OPINION> Commentary
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OPINION> Commentary
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Rites of passage
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-23 07:06 The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Sazanami will start its five-day port call to China tomorrow. It will be the first Japanese warship to anchor in China after the World War II. Sazanami's stop at Zhanjiang, a port city in Guangdong province in South China, is a return visit after a Chinese navy missile destroyer's stop in Japan last year. Given Japan's invasion of China during World War II, the controversy over the presence of the Japanese navy destroyer in China, which was postponed by the earthquake in the country's Sichuan province, is understandable. The dialogue between China and Japan over military and security issues has been lagging far behind other aspects of the bilateral relations. When the warm spring returned to the political relations between the two countries, high hopes were pinned on the two governments starting talks on the military issues, the last untouchable part of the bilateral ties. Dialogues over military and security affairs between the two countries will help build trust and dispel each other's doubts. It will help reduce the conflicts caused by misunderstanding over each other's strategy. Compared with the close economic and cultural relations between China and Japan, their dialogues over military and security dimensions evolved slowly and at a low level in the past 36 years after the two counties established diplomatic ties.
Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan visited Japan last year, nine years after former Defense Minister Chi Haotian's Japan trip. Will the China visit of Sazanami, which is on its way with a symbolic amount of relief materials for the quake-hit areas, help the ice pack in the defense field melt? With Chinese and Japanese navy destroyers' visits to each other, the two countries are believed to have achieved a reconciliation on military matters. Inviting Japanese Self-Defense Force to observe its infantry division's attack exercises with live ammunition in Shenyang in September last year, China showed its neighbor its sincerity and resolution to build trust with Japan in the military field. China and Japan share a lot in common in dealing with the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and in safeguarding regional stability. Still, they can find common grounds in the nontraditional security areas such as the fight against international terrorism, sea piracy and drug trafficking. It will be unrealistic to expect that one visit of a Chinese or Japanese navy destroyer will remove all the doubts between China and Japan. They still have a long way to go before real trust is built. (China Daily 06/23/2008 page4) |
