The recent revival of Sino- Japanese animosity, triggered by bitter disputes over history, territory and maritime natural resources, has the potential not only to derail China’s self-proclaimed goal of a “peaceful rise” but to disrupt healthy momentum towards east Asian economic integration. Obviously, Beijing and Tokyo must share the blame for the deterioration of their ties. The repeated visits by Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese prime minister, to the Yasukuni shrine, which honours Japan’s war dead (and 14 class A war criminals) are ill advised and provocative. Beijing’s failure to curb violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in April this year and its habitual exploitation of Japan’s war guilt have also poisoned the atmosphere of bilateral ties.
But a more disturbing development in Sino-Japanese relations is the rapidly growing mutual enmity of ordinary people in both countries. In Japan, the cabinet office’s poll in 2004 found only 38 per cent of the public professed an “affinity” towards China, an all-time low since the poll began in 1978. In a survey conducted this month by Yomiuri Shimbun, a big Japanese daily newspaper, and Gallup, the US polling organisation, 72 per cent of the Japanese respondents said they did not trust China (in comparison, 53 per cent of the Americans polled expressed distrust of China). Negative Japanese perceptions of China stem from hostility towards China’s authoritarian political system, fear of China’s military and economic power and resentment of ¬≠Beijing-sanctioned anti-Japanese ¬≠propaganda.
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