RECONCILIATION BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN and the
COOPERATIVE SECURITY NETWORK

Begun with an international workshop on reconciliation between Japan and China at the Australian National University in August 2006, the Department of International Relations in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies is hosting an international network to encourage reconciliation and the establishment of cooperative-security institutions in the Asia-Pacific region. The purpose of this blog is to invite discussion and debate about the best ways to achieve these objectives. We welcome your posts and comments.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Joint Statement between Japan and China

The governments of Japan and the PRC, on May 7, published a joint statement on "Comprehensive Promotion of a 'Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests.'" The Statement invoked and reconfirmed the earlier Joint Communique of September 1972, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed in August 1978, and the Japan-China Joint Declaration of November 1998. The Statement listed many general and specific commitments to work together on the basis that the two sides "recognized that the two countries' sole option is to cooperate to enhance peace and friendship over the long term." The Joint Statement is the most important document recording agreements reached during President Hu Jintao's official visit to Japan, May 6-10, 2008.

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Papers and photos from the August 2006 Workshop

Rationale for this Blog

The purpose of this blog is to invite discussion and debate about the best ways to encourage reconciliation between Japan and China. Our objective is to produce concrete and realistic policy proposals for enhancing security cooperation between the two Asian powers, especially with respect to their participation in the Six Party Talks on the North Korean nuclear issue and in the potential East Asian Community. Among sovereign states, it seems so much easier for governments to lapse into confrontation or even conflict. On the other hand, cooperation requires conscientious design, constant attention, and committed care by all parties. In the proposed design for an East Asian Community, the basic foundation is intended to be the ASEAN plus Three (Japan, China, and South Korea), not just an ASEAN plus One (China). None of the countries in the region, including Australia, want to have to choose between China and Japan. They want to build viable security institutions that include both Asian powers. The analogy often mentioned is that just as a security community in Europe required cooperation between Germany and France, so the East Asian Community will need to be built on security cooperation between China and Japan. Japanese-Chinese economic relations continue to improve, while their political-strategic relations get worse. Analysts of the contemporary Sino-Japanese relationship have discussed with insight the nature of the bilateral problems (e.g., disputes about history and territory; Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine; competition for scarce energy resources; anti-Japanese demonstrations in China; and China’s opposition to Japan’s hopes for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council); but there is little in that literature about how these conflicts might be resolved or at least ameliorated. This blog invites comments focused on how relations between Japan and China can be improved, bilateral conflicts resolved, and problems ameliorated. Some might say that reconciliation or not is exclusively a problem for Chinese and Japanese to sort out between themselves, but to the extent that the two countries fail to cooperate on East Asian issues, all countries in the region pay a price. So we all have a stake in encouraging reconciliation between Japan and China.

RECONCILIATION BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN and the COOPERATIVE SECURITY NETWORK

Monday, May 12, 2008

Joint Statement between Japan and China

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RECONCILIATION BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN and the
COOPERATIVE SECURITY NETWORK