Last month, the Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians’ Union visited China. The super-partisan delegation consisted of lawmakers from across the Japanese political spectrum, with Moriyama Hiroshi, secretary-general, and Obuchi Yuko, chairperson, Party Organization and Campaign Headquarters, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP); Kaieda Banri, former party leader, and Okada Katsuya, former secretary-general and current full-time advisor, of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), Japan’s main opposition party; Akaba Kazuyoshi, deputy head of Komeito, an LDP coalition partner; and Shii Kazuo, chairman of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP).
Separately from this delegation, current Komeito party leader Saito Tetsuo also visited China in late May, carrying with him a personal letter from Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, while former Komeito leaders Yamaguchi Natsuo and Ishii Keiichi are also scheduled to go before the end of the month.These visits do not signal that Japan is seeking closer ties with China in response to the global international political uncertainty that has emerged since Donald Trump began his second term as U.S. president. Rather, they can be seen as an attempt to maintain open channels for dialogue between Japan and China, however limited, in the absence of any dialogue between the U.S. and China. They also represent an attempt to reduce instability, even if slightly, amid the growing number of variables in international politics.
The delegation was met by China’s third-highest-ranking official, Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and Liu Jianchao, minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee. In the context of promoting relations, both officials were appropriately welcoming to the Japanese delegation.While in China, the delegation sought a lifting of import bans on Japanese seafood products, bans that had in put in place because of the release of treated water from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean, as well as bans on food products from Tokyo and ten other prefectures affected by the Fukushima Daiichi accident. They also asked the Chinese to end import bans on products such as rice and beef. In addition, the Japanese delegation called for measures to address cases of corporate detention. The Chinese side stated that it wants to wait for the results of international monitoring with regard to issues related to Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. On other matters, a positive response was not forthcoming.
The issues surrounding Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, along with those concerning rice and beef, were all created and raised by China. This was most likely done as a means of applying leverage to seek concessions from Tokyo in other areas, but Japan’s refusal to make those concessions means that the bans have persisted. For its part, Beijing has missed previous opportunities to relax its stance. The consequence is that the issues remain unresolved, and must be addressed.
Although China appears to want Japan to join forces with it in addressing issues such as the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, Japan has shown no willingness to cooperate with China. Instead, it has simply reaffirmed the importance of the principle of free trade, and given firm warnings on export controls for rare earths and other materials.
It would be wrong to say that nothing positive came out of the visit. There were calls for a continuation of youth exchanges between the two countries, and a request from the Japanese side for the continuation of so-called panda loans, namely the loan of giant pandas to Japan. Pandas remain very popular in Japan, and since the giant pandas on loan to zoos in Tokyo (Ueno) and Wakayama Prefecture are leaving, a request was made for new panda loans. The Chinese side may will be amenable to this.
Currently, around 90 percent of Japanese people have negative feelings toward China. With the House of Councillors election just around the corner, Diet members want to avoid being labeled as “pro-China.” Probably for this reason, most of the visiting lawmakers are members of the House of Representatives. While some in Japan do welcome any strengthening of ties between Japan and China, the delegation’s visit was criticized in Japan as an attempt to get closer to a country that is widely viewed with animosity.
However, the politicians who made the trip to China had their own motives. Moriyama Hiroshi, who chairs the Union and who is also a representative for Kagoshima Prefecture, has been protesting the import restrictions and looking for ways to export Kagoshima beef to China. Meanwhile, Nikai Toshihiro, Moriyama’s predecessor as chairperson of the Union, hails from Wakayama, and the call for new panda loans was most likely made out of consideration for Wakayama Prefecture and its zoo, whose pandas have attracted large numbers of visitors.In short, the members of Japan’s Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians’ Union are not simply promoting friendship; they have their own interests and strategies. It is because of those interests that they made a special effort to visit China, despite the potential criticism at home. Ultimately, the results of the visit were effectively limited to “saying what needed to be said” to the Chinese side, with little real progress being made on any outstanding issues.
KAWASHIMA Shin is a professor at the University of Tokyo.
