It looks like fiery anti-Japanese demonstrations in China are leading to a new Ice Age in China-Japan relations after China’s refusal to apologize for anti-Japanese violence there.
In the latest twist to what is developing into an escalating diplomatic crisis, Japan’s foreign minister got the cold shoulder and a rejection to his request for an apology.
How will it end? Every diplomatic and political crisis has a beginning, middle and an end — where the event begins like a little murmur and escalates into the equivalent of a shout. Right now the two countries are close to the screeching point. For instance, Voice of America reports:
China has refused to apologize to Japan’s foreign minister, following days of sometimes violent anti-Japanese demonstrations. The Chinese protesters have denounced Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and what they say is Tokyo’s downplaying of its 20th century militarism.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura came to Beijing seeking a formal apology for a series of rampages, in which Chinese demonstrators damaged the Japanese Embassy and consulate in Beijing.
He did not get that apology. After a cold welcome, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said his government has never done anything for which it has to apologize to the Japanese people.
Later, Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said Japan believes the Chinese authorities are to blame, following reports that police largely stood by and watched, as the demonstrations became violent.
“We believe that lack of adequate security measures was one of the main causes of this kind of damage,” said Mr. Takashima.
Meanwhile, a leading anti-Japanese activist tells The Australian that the Chinese government is indeed behind it all:
“The Government is playing the card of public opinion,” said Hu Jia, an advocate of Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyudao islands, claimed by Japan as the Senkakus.
“They think the card of public opinion is better than the card of the government in the eyes of the outside world,” said Mr Hu, whose house was surrounded by security police yesterday as authorities clamped down on Beijing ahead of the arrival of Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.
Indeed, the Japan’s Foreign Ministry, quoted the New York Times, has come out and said what many have hinted at for days: who could believe that the Chinese government could not — if it wanted — control what was going on?
Japan’s Foreign Ministry press spokesman, Hatsuhisa Takashima, said in Beijing that it was “basically not believable” that the Chinese police could not do more to prevent protesters from assaulting Japan’s diplomatic compounds.
“They have the same protests and the same sort of violence day after day,” he said. “Can the Chinese police adjust to this?”
The Times also goes into some of the background — and the implications of what’s going on now:
Beijing has used the expressions of outrage as a platform for a more confrontational approach to Japan. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said last week that China would block a Japanese bid to join the United Nations Security Council unless its neighbor more sincerely apologizes and atones for World War II-era abuses. Some analysts say the move amounts to a diplomatic power play, with Beijing leveraging its growing economic might and unsettled emotions from the war era to assert itself as Asia’s leading political power.
But at least in the short term, the streak of violence against Japanese interests has paralyzed diplomacy. Japanese officials warn that the unrest has forced Japanese tourist and businessmen to cancel visits to China and say that broader damage to economic relations, which had been thriving, could not be ruled out.
Is this over? Not by a long shot…….
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.