Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's upcoming
visit to the United States is bound to come under close scrutiny in
China. The postponed trip, the first since Abe took office late
last year, takes place at a time when the two neighbors remain
entangled in a protracted dispute over the sovereignty of the
Diaoyu Islands.
When Abe was sworn in as Japan's new prime
minister, there was cautious optimism that he would take a more
realistic attitude. But those hopes lay in tatters after Abe
unveiled a self-contradictory approach that aroused suspicions from
China. While making positive gestures to China through the visits
of high-profile politicians, he has clung to an uncompromising
stance. Notably, he has cozied up to other nations in the region
including those having territorial disputes with China such as Viet
Nam and the Philippines in an apparent bid to hem in China.
What complicates matters is that the United
States, which helped sow discord out of Cold War mentality, has
weighed in with statements that most Chinese observers believe are
vague and biased. Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
recently expressed opposition to "any unilateral actions that would
seek to undermine Japanese administration," implicitly putting the
blame on China.
It should be noted that China was not the one
that changed the status quo. China has long held the position that
the dispute can be shelved when conditions are not ripe to resolve
it. The current round of tensions flared up in September 2012
following the Japanese Government's "nationalization" of some of
these islands, a unilateral move that forced China, the islands'
legitimate owner, to react. China is not the instigator of trouble;
rather, its actions aim to cope with provocation from Japan.
Encouragingly, anti-Japanese nationalistic sentiments that saw the
outbreak of massive protests at the outset are ebbing away, with
rational discussions dominating public opinion in China.
The ball is now in Japan's court. The Abe
administration is expected to take steps to address China's
concerns so that the two countries can engage in substantive
consultations. Ahead of Abe's widely watched visit to the United
States, it is also hoped that Washington should play a constructive
role, refrain from sending wrong signals and prevent the visit from
becoming part of Abe's alleged scheme to ally against China.
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