Facing History While Looking Forward
by Ezra Vogel
China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back fifteen hundred years. But today their relationship is strained. China’s military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan’s brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years less than ten percent of each population had positive feelings toward the other, and both countries insist that the other side must deal openly with its history before relations can improve. From the sixth century, when the Japanese adopted core elements of Chinese civilization, to the late twentieth century, when China looked to Japan for a path to capitalism, Ezra Vogel’s China and Japan: Facing History examines key turning points in Sino–Japanese history. Throughout much of their past, the two countries maintained deep cultural ties, but China, with its great civilization and resources, had the upper hand. Japan’s success in modernizing in the nineteenth century and its victory in the 1895 Sino–Japanese War changed the dynamic, putting Japan in the dominant position. The bitter legacy of World War II has made cooperation difficult, despite efforts to promote trade and, more recently, tourism.
In the book, Vogel underscores the need for Japan to offer a thorough apology for the war, but he also urges China to recognize Japan as a potential vital partner in the region. He argues that for the sake of a stable world order, these two Asian giants must reset their relationship, starting with their common interests in environmental protection, disaster relief, global economic development, and scientific research. Here is a brief excerpt.
The current dialogue on history between China and Japan has focused on the unfortunate side of the relationship. Less attention has been given to the good relations between the two countries at times of great cultural borrowing, especially in the periods from 600 to 838, when Japan borrowed so heavily from China, and from 1905 to 1937 and 1978 through the 1990s, when China borrowed so much from Japan. The two cultures have changed throughout history, but there remains a broad base of commonality in the written language, literature, Buddhism, Confucianism, art, architecture, and music they share, some of which is even incorporated into popular culture, and this could form the basis for continued cooperation in the future, if permitted by national policies.
Each country has placed more emphasis on its own contributions to the other and its own suffering at the hands of the other. These images have been kept alive to strengthen loyalty to the nation and to the nation’s leaders. The Chinese, especially through popular Sino-Japanese War movies, have emphasized the negative side of Sino-Japanese relations throughout history. Many Chinese people are convinced that the Japanese are aggressive by nature. In China’s patriotic narrative, the Sino Japanese War of 1937–1945 is simply the latest chapter revealing the true Japanese character. In this view, the Japanese are polite — on the surface. In the 1920s, for example, the Japanese talked about cooperation, but in the end they initiated incidents and sneak attacks against both China and the United States.
The Chinese people have little awareness of the positive side of their relationship with Japan, of how much they have benefited from the “learn from Japan” programs after 1895 and the“development assistance” programs after 1978. They are not fully aware of the generosity of Japanese aid pro- grams in the 1980s and 1990s. They are also not aware of the extent to which Japan has apologized, or how thoroughly the Japanese have renounced militarism and pursued peace.
Throughout history the Japanese have had a deep sense of the Chinese as a proud and arrogant people who demand subordination by other people. Thus, ever since 607 the Japanese have maintained a reluctance to bow down to the Chinese and a determination to be treated as political equals. For the Japanese, requests by the Chinese that they grovel in apologies represent the latest version of China’s attempts to assert its superiority. The Japanese are willing to apologize, but they are not prepared to bow down and apologize in the way that the Chinese demand.
The Japanese are aware of Japan’s positive contributions to China in the modernization of Manchuria and Taiwan and its contributions to China after 1895 and 1978. However, their collective historical memory directs less attention to the harm and suffering Japan caused to China, an issue that is constantly stressed by the Chinese. The Japanese government at times has not allowed textbooks critical of Japan’s aggression in China to be used in its schools, and many publications and public discussions in Japan gloss over the atrocities that Japan committed in China.
What Japan and China Can Do to Face History
Both countries could avoid aggravating the problems that arise from history by providing their citizens with a fuller and more accurate account of their history and a more balanced presentation of their current relations. They could help their citizens better understand their long-entangled his- tory in a way that acknowledges how much they have learned from each other and reflects their positive experiences from working together.
The Japanese prime minister and other senior officials could decide that they will not visit the Yasukuni Shrine while they are in office. The Japanese could also provide fuller accounts of the Sino-Japanese War in curriculum guidelines for compulsory high school history courses, in particular by including the word “invasion” (shinryaku) in their textbooks. Japan could produce more television programs that give a full accounting of the suffering inflicted on the Chinese people by Japan’s invasions. The Japanese people, individually, could make greater efforts to understand the history of Japanese aggression in China, as well as to better understand Chinese society and the attitudes of the Chinese people.
The Chinese could teach their students more about what China learned from Japan between 1905 and 1937 as well as after 1978. They could give the public a fuller account of the Japanese turn to peace after 1945, Japanese contributions to China since 1978, and the apologies already offered by Japanese officials. They could reduce the number of anti-Japanese movies about World War II produced and shown in China and present more balanced descriptions of Japan in their museums, their classrooms, and the media.
The Chinese could also study the example of Japan’s history in the first half of the twentieth century as a warning of what can happen as a country becomes richer and stronger, when support for military expansion becomes so strong that its leaders are unable to restrain superpatriotic passions that can ultimately lead to disaster.
