The relationship between China and Japan is a many-layered cake, impossible to eat all at once. This article will concentrate on the diplomatic layer of the relationship. Diplomatic history is essentially about the decisions of governments and the documents that are subsequently exchanged. Each of these aspects has its difficulties for the historian of East Asia. For substantial parts of the period under review “government” in a western sense hardly existed in China, while in Japan even the considered decisions of the government in Tokyo frequently failed to reflect the situation on the ground. In Japan's relations with China there was often a dual – if not a multiple – diplomacy at work where the army (among others) had an independent hand in fashioning “policy.”

One could write different histories of Chinese-Japanese relations since 1945, depending on whether one wished to emphasize the two countries’ security (or military) policies, economic connections, or other (cultural) ties. These aspects of the bilateral relationship are by no means always compatible with one another, nor can they be simply viewed as reflections of something more fundamental, whatever that something may be. Although the different manifestations of Chinese-Japanese relations are interconnected, it seems best first to sketch an outline of the security, economic, and cultural relationships, and then discuss how they add up, and what they may mean in terms of the overall international system.

Introduction

Sino-Japanese relations appear to have a dual structure which is built into the long history of exchanges and interaction between the two countries. Some phrases such as ichii taisui (“neighbours across the strip of water”) and dobun doshu (“same Chinese characters, same race”) have long been regarded as a symbol of the friendly relationship between the two countries. Such a symbol, however, implies dual and conflicting sentiments of the Japanese and the Chinese, namely the feelings of inferiority and superiority with each other in a hierarchical order of foreign relations in Asia.

To be more specific, the Chinese have a superiority complex deriving from their cultural influence in pre-modern history and hatred stemming from Japanese military aggression against China in the modern period, while having an inferiority complex based upon Japan's co-operation in their modernization, and admiration for Japan's advanced economy. On the other hand, the Japanese have an inferiority complex due to their cultural debt to China and the sense of original sin stemming from their past aggression against China, while having a superiority complex based upon their assistance to China's modernization and contempt for China's backwardness.

China, Japan and Economic Interdependence in the Asia Pacific Region

In expressing their gratitude for economic co-operation from Japan, Chinese leaders noted that such assistance would also be profitable to Japan in the long run. We in Japan certainly have no objection to this view. (Sakutaro Tanino, The Japan Times, 1 October 1988.)

Introduction

This article is concerned with the evolving framework of Sino-Japanese economic interdependence as seen in the development of plant and technology contracts between the two countries. I believe that this is the most fruitful approach to adopt in order to provide an understanding of the nature of the relationship, and because I have been involved in these transactions for two decades, this article is both an analysis of the available materials and a reflection of my own experiences. In the conclusion, I suggest ways in which the Sino-Japanese relationship can be further improved.

The Sino-Japanese relationship is among the central factors in East Asian international politics, but it remains a derivative rather than primary strategic pattern. Leaders in Beijing, long preoccupied by the Soviet-American military competition in East Asia and the more immediate Soviet challenge to China's security, have only begun to assess the potential effects of Japanese power on Chinese political and security interests. Japan's predominant concern has been the maintenance of its political and security alignment with the United States, reinforced by decades of Soviet rigidity toward Tokyo.