Some advice for Japan
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Tough guy [By Jiaohaiyang/China.org.cn] |
China and Japan failed to hold a separate meeting at the Oct 30 East Asia Summit.
Prior to the summit, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan had irresponsibly described China's actions as "a big problem", and Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara had termed China's responses to the Diaoyu incident "hysterical".
However, it was Japan's reaction to the collisions between a Chinese trawler and two Japan Coast Guard vessels on Sept 7 that led Sino-Japanese relations to deteriorate so badly.
There are three reasons why Japan has indulged in these wrongdoings.
First, a political crisis broke out soon after the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power. Social problems, such as economic troubles, high unemployment and corrupt politicians have disappointed the Japanese people and sent the DPJ's popularity ratings plummeting.
Second, since the 1990s, conservatism has developed as Japan's mainstream ideological trend. This trend is reflected in expansionism and its pursuit of so-called "national interests". When it became impossible to display this national conservatism by visiting the Yasukuni shrine, DPJ leaders took advantage of the collision between the Chinese trawler and the Japanese vessels to increase its popularity rating.
Third, the present DPJ leadership has modified the policies formulated by its predecessor in trying to cement the alliance between Japan and the United States. As a result, Japan has adopted a jingoistic stance on the collisions to conform to the US' policy of containing China.
But even though the US said the Diaoyu Islands were in the range of the US-Japan Security Treaty, it also said it hoped the question of sovereignty would be decided by negotiations between China and Japan, ending Tokyo's hope of getting absolute support from Washington.
Since negotiations on the East China Sea dispute are not expected to end any time soon, the huge benefits Japan might have hoped to gain will vanish, meaning the DPJ government will face strong opposition at home.
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