Chinese premier's visit to Japan marks major thaw

The visit to Tokyo this week by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao marks the latest step in what appears to be a remarkable turnaround in the China-Japan relationship.

Under former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who sparked outrage in China with his visits to Yasukuni Shrine – a potent symbol of Japan's militaristic past – relations became so icy that the two leaders failed to hold a formal summit for five years.

China, for its part, stoked regional concerns of a resurgent Japanese nationalism. The issue came to a head in the spring of 2005, when demonstrations in China over Japan's alleged whitewashing of its wartime past in school texts turned violent and demonstrators attacked Japanese consulates, supermarkets, and restaurants.

Yet since then both China and Japan have stepped back, with China offering a more restrained response to Mr. Koizumi's final visit as Japan's leader to Yasukuni and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office last September, making Beijing, not Washington, his first port of call.

Mr. Wen has described this visit, which starts Wednesday, as an ice-melting exercise and has been keen to stress the importance of a healthy relationship. The two leaders are expected to discuss their countries' booming trade, environmental cooperation – and may touch on more-contentious territorial and energy disputes. Wen will speak to the Diet, or parliament – the first time a Chinese leader has done so in more than 20 years – and is even scheduled to play baseball with college students in western Japan.

"I think the Chinese understand they need a good relationship with the Japanese," says Brad Glosserman, director of the Pacific Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Having the Japanese concerned about them was just darkening their image, and they recognize that a good relationship is beneficial, especially economically."

Yumiko Mikanagi, a professor of social science at the International Christian University in Tokyo, says that the decision to mend fences with China was prompted by both public concern and criticism from within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. But she believes there is also a personal element to Abe's pragmatism. "I don't think he has changed; he's still quite nationalistic," she says. "But ... he has to prove he's better than Koizumi, and in order to differentiate himself he had to do something different."

Peter Beck, director of the International Crisis Group's East Asia program, says that the Chinese have recognized that playing the nationalism card can end up hurting them. "It's just too volatile an issue for them to be using effectively," he says.

This shift was underscored during the recent furor created by Abe's claims that there was no evidence that women were forced into slavery by the Japanese Army during World War II. Whereas once the Chinese might have led the calls for an apology over the remarks, it was instead some of Japan's closest allies that took up the issue.

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