Beijing suspends top level visits with Tokyo

Posted by Martyn

One of Japan’s most liberal newspapers, The Asahi Shimbun, today mournfully declares that it’s back to the drawing board for Japan’s troubled relationship with China. Japanese government officials admit that relations are far worse than they expected after Premier Wen Jiabao surprisingly snubbed a long-standing invitation to attend the closing ceremony of the 2005 Aichi Expo (Shanghai will host the next World Expo in 2010) and the Chinese government stated that all reciprocal visits by the leaders of the two countries were suspended indefinitely until Prime Minister Koizumi declares that he will stop visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo:

China wants Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to once and for all settle the controversy over his visits to war-related Yasukuni Shrine. But in this matter, he continues to insist he will make an “appropriate decision” on this issue when the time comes. That clearly is not what Beijing wants to hear.

Li told him that Wen wants Japan to first create the proper “atmosphere for his visit.” Implicit in that remark was China’s hope that Koizumi would heed Beijing’s insistence that he stop worshipping at a shrine that commemorates Class-A war criminals in addition to Japan’s war dead.

From July through September, China held a series of events to mark events in its resistance to Japan in World War II. It is against this background that Beijing insists that reciprocal visits by both countries’ leaders will not take place until Koizumi clearly states that he will not visit Yasukuni any more.

Rather than Beijing making a calculated decision to suspend visits, I rather suspect that the government had little choice in the matter after allowing anti-Japanese sentiment to reach frenzied levels in April and spending the rest of the summer celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, which had a distinct anti-Japanese theme. Beijing must surely fear a backlash, or at least firm disapproval from the population if government leaders are seen with PM Koizumi.

The Discussion: 38 Comments

Apart from that to be seen shaking hands with koizumi would be bad PR for chinese leaders, china is using a favorite tactic by putting pressure on koizumi so that his liberal democratic party and maybe japanese business leaders will insist that koizumi do whatever it takes to get realtions with china back to normal. In this case, stop the shrine visits. China likes to have its enemies do the dirty work for it. Hell, it might even work.

September 24, 2005 @ 12:03 am | Comment

I like all your twists and angle of why China is suspending relations with Japan. Typical foreigners view.

How about a genuine dislike and resentment of horrendous acts the Japanese did to China during the war and Koizumi continued approval of such events by visiting the shrine.

Keep it simple!

September 24, 2005 @ 12:12 am | Comment

I could say the same about your comment.

I’ll keep it simple:

China established relations with Japan in 1972. In 22 years China received US$30 billion in “development aid” and “soft loans” – as well as US$5.45 billion of Japanese investment in 2004 alone and massive amounts of technology transfer over 2 decades.

I take it that the memory of the war existed during the years 1972-2005?

The last time Koizumi visited the shrine was April 2002 – almost 3 1/2 years ago.

Therefore, please explain why China can have relatively normal relations with Japan for 22 years before the memory of the war suddenly becomes too much for it and also tell me why Beijing suddenly decides to stop top-level visits now.

Surely by your logic this all should have happened in 1972 if not earlier.

September 24, 2005 @ 12:29 am | Comment

Sounds like China is interfering in the internal affairs of another nation again….Meanwhile, China continues working on the ability to project force outside of her borders and can’t seem to understand why the US government is so skeptical of Chinese corporations.

September 24, 2005 @ 1:24 am | Comment

That may have something to do with the decreasing Japanese ODA to China, i think.

September 24, 2005 @ 2:46 am | Comment

No Martyn,

All that aid was given under an “unequal treaty” which didn’t recognize China as a state that could kick Japan’s ass. China is currently renegotiating the relationship.

(Though success may be limited)

September 24, 2005 @ 5:23 am | Comment

Martyn,

I do not think I understand your argument.

Some Japanese PMs visit the Yasukuni Shrine, some do not. Different government, different climate, different policy. The same principle applies to Beijing, doesn’t it? When the countrymen were still suffering from huger, would it be rather unrealistic to talk about injustice (real or perceived)?

I am not convinced that public disapproval is the sole or the major reason for such suspension. After all, many policies are disapproved by the people but the Party still keeps them.

September 24, 2005 @ 7:33 am | Comment

I meant “suffering from hunger”, my apology for the typo.

September 24, 2005 @ 7:34 am | Comment

To which argument are you referring LfC?

Please don’t pay too much attention to my answer above as I certainly don’t want to re-start the old China-Japan debate, which we have already seen on this site. It’s too simplistic to point to the shrine and point to the war and use that to justify China’s behaviour.

My argument is made up of three points:

1. After a year of strong anti-Japan sentiment in China and the 60th anniversary of the war, no Chinese leader wants to be seen prancing around with Koizumi. Being seen to be “soft” on Japan is political suicide in China. Ask Hu Jintao.

2. I think China is trying, perhaps successfully, to isolate Koizumi following his increased power base after the recent election. Remember, the last poll showed that only 37% of Japanese support his shrine visits, more than 50% are against.

By refusing to deal with Koizumi I think China are hoping his LDP party, particularly his opponents, will see him as a liability. Japan wants nothing more than to get back to doing business with China on normal terms.

3. China is also increasing pressure for him to stop his shrine visits.

September 24, 2005 @ 8:37 am | Comment

Martyn,

I pay attention to everything you write. The first part of my comment above dealt with your response to PC (in relation to changes of Beijing in recent decades).

– Your point 3 is beyond doubt, I think.
– I know little about Japanese politics and I am unable to form a view about point 2.
– For point 1 (and in my opinion the essence of your original post), I can only see a correlation between the anti-Japanese feeling and the gesture of Beijing, but not causation. Jiang did not take hard line against Washington despite the Yugoslavia bombing and many Chinese people were angry.

I was not trying to restart the old debate. As you may have noted I said “injustice (real or perceived)”.

Thank you for your feedback.

September 24, 2005 @ 9:02 am | Comment

In Asian cultures, losing face is the worst thing that can happen. I believe Japan should offer an olive branch to China. A very good symbol would be a pledge by Koizumi quiting the Yakashuni shrine visit. However, Koizumi does not want to lose face, so he is unwilling to do that.

Is this issue that simple? Not sure. Perhaps the issue is not that simple. I also believe the Taiwan issue is an important factor in this impasse. Japan’s conservative government that has ruled the country for almost 50 years without a break, is recently also offering tacit support to Taiwan Independence Quislings. That’s why Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has warned Japan that it should not meddle with the Taiwan Issue, because it’s an issue of life and death for China.

Can relations between both countries become better? I doubt that. The big winner of this is the US. It’s benefitting a lot from the Sino-Japan divide. If relations between Japan and China become good and both form a block, then the US has to worry…

September 24, 2005 @ 10:24 am | Comment

The last time Koizumi visited the shrine was April 2002 – almost 3 1/2 years ago.

Actually, the last Koizumi visit to Yasukuni was in 2004. Except for this year, Koizumi has visited Yasukuni every year since taking office in 2001 (a total of 4 times).

Therefore, please explain why China can have relatively normal relations with Japan for 22 years before the memory of the war suddenly becomes too much for it and also tell me why Beijing suddenly decides to stop top-level visits now – 3 1/2 years after Koizumi’s last shrine visit?

Surely by your logic this all should have happened in 1972 if not earlier.

After 1979 (when the class A war criminals were officially enshrined in Yasukuni as “Martyrs of Showa”) and before Koizumi, there were only 2 visits to the shrine by Japanese prime ministers. Both visits caused anger and protest from China, Korea, and other Asian nations, but because those 2 visits were both by prime ministers who were about to step down and with the new incoming PM denouncing the visits, it did not lead to a festering problem in relations with Japan.

The Koizumi situation has completely changed everything. Not only has Koizumi visited Yasukuni twice as many times as all 12 of his predecessors combined, by remaining firmly in power for years, he presents a difficult problem unseen before for Chinese leaders. Instead of just waiting for the lame duck PM to quickly step down and deal with the new PM as in the 2 cases before, Chinese leaders are faced for the first time the dilemma of either suspending ties with an important neighbor and economic partner or deal with someone like Koizumi and be seen as tacitly endorsing his visits to Yasukuni and the ideology embodied by Yasukuni.

September 24, 2005 @ 10:49 am | Comment

Also a few things have happened this year that have not happened before.

Japan announced that it was gradually reducing war reparations to China, ending them in 2008.

Japan’s influential trade ministry requested that Japanese companies diversify their international investments, or in other words, take their money elsewhere rather than China.

As well as what ZHT said above, Japan edged much closer to the United States this year and also called China a threat when issuing a joint Japan/US statement about Taiwan.

It looks to me like Japan’s cash and investment is drying up or at least reducing and Japan is becoming the UK of Asia. China has therefore little to lose if it uses “little” Japan to unify this troubled nation and divert attention from China’s own massive problems.

The shrine visits, despite what Hui Mao says above, are merely a detail in a much larger game.

September 24, 2005 @ 11:25 am | Comment

This is also why I have no time for those people who feel that China is eternally justified to do whatever it pleases towards Japan because of the bloody war. As if China had it worse than anywhere else in WWII.

China is treating Japan now like they treated the Soviets in the sixties. The Soviets were booted out of China as soon as China aqquired all the help it needed and felt that the Soviets were planning on leaving anyway. Despite that the Soviets provided the cash and expertise to win the civil war and build new China.

Likewise, China was all smiles and handshakes for 30 years while Japan was handing over cash, investment and manufacturing technolgy but as soon as Japan started talking about leaving, China makes them public enemy no 1, to be turned on and off like a tap anytime time they like in the future.

September 24, 2005 @ 11:38 am | Comment

Way too much is made of the importance of Japanese developmental aid to China. Japanese aid to China is almost entirely in the form of loans that needs to be paid back with interest. Most of these loans come with strings attached such as requirements that a Japanese company be given a contract for a project (the value of which often far exceeds the value of the loan).

Besides, even at the height of the aid program, the total amount was only about $1 billion per year. That’s a lot of money to an individual person, but how significant is it on a national level? For comparison, consider that direct US aid to Israel, a nation with a population of 6 million (1/5 the population of the municipality of Chongqing) is about $3 billion a year, and unlike Japanese aid, most of the US aid is term of grants not loans.

Now considering that China has a severe problem with an oversupply in foreign currency reserves (due to RMB being undervalued and heavy speculation by currency traders) and China has been forced to purchase massive amounts of foreign treasury notes with its excess foreign currency reserves, would China even want more loans denominated in a foreign currency that will only exacerbate the problem? To suggest this is the reason for the source of China/Japan friction is beyond ridiculous.

September 24, 2005 @ 12:33 pm | Comment

Hui Mao:

Your efforts of trying to downplay the aid program make you sound pathetic and a little desperate. US$30 billion is over one third of Americas total current forex reserves for example and, for another thing, I’ve never heard of a country turning down hard currency before – especially because it feels that it already has too much to handle!!

Well, you responded to one small part of Dan’s point but ignored the rest.

September 24, 2005 @ 6:15 pm | Comment

The US has very little foreign currency reserves because the US dollar is the de facto global currency of trade, so using that as a measure is pretty stupid, and that $30 billion number was the total amount of loans Japan lend to China over more than 3 decades. It averages out to less than $1billion per year. Also turning down loans with interest and strings attached is not really something extraordinary.

September 24, 2005 @ 11:14 pm | Comment

You still ignore the other points.

September 24, 2005 @ 11:28 pm | Comment

Don’t want that to sound abrupt, just interested in your response.

September 25, 2005 @ 12:26 am | Comment

Hui Mao, whether you are correct to downplay Japan’s aid and low-interest loans to China or not, it is poor form to talk down this assistance to China. In some people’s eyes Japan can never do anything right or good towards China.

September 25, 2005 @ 2:47 am | Comment

Hui Mao

I have just two things to say here

1) If China doesn’t accept Japan’s appology, then it should stop taking its money and it should never have ACCEPTED Japan’s appology IN WRITTING when Beijing normalized relations with Tokyo in th 70s. If Beijing wants to play the war card, maybe it should give back Japan’s rperations money and tear up the treaty of friendship that it signed.

2) That shrine that you are getting so worked up about remembers 2.5 million people including women and non combatants, most of whom died decades before WWII and many of whom never set foot in China, let alone committed a war crime against it. The shrine is far bigger than China, it is unbelievably conceted of you and China to think that you have any right to dictate to a foreign country how it remembers its dead. Nobody who isn’t Japanese has that right, ever.

What Japan is doing is no different from what any other nation except Germany is doing but you don’t see Tony Blair refusing to visit America because George Bush goes to a cemetary that contains a war criminal from the war of independence or the Indian primeminister refusingto visit London because Tony Blair visits a cemetary that contains the remains of a soldier who butchered raped and murdered his way across India during the days of the British Empire.

Over the last two hundred years, countires like Britain and Russia committed hideous genocidal war crimes against dozens of countries and are responsible for tens of millions of deaths, deaths that dwarf the millions who died in China. Neither have issued even half the applogy that Japan has and neither teaches thir young about what they did. I know for a fact that most young British still don’t know about even the most barbaric of the war crimes that their country committed during its 100 year occupation of ONE QUARTER OF THE WORLD.

This is a vendeta pure and simple, most British are largly unaware of their occupation of parts of China and are unrepentant about the rapes, slavery, forced opium imports …. the list goes on, and their highschool text books make no mention of ANY of it in , not even one passage, but you don’t see China pulling this kind of stunt on them do you.

The same goes for Germany, or any of the other white contries that murdered and raped their way into consesions of soveign Chinese land.

Where is the outrage over this?

September 25, 2005 @ 10:08 am | Comment

Sean

China can’t kick Japan’s anything. It doens’t have the range.

It is a fact that China has no servicable aircraft carriers and only a few transport ships and air to air tankers. It simply couldn’t take on a ountry as far from its borders as Japan is without using nukes.

Japan has a very capable defense force and a home side advantage, it also has half of the US pasific fleet stationed in Okinawa and Yokohama.

Military strategists curently believe that China would have trouble projecting its forces as far as Taiwan, let alone Japan.

Don’t embaras yourself.

As fo rthe so called unequal treaty. Japan appologiesed for WWII, promised to pay reperations for Chinese losses, and to recognize the mainland instead of Taiwan. In return Japan didn’t get any real consesions from China other than the acceptance of it appoligy, which Beijing is now going back on. If this treaty is unequal, then it is unequal to Japan.

Name me one thing that China actually gave up?

September 25, 2005 @ 10:14 am | Comment

Daniel, don’t embarass yourself further. Your completly incompetant understanding as to the cause of the Sino-Soviet schism is made only more blatant by your incorrect comparison to the present situation with Japan.

As for Japanese ODA in the form of loans, it was helpful certainly but it was far from singularly instrumental in fostering Chinese economic growth, think of it as the iceing on the cake so to speak. As for your alleged Chinese ingratitude towards Japanese economic investment, I should point out that the Japanese are not idiots and they invested in China not out of magnaminity but rather out of economic neccessity. After the plaza accords, the value of the Japanese yen doubled in nearly two years from 240 yen to the dollar to approximately 120 yen. This made the export-oriented economy of the 80’s completly untenable. The dramatic rise in the value of the yen resulted in a surge of export capital to the rest of Asia (China included here) in a bid to lower costs and maintain the pace of economic growth in Japan.

To AJB you have got to be kidding me, there were no war reparations from Japan to China unless you count the ODA loans. Secondly although Japan technically recognizes the PRC over the ROC, it doesn’t stop them from butting their noses into the Taiwan situation whenever it suits them. That leaves the apology, gee thanks for the backhanded apology. Japan the victim? Jesus Christ you guys really are a bunch of passive-aggressive nitwits. I’ll take honest hate anyday to this crap.

September 25, 2005 @ 11:02 am | Comment

I agree with Jing. China does not trust Japan. This trust can be won if Japan respects China’s sovereignty, which means don’t meddling with the Taiwan issue. The importance of Taiwan for mainland China cannot be underestimated. If Japan just leaves Taiwan alone, and stops aiding Independence Quislings, then bilateral ties between the PRC and Japan will slowly become better. Japan should realize that good ties with China is as equally as important as having good ties with the US.

September 25, 2005 @ 3:46 pm | Comment

My understanding of the topic:

Shrine visits have stalled Sino-Japan relationship

Questions raise regarding to the government conducts of China on this issue by many western and Japanese friends:

1. It’s not the shrine visits but other things which have led to the distorted relationship, such as decreasing of the Japan’s aid, internal political atmosphere requirement in China, being afraid of losing face; Japanese-US closer alliance.
2. China is interfering in the internal affairs of another nation again
3. Shrine is just a place with no difference than any other’s fallen soldier’s cemetery in any other nations, which leads to the double standard of China’s attitude towards other countries such as UK.
4. China is backing from the treaty
5. Chinese should keep silence about the shrine visit by Koizumi due to the Japan’s aid
6. There is no recent visit to the Shrine, what is the problem of China? China had good relationship with Japan some years ago.

Regarding to the questions, my answers:
1. It’s hard to prove this theory without stopping paying visits to the Shrine. However if it indeed has little to do with the shrine visits, Japanese government can easily make Chinese government look really bad by stopping visiting the Shrine.
2. If so, the first one who should shut up must be from US government. Japanese Foreign minister should too.
3. Shrine was an OK place before they introduced class-A criminals into it (in 1979?), even if there were 1000+ war criminals enshrined already before 14 class I war criminals moved into the Shrine. I am afraid that no other countries did that, especially 35 years after WWII. Still they think:
¡§Some 1,068 people, who were wrongly accused as war criminals by the Allied court, were enshrined here.” The shrine’s English-language website refers to those 1,068 as those “who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces¨
So it’s absoultely different from a normal cementry. Instead it is a symbol of Japanese revisionism which has also been recognized by international media. ACB, please recognize that too.
4. I am not sure what treaty China is backing from.
If treaty says that China can not condemn the governmental behaviors of paying high respects to war criminals, then that treaty must be a Nazi treaty. ACB, please tell me which treaty?
5. The logic is ill, Martyn. Money can’t buy everything. Money can’t make people silent about the crime(probably not up to that level yet, but you know what I mean)
6. Apparently Martyn has been caught lying on this issue by Hui Mao’s excllent comments. OK, I have copied this thread, next time I will use it to ruin Martyn’s reputation, LOL

BTW: Hui Mao didn’t downplay the aid too much. Surely downplaying any aid make us Chinese look bad. However the facts should be recognized. This fact is:
1. The aid is not free!
2. It’s not very much different from the loans China obtained from UN or some other organizations.
3. It should not be considered as the gift at all. However it sounds like gift in many westerners’ eyes. Actually China not only has to pay back this gift but also has to pay in a more expensive form because of the rapid appreciation of Japanese Yen in the last 2 decades. Jing didn’t elaborate too much on this issue, but we assume that every body knows here. Of course you can start any debate saying that Chinese government should be responsible for this because the risk of currency fluctuation should be foreseen for any loan borrower. I partially agree, so that you won’t start this debate:)

September 25, 2005 @ 6:09 pm | Comment

I’m pretty grateful whenever I get a loan to pay for this or that, or to invest in something, so I don’t think Japan’s ODA should be talked down, especially in light of the role they played in China’s early development after the opening and reform era.

1. As far as I know, the US$ 30 billion amount does not exactly take into consideration inflation. Considering that up into the 90s China used to be the single largest recipient of Japanese ODA, and Japan used to be the biggest source of China’s ODA, one should take into consideration how much China
benefited from Japan’s ODA program in comparison to other countries.

2. It is extremely difficult to secure low-interest long term loans when you’re a high risk client. Try to secure a loan even with a high interest rate when you have had a poor credit history riddled with non-payment of debts. Especially in China’s case, as a country with a very bad credit rating and credit system, the government has had to go all out in the past to secure funding for almost all of its public
infrastructural works. Everything from the Three-Gorges Dam, national highways, airports, is funded in part from foreign loans. Japanese loans have also heavily financed environmental protection programs, such as the ill-fated reforestration
campaigns.

3. To downplay the value of these loans is to fundamentally not understand the purpose and value of “loans” in the first place. Ideally, loans CREATE WEALTH. That is why for instance, a smart investor would re-finance on a home mortgage to invest elsewhere and create more wealth, all the while sustaining a manageable debt. That is why a poor student would
appreciate loans which multiply future earnings potential.

4. Japan’s ODA has some pretty good terms. 9-10% is grant and technical assistance. The loans have been pretty generous, averaging from 0.5-1.5% interest and 30-40 year repayment periods, usually with 10 year grace periods. You also cannot blame Japan for the simple fact that the value of the yen appreciated over time.

5. When China first opened up in the late 70s, Japan was one of the very few sources from which it could secure funding to build national infrastructural works. Many of the highways, airports, technical training, etc., which make possible the framework for future economic investment and growth, were often financed by Japan.

6. Almost all countries structure their ODA in a way to benefit domestic industry, and Japan is no different. ODA is mutually beneficial; it is not just
exclusively the Japanese companies which benefited from the ODA, but China as well. Chinese laws require a high degree of domestic investment, such as hiring local workers, local companies, etc. to do work. In the end, who ends up with the roads, technical know-how, airports, etc?

7. Japanese ODA has been spent primarily in public infrastructural work, which makes them quite different from private investment. Private investment is focused on the smaller picture, a factory here or there, it doesn’t have the same impact or purpose as ODA. Combining the aggregate of tens-of-thousands of individual investors to the investment of a single
government isn’t fair. Additionally, Japan’s ODA was not focused on making Japan any richer. First, Japanese ODA is not focused on high return businesses, but low return public works. Second facilitating business was not a key reason, Japanese corporations were reluctant to invest in China until the early 90s.

8. ODA has to be examined in a historical-economic perspective. Over the decades as China’s economy has
become more able to secure private investment, ODA has decreased in effect and importance. This however,
should not overshadow the role such ODA played in initially helping China achieve its current economic status.

9. Never look a gift-horse in the eye. Whatever the amount, any sane person would jump at the opportunity for such ODA on such good terms, rather than pass it up.

September 25, 2005 @ 10:53 pm | Comment

Good post everlasting. That nicely sweeps away Hui Mao’s hate-filled and half-baked musings about how unimportant and “no big deal” was Japan’s help.

Japan stood by China for 30 long years providing help, cash and technology when nobody other nation wanted anything to do with China. Before China became “fashionable” if you like.

How many Chinese products like mobile phones, TVs, DVD players, cars anything you care to mention came originally from Japan? What do the Japanese get in return? Riots, hatred and a constant stream of abuse and internal interferance from China.

Chinese people feel justified to say and do things to Japan that they would never accept other countries saying and doing to China. 100% hypocracy.

A interesting point:

India now is the top destination for Japanese aid and soft loans, recently replacing China.

September 25, 2005 @ 11:12 pm | Comment

lin, don’t you ever accuse me of “lying” again. Disagree agree with me, point out my mistakes but please grow up and keep the word “lying” out of it.

September 25, 2005 @ 11:21 pm | Comment

Elerlasting is correct, great comment.

Japan was providing low-interest loans to China from the 70s onwards. As Brian says, the normal sources of money (World Bank, IMF etc) didn’t want to go anywhere near China. When it did, it enacted very strict conditions for China loans.

He’s also right about international funding for many China infrastructure projects. Here in Guangzhou for example, the first Inner Ring Road was build with funding from, I think, the World Bank but that was in the mid-90s. For most of the pre-90s stuff, they were mainly built with Japanese money AND technological know-how.

Japan was also one of the first countries to invest in China, in the early and mid-80s. A of the early technology for Chinese ‘white goods’ came from early Japanese investment.

Does anyone remember how bad Chinese TV looked in the early 90s? It resembled 1950s Western TV. Then, suddenly, in the mid-90s, Chinese TV became really modern looking with flashy graphics and all sorts technological wizardry.

The reason? Sony. It handed over huge amounts of technology, including training to a very eager CCTV.

To try and downplay Japan’s role in China for the last 30 years is to do Japan a great disservice.

September 25, 2005 @ 11:33 pm | Comment

BTW, ask Russia about loans obtained through normal sources like the World Bank etc.

Russia had almost a bad international credit rating as China in the 90s so the only way Russia could borrow money was at ridiculously high levels of interest because nobody was prepared to take the risk of lending money to post-communist Russia.

The international lenders made a fortune out of lending money to Russia for a few years until the big Russian crash in the late 90s wiped out billions of international debt repayments.

Russia would have LOVED to have had its very own Japan back then – unfortunately it didn’t and ended up paying a massive price for it.

Now India is enjoying Japanese support.

September 25, 2005 @ 11:37 pm | Comment

lin

You have really embarrassed yourself with that long and very one sided comment! Your ignorance is staggering.

September 25, 2005 @ 11:56 pm | Comment

Unfortunately, Chinese racism, as well as censorship, has a lot to answer for. It doesn’t matter what anyone says to people like hiu mao and lin, their anti-japanese hatred consumes them and justifies their every action. What a sad life you two must lead.

At least people that cannot speak English in China have no choice but to read the anti-Japanese propaganda – what are your excuses?

September 26, 2005 @ 12:03 am | Comment

Well, I know downplaying any aid would surly make us disgraceful. That’s one of weakest point in our argument. Chinese often say “borrow a drop of water, return a spring back (sorry for the translation)” Clever Everlasting always know where to attack.
However, the point was raised because many people here often add the ODA to the current stalemate between Japan and China. I personally would treat this as a separate issue because as I mentioned before
The logic is not right if you think China have no rights to condemn the Shrine visits or revisionism because of $30 billion dollar low interest loan.

And again, Everlasting is very clever. According to his theory, it seems that Japan’s ODA initiated Chinese economic development in the early days. However we should have a correct attitude to Japan’s ODA. We should not down play it but overestimating it is also misleading.

How big is the $30 billion? US can spend easily this amount of money in a single year to deal with Iraqis (partially). IMF sent this amount of money overnight to Brazil to deal with the financial crisis. China obtained about equal amount of low interest loan from World Bank in the last 2 decades. This doesn’t include the fund from UN, Asian development bank, etc…

I should ask everlasting to look at this problem in another prospective. I have a good example here, once some western reporters attacked World Bank for giving about $1 billion to China every year because they think the loan should be given to other poorer countries. Do you know the answer of World Bank? They said the loan is for mutual benefits because they basically have no risk to get the loan back and in fact they never lost money in China and are making a little currently.

Again, I think every Chinese should appreciate the ODA from Japan as Japanese should appreciate China waived the right for seeking the compensation of WWII. However they are not equal to each other, which means it is not to say Japan can start enshrine their WWII heroes without considering the feeling of Chinese victims because they have loaned Chinese $30 billions.

BTW: Marytn, sorry, I won’t say you lying anymore, however please stop misleading people, Here I disagreed with you again as I pointed out WB has loaned China $30 billion as well.

I would not engage in a debate on Japan’s ODA again because this makes me feel bad about myself. However my point is clear here and I hope nobody else will ever link this ODA to the political stalemate between Japan and China again.
I am also truly happy for Indian who can eventually receive the money from Japan and I think they should have even received it earlier. It is the time for Asia to grow.

September 26, 2005 @ 12:06 am | Comment

lin

Fine. It’s just that I made a mistake in one of my comments and Hui Mao kindly pointed it out. That doesn’t make me a liar. The actual article claimed that Koizumi’s last visit was in 2002, I later checked myself before Hui Mao commented but left my comment stand anyway.

September 26, 2005 @ 12:15 am | Comment

Should China be grateful for Japan’s loans? I don’t think so. It was the least Japan could do. If it were me, I would have demanded trillions of dollars in war reparations.

September 26, 2005 @ 9:32 am | Comment

Martyn, believe it or not, I was kind of joking…don’t take it seriously.

September 26, 2005 @ 6:07 pm | Comment

ZHT, Hiu Mao, Lin:

Get over it and get a life!

September 27, 2005 @ 1:04 am | Comment

This, like the il-conceived pre=electin missiles fired at Taiwan, show China’s complete lack of understanding of democracy. Koisumi, after his amazing electoral victory, has never been stronger, at home or aboard. China elects to diss him at the height of his powers when he is best situated to say “fuck em” and has no need whatsoever to pay them any heed. Very dumb politics.

September 28, 2005 @ 5:57 am | Comment

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