China-Japan

Honoring Sacrifice and Upholding Peace

There will be great celebrations in Beijing starting on September 3 with a major parade and other events commemorating the...

China-Japan Ties: Future More Important than History

China-Japan ties will thrive in the future, Kazuo Ogura, former Japanese ambassador to France, said in his speech at this year’s Beijing-Tokyo Forum in mid-October. His words represent the aspirations of insightful Japanese people for continued friendship between the two countries.  After nearly a decade of “chill”, China-Japan ties took a turn for the better this year. In early May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang paid an official visit to Japan; in late October, Shinzo Abe made the first visit to China by a Japanese prime minister in seven years. A commentator seeking an appropriate metaphor for this resumption of high-level visits described it as pressing the “reset button” for healthy development of China-Japan relations.  Abe’s China visit occurred at particularly symbolic moments, described in Chinese as the three “coincidences.” First, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Second, it is also the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up. Third, the visit took place at the very moment when escalating trade tensions between China and the United States were creating changes in the world geopolitical landscape.  By calling them three “coincidences”, the author employs exaggeration to make the article more appealing. Actually, as the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) once observed: “all chance, direction, which thou canst not see”. […]

China and Japan Promote Third-Party Market Cooperation

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an official visit to China from October 25-27,as China and Japan jointly announced on October 12. China and Japan have expressed their joint intention to vigorously promote cooperation in third-party markets. Why? What is the meaning and role of this cooperation? Δ President Xi Jinping meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Beijing on Oct. 26th. Li Tao / Xinhua Firstly, both China and Japan are countries with relative excess in endowment of production factors such as capital and production capacity. After the domestic economy develops to a certain stage, it is no longer able to rely on continuous large-scale domestic investment to obtain endogenous development, as is seen in periods of rapid economic growth. Motivation must rely on improving management and technology, especially through the core technologies of major industrial sectors to gain new development momentum, relying on technological innovation as a new impetus for economic development. Secondly, most of the countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative are developing countries, and some are emerging industrial countries in the process of catching up. They are emerging from poverty, with their economies just preparing to take off or just beginning to take off. In this stage, there is an urgent need for capital and technology. In particular, it is more necessary to build […]

China and ASEAN Single Draft Negotiating Text of COC to Secure South China Sea Stability

Wang Yi, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister, attended China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore on August 2. As the rotating chairman of ASEAN and coordinator of China-ASEAN relations, Foreign Minister of Singapore announced that China and ASEAN arrived at the single draft negotiating text of Code of Conduct (COC) on the same day. This is the first move towards substantive negotiations on the COC, and also a critical move and a milestone that lay foundation and provide essential safeguard for further talks. Δ  Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (First row, L3) attends the 25th ASEAN Regional Forum retreat held in Singapore on Aug 4, 2018.[Photo/ Xinhua] What is the single draft negotiating text of COC? The 14th Senior Officials’ Meeting on Implementation of Declaration on the Code of Conduct on the South China Sea (DOC), held last May, passed the framework of COC, indicating that negotiations had entered a new substantive stage. However, a series of difficulties and challenges exist in such stage, among which the foremost one is the drafting of the basic document. As Wang Yi depicted, the progress made in these negotiations can be compared to China and ASEAN building a new house together. In the past, eleven countries had 11 plans, but now, with China and ASEAN agreeing on a single draft […]

1111