Chinese scholars on Sino-Japanese ties

Facing the sustained cold political ties between China and Japan, Chinese scholars Friday urged the two countries to expand common interests and cooperation with concrete measures to secure "a relatively optimistic and stable" Sino-Japanese ties.

"The political coldness between China and Japan was largely caused by the conflicts in their attitudes towards history," said Liu Jiangyong, a professor from China's Qinghua University, at a forum focusing on the Sino-Japanese relations.

Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, despite protests form China and other Asian countries, has repeatedly visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 notorious Class-A war criminals responsible for the country's aggressive war against Asian neighbors.

In addition, the Japanese government's approval of several history textbooks, which was accused of whitewashing Japan's wartime atrocity, also strained the Sino-Japanese ties.

Besides history issue, Liu said Japan's changes in its policy on relations with China, the increasing influence of the rightist thoughts and the contradiction in the structure of the two countries' economic development all contributed to the political coldness.

On Wednesday, Koizumi was reelected prime minister at an extraordinary parliamentary session. Chinese scholars said Koizumi has to face the key task of improving Japan-China ties in his term in dealing with many issues including promoting relations with Asian neighbors.

The cold Sino-Japanese political ties have caused great concern from the leadership of both China and Japan. On April 23, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Koizumi in Jakarta, Indonesia. Hu proposed a five-point proposal to improve bilateral ties. Koizumi agreed that the conflicts should be solved through dialogue.

Jin Linbo, a researcher of the Asia-Pacific Office under the China Research Institute of International Studies, said despite the negative factors in Sino-Japanese relations, there still remain many positive factors.

Firstly the two governments have the desire to promote the stable growth of bilateral ties, Jin said.

Secondly, China and Japan have become increasingly dependent on each other in economy and trade and bilateral economic ties also go with the efforts in setting up an East Asia community, Jin said.

Thirdly, Jin said China and Japan still have great room to expand common interests and cooperation in the fields of security, energy, environmental protection as well as international and regional issues.

The forum, which was held by the school of international relations and East Asia research center of China's Renmin University, attracted over 80 scholars from China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and Mongolia.

Source: Xinhua