With all the fanfare generated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Beijing later this week, perhaps the most significant aspect is that it is happening
With all the fanfare generated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Beijing later this week, perhaps the most significant aspect is that it is happening at all.
Despite both taking office around the same time in 2012, Abe and his Chinese President Xi Jinping have never visited each other’s countries for a formal bilateral summit, with all of their previous encounters taking place on the sidelines of international conferences.
But after six years, Abe will finally make the trek, paving the way for a reciprocal visit by Xi to Japan at some point in the future.
“We want to use this opportunity to create momentum for us to map out and promote mutual cooperation and communication in various areas and to elevate Japan-China relations to a new level,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said while announcing Abe’s visit to Beijing, which is scheduled to begin Thursday.
The meeting will likely be a cordial affair, with both sides eager to showcase the image of a rekindled friendship to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship’s signing.
But among the parties, China appears to be the more desperate of the two.
China views Japan as an increasingly important partner in countering a protectionist United States led by President Donald Trump — while also realizing it could use the opportunity to alienate Tokyo from its top ally, Washington.
The Chinese government, analysts say, also seeks at least a semblance of an endorsement by Japan of Xi’s trademark — and increasingly criticized — “Belt and Road” initiative. It is looking to hammer out details on joint infrastructure projects in hopes of trumpeting Japan’s participation in the development strategy.
The upcoming summit comes amid a gradual thaw in relations between the two Asian nations that had chilled in the wake of a territorial dispute that reignited in 2012 over the Japan-controlled, China-claimed Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu.
An annual survey this year jointly conducted by Japanese think tank Genron NPO and China International Publishing Group showed that the percentage of Chinese who have a “favorable” or “rather favorable” impression of Japan hit a record 42.2 percent, topping 40 percent for the first time since the poll was initiated in 2005.
It also found the percentage of Chinese who think Sino-Japanese relations are “important” or “rather important” rose to 74.0 percent from 68.7 percent last year, in what Yasushi Kudo, head of Genron NPO, said was a testament to Beijing’s growing interest in economic relations with Tokyo amid China’s ongoing trade war with the U. S.
Those trade frictions have taken a toll on the world’s second-largest economy.
The National Bureau of Statistics said Friday that China’s economy grew 6.5 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, eking out its slowest quarterly growth level since 2009, months after the global financial crisis erupted.
