this year marks the 55th anniversary of ping-pong diplomacy. The practical experience of this diplomatic initiative half a century ago demonstrates that Japan’s best role in China-US-Japan relations is to serve as a constructive and stabilizing bridge.
The Tokyo Trial Established the Fundamental Boundaries of Historical Accountability
Statements on historical issues made at every China-US presidential summit have invariably drawn Japan’s attention. During former Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s state visit to the United States in 1997, he visited the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii. In 1998, former US President Bill Clinton also referred to China and the United States as allies during World War II at a state dinner.
In recent years, Japan has sought to demonstrate historical reconciliation with the United States by arranging visits by American leaders to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and visits by Japanese leaders to Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, historical issues raised in China-US interactions continue to make Japan uneasy.
At the root of the problem is Japan’s understanding of history, which is based on the Treaty of Peace with Japan in 1951. However, the peace conference convened during the Cold War had serious limitations. A postwar peace conference should have made fair and comprehensive decisions on the causes and nature of the war, the postwar settlement, and the framework for establishing stable relations among the parties involved. The Treaty of Peace with Japan made no determination of Japan’s responsibility for the war of aggression launched by Japanese militarism. As a result, Japan failed to engage in a profound reflection on its wartime responsibility.
Moreover, the countries that had played major roles in the war against Japan or had suffered most severely under Japanese militarism were largely excluded from the conference. China was not invited, neither North nor South Korea participated, and the Soviet Union refused to sign the treaty.
The genuine historical consensus shared by China, the United States, and other Allied powers was embodied in the Tokyo Trial, which opened in 1946. This year marks its 80th anniversary.
In January 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, composed of representatives from 11 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and the Soviet Union, was established. The trial opened in May, and its verdicts were delivered in 1948.
The Tokyo Trial prosecuted and punished Class-A war criminals responsible for waging aggressive war, explicitly addressed responsibility for the war, and carried out a judicial reckoning with the crimes of Japanese militarism. It had standing under international law and constituted one of the foundations of the postwar international order.
Because of the Cold War and the ambiguity of the Treaty of Peace with Japan regarding historical responsibility, Japanese conservatives and right-wing groups have long expressed dissatisfaction with the Tokyo Trial.
On the one hand, because the trial was conducted under American leadership, they could not openly oppose it. On the other hand, they viewed it as a moral constraint on Japan. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe once argued during a parliamentary debate that the trial had convicted defendants “based on the judgment of the victors.” Yet in a written response submitted by his first cabinet in 2007, the Japanese government explicitly stated that it “accepts the judgments of the Tokyo Trial and has no objection to them.”
This contradiction is particularly evident in the controversy surrounding Yasukuni Shrine. In 1978, Yasukuni Shrine enshrined Class-A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo. Before taking office as the shrine’s chief priest, Nagayoshi Matsudaira had publicly declared that Japan’s spiritual revival would be impossible unless the historical interpretation embodied in the Tokyo Trial, which placed the blame on Japan, was rejected.
Although the historical narrative rejecting the Tokyo Trial attracted attention in the late 1970s, Yasukuni Shrine had already completed the enshrinement of Class-B and Class-C war criminals in the early 1970s. The roots of these developments can be traced to the ambiguity surrounding Japan’s wartime responsibility in the Treaty of Peace with Japan.
In fact, the distinction between Japanese militarist war criminals and the Japanese people was a consensus shared by the Allied powers, including China and the United States. The Potsdam Declaration of July 1945 stated that “the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest must be eliminated for all time.” The declaration called for the elimination of militarism and the punishment of war criminals.
Historical issues are therefore not merely matters of history or bilateral China-Japan relations; they are also strategic issues within China-US-Japan relations. This explains why, after Abe visited Yasukuni Shrine in late 2013, the US Embassy in Japan issued a statement expressing disappointment. For a foreign embassy to publicly express disappointment with the head of the host country's government is an unusually serious diplomatic gesture.
China-Japan Relations Can Move Ahead of China-US Relations
Although China-Japan relations are currently facing an unprecedentedly difficult situation, we should not forget that there was a time when China-Japan relations moved ahead of China-US relations.
In 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China, decisively addressed the Taiwan issue, and normalized diplomatic relations between the two countries. China and the United States did not establish diplomatic relations until 1979, nearly seven years after China and Japan normalized their ties. In 1978, China and Japan signed the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, further establishing a legal foundation for their commitment to friendship across generations. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping visited the United States at the invitation of President Jimmy Carter. On his return journey, Deng visited Japan and briefed Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira on his visit to the United States. The two sides also exchanged views extensively on the international situation, the Asia-Pacific region, and bilateral relations.
This stands in sharp contrast to the current situation, in which Japanese leaders are eager to telephone the US president after a China-US summit to learn what was discussed.
In 2008, during the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, Japan advanced the concept of “synergy between the Japan-U.S. alliance and Asian diplomacy.” In May of that year, former Chinese President Hu Jintao paid a state visit to Japan. The two countries issued their fourth political document, pledging to comprehensively advance their strategic relationship of mutual benefit.
In June, China and Japan reached a principled consensus on the East China Sea issue. The two sides agreed, first, to make the East China Sea a sea of peace, cooperation, and friendship and, second, to select a block in the East China Sea for joint development without prejudicing their respective legal positions.
In July, President Hu visited Japan again to attend the G8 summit in Hokkaido’s Lake Toya. During the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019, China and Japan reached an in-principle understanding on a state visit to Japan by the Chinese leader. At the time, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also maintained relatively good relations with both China and the United States. In November 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Lima. The two leaders agreed to comprehensively advance China-Japan strategic relations of mutual benefit and build constructive and stable China-Japan relations suited to the requirements of the new era.
The vision of a strategic relationship of mutual benefit and the subsequent goal of building constructive and stable China-Japan relations substantially overlap with the concept of constructive strategic stability now applied to China-US relations. Notably, these ideas for China-Japan relations were articulated earlier.
China-Japan relations will ultimately need to improve, but this requires a prerequisite: Japan must genuinely recognize, from a strategic perspective, the importance of maintaining constructive and stable relations with both China and the United States.
Rather than continually worrying about another “Nixon shock” resulting from a rapprochement between China and the United States, Japan should seriously consider how it can serve as an effective bridge for communication among China, the United States, and Japan.
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