Beijing-Tokyo Forum seeks to mend ties
About 600 Chinese and Japanese representatives from various sectors agreed Wednesday that it is imperative to establish an air and maritime contact mechanism as soon as possible, as well as urge the two governments to deal calmly with security disputes.
The 12th Beijing-Tokyo Forum was held from Tuesday to Wednesday in Tokyo, Japan to discuss "key issues affecting bilateral relations in an effort to enhance ties and bridge differences," the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.
According to a statement on the forum's website, both sides believe the countries should correctly deal with the conflicts in the military security area and strengthen communication and dialogue across multiple channels. Both sides suggested the maritime and air liaison mechanism should be launched as soon as possible, which will increase mutual trust.
The forum, jointly organized by China International Publishing Group (CIPG) and Japanese think tank Genron Non-Profit Organization, shows that both sides are making efforts to keep channels open and explore ways to mend ties as relations between China and Japan have sunk to their lowest point in the past few decades, analysts said.
According to the statement, the two sides reached five consensuses on how to carry on cooperation in politics, the economy, security assurance, media and people-to-people exchanges.
It is the third time the forum has issued consensuses - the first was in 2012, when Sino-Japanese ties were strained over the Diaoyu Islands, and the second in 2014, the 10th anniversary of the forum, according to a Genron official.
Both sides stressed that "the two countries have already started discussing how to initiate cooperation in various areas based on the consensus reached by leaders from the two countries at the G20 summit in Hangzhou."
The forum will also launch an expert-level security dialogue mechanism, Japan's Kyodo News reported.
Civil society lead
"China and Japan are at an impasse for the first time since 1945," Kyodo cited former Japanese Ambassador to China Yuji Miyamoto as saying at the closing conference of the forum.
Miyamoto noted that it was very important for Chinese and Japanese experts to exchange ideas through dialogue.
Wang Chong, deputy secretary general of Beijing-based think tank the Charhar Institute, agreed, saying that China and Japan still have extensive economic cooperation.
"Japan needs China's market, and China needs Japan's technology in environmental protection, robotics and other high-tech industries," Wang said, adding that good civil and economic communications help create a better environment for bilateral ties.
Hu Lingyuan, a professor at the Japanese Research Center of Shanghai-based Fudan University said he doubts that civil society-level communication can radically impact the deadlocked Sino-Japanese ties.
"[Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe constantly pushes the China threat theory and promotes nationalism to win domestic support for constitutional amendments," Hu said.
Although the Japanese government had made some movements to promote civil-level communication, like relaxing visa regulations for Chinese visitors, it is only to advance economic interests rather than from a willingness to improve bilateral ties, Hu noted.
Tourism highs
Data from the Japanese statistics and tourist bureaus showed that over 730,000 Chinese people traveled to Japan in July, a record high. In 2015, Chinese travelers spent 3 trillion yen ($29.8 billion) in the country, an increase of 70 percent on 2014.
However, the number of Japanese inbound to China has been stable in the past few years, according to people.cn.
"The Japanese government and media share a huge responsibility in advocating negative images of China to Japanese people," Liu Qing, president of the Institute of the Asia-Pacific region, told the Global Times.
According to a yearly survey released before the forum, 71.9 percent of Japanese respondents believe bilateral ties were currently in a "very bad" or "bad" situation and 66.6 percent say that the situation was due to territorial disputes while 35.4 percent think that the obstacle was maritime resource conflicts.
Minister Jiang Jianguo of China's State Council Information Office called on Japan not to meddle in the South China Sea at the forum, Kyodo reported.
"Japan's excessive concern about the South China Sea issue is out of many countries' expectations, making these countries reflect on what kind of role it would play after the normalization of Japan," Liu said.
"Decades after the war, Chinese people are trying to forgive and tolerate the Japanese and understand their culture, but the Japanese government is still portraying China as an enemy. They need some self-reflection," he said.
