FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 11/29/05
CONTACT: Jennifer Linker, 202/939-2372, jlinker@CarnegieEndowment.org
 
Sino-Japanese relations have deteriorated sharply in recent years, raising the prospect of dangerous strategic conflict that could threaten U.S. interests. China experts Minxin Pei and Michael Swaine, senior associates at the Carnegie Endowment, have written a new Policy Brief analyzing the causes of Sino-Japanese tension and recommending policy steps to cool this Simmering Fire in Asia: Averting Sino-Japanese Strategic Conflict. Click here to read full Policy Brief.
 
Pei and Swaine write that China and Japan have never dealt with the legacy of World War II, and instead have recently reopened those bitter wounds.  China and Japan publish chauvinistic textbooks regarding each other.  Japan’s prime minister persists in provocatively visiting war shrines. Chinese submarines have crossed into into Japanese waters and the two countries’ dispute over natural gas deposits has intensified. Chinese demonstrators waged violent protests against Japan over the official authorization of revised history textbooks that play down the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during World War II and over Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.  Pei and Swaine put these alarming developments in historical and political context.  They also cite the economic interests that make neither country want to “risk a genuine cold war.”  Yet, if hostile passions continue to rise, unforeseen crises could spin out of control.
 
The paper examines U.S. policies toward the two countries and offers a two-step process to achieve better relations between Japan and China: “Strong, even-handed U.S. support for a cooling-off period, followed by several concrete initiatives designed to address some of the key sources of the dispute, can significantly reduce the chances of a full-blown strategic conflict emerging in the near future.” Washington should first consult privately with both sides, especially Tokyo, and then support a cooling-off period, urge Japan, South Korea, and China to work out their differences over historical textbooks, form a regional energy consortium, and establish a Northeast Asian security dialogue.

See www.CarnegieEndowment.org/Chinaprogram
Direct Link to pdf: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/pb44.pei.FINAL.pdf.

Minxin Pei is a senior associate and director of Carnegie’s China Program. He is a prolific writer on China relations and politics and is author of the forthcoming book, China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, forthcoming).
 
Michael Swaine is a senior associate in Carnegie’s China program specializing in Chinese security and foreign policy. He is the author of many articles and monographs, most recently “Military Modernization in Taiwan,” in Strategic Asia 2005-2006: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty (National Bureau of Asian Research, 2005).
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