In this webinar, Dr Victor Teo takes stock of recent developments in Sino-Japanese relations. He also assesses the opportunities and challenges for Beijing and Tokyo to grow their ties especially under the current Biden administration.
REGIONAL STRATEGIC AND POLITICAL STUDIES PROGRAMME WEBINAR
Wednesday, 3 February 2021 – Dr Victor Teo, a former Visiting Senior Research Fellow under the Wang Gungwu Visiting Fellows Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, delivered a webinar on “Sino-Japanese Relations in the Post-Pandemic Era: Implications for Southeast Asia” to an online audience of 82. The webinar covered recent developments in Sino-Japanese relations and the opportunities and challenges for Beijing and Tokyo to grow their ties under the current Biden administration, while discussing the possible implications for Southeast Asia.
For Dr Teo, identity politics in the form of populist nationalism is a crucial element in Sino-Japan ties given the role it plays in rallying political support for both governments. He also observed that the Sino-Japanese relationship operates through the prism of their respective bilateral relationships with the United States. The US has been described as “a dominant player in [Japanese] domestic politics”, while China has recognised that securing the agreement of the US is crucial since Japan is likely to go along with the decisions of the Americans.
Dr Teo contextualised the Sino-Japanese relationship by outlining the various disagreements between China and Japan in the aftermath of the Cold War. Compared to the “golden age” of the 1980s, the bilateral relationship in the 1990s were marred by new quarrels over history textbooks, the disposal of nuclear waste, ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, resource exploration in the East China Sea and intrusions of Chinese “research” vessels. The tenure of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in the early 2000s drove Sino-Japanese relations even lower, as Koizumi sought to elevate Japan’s national interest under his brand of nationalist, populist and conservative politics. His policies—particularly his six visits to the Yasukuni Shrine while prime minister—provoked large scale anti-Japanese protests in China. After Koizumi stepped down, Japan went through a “revolving door” period where six different prime ministers—three from the Liberal Democratic Party and three from the Democratic Party of Japan—occupied the office between 2006 and 2012. Japan and China pursued a relationship reset during the premiership of Yasuo Fukuda from August 2007 to August 2008, establishing new parameters for bilateral ties, including the need for a “mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests”. In September 2009, Yukio Hatoyama became the first-ever prime minister from the DPJ and his intentions to recalibrate relations with the United States while cultivating closer ties with Japan’s neighbours in Asia sparked worries among the security establishment in Tokyo. The tenure of Yushihiko Noda, the third and last DPJ premier, culminated in the nationalisation of the Senkakus in 2012, when the Japanese federal government purchased the Senkaku Islands for $26 million in order to pre-empt the attempt by Shintarō Ishihara, the then-Governor of Tokyo, to buy the islands on behalf of the Tokyo municipal government. The Noda government was concerned that Ishihara would seek to actively develop the islands and thus antagonise the Chinese even further. According to Dr Teo, the “revolving door” period witnessed the hardening of positions on both sides and the gradual erosion of the separation between “cold politics” and “hot economics”, as economic issues (such as the sales of technology) became increasingly securitised.
In 2012, Shinzo Abe became prime minister for the second time after his brief stint in 2006-2007. Dr Teo argued that Abe in Japan and Xi Jinping in China heralded the rise of a new conservatism in their respective countries, as the two leaders were concerned with consolidating their power and relied on populist nationalist notions of tradition, rejuvenation and national interest to bolster their domestic support. Under Xi and Abe, the Sino-Japanese relationship transformed into an “all rounded bilateral competition” marked by a “vicious policy cycle” in which antagonistic policy directions were reinforced by mutual distrust and deteriorating public opinion of the other. The period was also marked by the globalisation of Sino-Japanese competition for influence, as Japan scaled up its trade activities and official development assistance (ODA) to match the Chinese footprint in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. Trump’s ascension to power in 2016 was a mixed bag for Japan. Trump’s initial rapprochement with North Korea was directly inimical to Japan’s security interests and the China-US tensions prompted worries in Japan about being “chain-ganged” into a greater conflict. However, it did bolster the revival of the Quad—an Abe pet project—and established some amount of Sino-Japanese rapport as China sought Japan’s advice in handling Trump. Japan also managed to increase its standing in Southeast Asia to a greater degree than China.
Dr Teo identified four possible post-pandemic trends, including an increase in authoritarianism as domestic governments become more powerful, differences in the pace of economic recovery in ASEAN due to varying rates of vaccination, increasing disparity within ASEAN (two or three groups), increased disparity within some ASEAN countries and the pressing importance of post-pandemic poverty relief and economic development. This means that economics and development will become key issues, with ASEAN countries likely to continue their strategy of pursuing trade with China and Northeast Asia. In tandem, Japan and China will continue their overseas engagements. Dr Teo predicts that Tokyo will increase their ODA to the region, partly to maintain a level of interest that can match Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A possible US-China detente brokered by Biden can also help Southeast Asia on the economic front. This might also be accompanied by a partial reset in US-China security relations with the US re-focusing its gaze away from China to other issues such as Russia and Myanmar, although American domestic politics will prevent a full roll-back of the Trump administration’s policies. It might also be possible for Japan to be more assertive in championing human rights, but this is a domain that the country has been generally reluctant to fully engage in despite its talk about “shared values” and working with “like-minded partners”.
In the subsequent discussion with the audience, Dr Teo addressed the structural constraints that can restrict the progress of the Sino-Japanese relationship, Japan’s role in the South China Sea dispute and bolstering the capacities of ASEAN states to counter the Chinese threat, the limitations to Japan’s expanded strategic and security role in the region, the prospects and quality of China’s and Japan’s overseas development projects and the implications of the 1 February coup in Myanmar.
