continuing presence of the United States in East Asia, and even unilaterally develop nuclear weapons.
What sort of stability would there have been in East Asia if that happened? Both countries might have once more suffered equal and terrible losses. To disarm this time bomb, create a win-win situation for China and Japan, and force the United States to withdraw from East Asia required great wisdom or a once-in-a-century stroke of luck. That stroke of luck was the global economic stagflation.
One can say that Japan’s economic depression had already lasted more than twenty years, and every time their situation seemed to improve, they would fall back again. They were growing weaker, and the latest global economic decline made recovery look too far away to imagine. Japanese industrial production, which had once looked down its nose at the rest of the world, seemed to have no hope of recovering any time soon.
Chinese leaders saw this period of Japan’s greatest weakness as an opportunity too good to pass up. They demanded that the isolationist and protectionist Japanese market immediately be opened up to China, especially to allow China to purchase Japanese companies. If Japan refused, China would take retaliatory measures to restrict the access of Japanese goods and businesses to the Chinese market. These demands were the straw that broke the Japanese camel’s back. Now China is Japan’s number-one trading partner, and the Japanese economy recovered somewhat between 2002 and 2008, largely due to its trade with China.
In the end, and in the name of free trade, with great pomp and circumstance the two nations concluded a most-favored-nation agreement. Both countries can now go in and out of each other’s markets, without restriction, just as in China’s close bilateral economic-cooperation agreement with its Hong Kong special economic zone. This was the first time in history that Japan had freely opened its doors to another country. As these two markets rapidly became integrated, they were soon able to challenge the American and European economies.
When China and Japan joined hands, South Korea and other Asian countries all expressed a desire to collaborate with them to establish an East Asian common market. Even Australia, New Zealand, Canada’s two western provinces, and the Latin American members of APEC all wanted to organize a Pacific and East Asian community.
Besides expanding their free-trade area, China and Japan also signed an unprecedented agreement to allow the free movement between the two countries of workers with special expertise or capital investors. To assist Japan with its problem of an aging population, Chinese immigrants to Japan have to be under forty-five, while no such limit was placed on Japanese immigrants to China. On the basis of this agreement, an estimated fifty thousand or more Chinese will emigrate to Japan every year, about the same number that were going to Canada.
These Chinese have various reasons for emigrating: to find employment, because travel is easier with a Japanese passport, because of the quality of the Japanese lifestyle, or because they don’t want their children to endure the fierce competition for advancement in the Chinese education system. Most of the Japanese immigrants to China are senior citizens who can get much better value for money out of their pensions there, giving them both a higher standard of care and more enjoyment. China is helping Japan replenish its declining population with people of excellent quality. This policy also has great symbolic meaning, since it implies that China and Japan have forgotten their former enmity, and now happily receive each other into their respective countries. The process is similar to how the traditional enemies Germany and France began to live in peaceful coexistence after the Second World War and also established a new order in Europe.
Of equal importance, China and Japan signed a mutual non-aggression and national security treaty stipulating that if one of them was attacked, the other would come to its aid. It has the same structure as the United States- Japan Mutual Defense Treaty, the NATO alliance, or similar pacts between nineteenth-century European powers. A brilliant Chinese aspect of this treaty was to allay Japanese anxiety by not demanding that Japan abrogate its mutual defense treaty with the United States. Japan is now protected by both China and the United States; it has bought two insurance policies.
The Sino-Japanese security treaty also put a restraint on North Korea. On the one hand, it meant that North Korea could no longer practice nuclear blackmail against Japan, because if Japan was attacked China would come to its aid. On the other hand, Japan could no longer use the threat from North Korea to justify military expansion. After the stubborn South Korean regime began to feel isolated, they too considered signing a similar security treaty with China to further curb the power of North Korean militarism.
“That’s China for you,” said He Dongsheng with a smile. “All you have to do is recognize China as your friendly older brother, and everything can be easily accomplished, even if China has to give up some of its advantages.”
In the last century, Japan invaded China and the Chinese people hate the Japanese to this day, but today’s Japanese certainly do not hate the Chinese. They used to look down on us or even despise us, but now they fear us. In the past they were the invaders, but surprisingly they have no hate-China complex. This is easily understood if we think about it: if you inflicted terrible harm on us in the past, naturally you do not hate us now. The Japanese believe they were defeated by the Americans. Japanese territory had never before been occupied by a foreign power until the American postwar occupation, and there are still fifty thousand U.S. troops stationed on Japanese territory. Therefore, to this very day, the Japanese harbor a wish to see the Americans suffer a setback. This is part of the subtle but deep psychology between powerful and weak peoples, the invaders and the invaded, the victorious and the defeated in war-another war is not necessarily the only way to take revenge and wipe away the shame. A reversal in the status of the high and the low, or at least a new equality in status, might suffice.
This is why the East Asian Monroe Doctrine and the Sino-Japanese mutual security treaty actually had so many supporters in Japan-because they were a slap in the face to the Americans. The subtext of the extremely close Sino-Japanese bilateral economic-cooperation agreement was that Japan needs China’s assistance, and that also gave many Chinese a strong feeling of self-respect.
If Sun Yat-sen were alive today he would surely congratulate China on the realization of its century-old dream. “Well done! Well done!” was He Dongsheng’s proud conclusion.
The best option in the real world
“Ha! The realization of his century-old dream?” protested Little Xi. “If Sun Yat-sen were alive today, he’d die of anger. Sun’s Three People’s Principles were nationality, rights, and livelihood. Where are the people’s rights now? In the last hundred years, their rights have been trampled all over by your Communist Party. Every time we turn around, you’re cracking down, snatching people, and throwing them in prison.” She stamped her foot for emphasis.
“Right,” said Fang Caodi. “You say social order is in danger, there are great contradictions, and evildoers are running amok, but who’s really responsible for stirring up all this social unrest? Isn’t it all due to the corruption and incompetence of your Communist Party? It’s been over sixty years since the founding of the People’s Republic! Is the Nationalist KMT Party in power now?”
“According to you,” said Little Xi, “China has already entered an age of ascendancy and prosperity. If that’s so, why are you still unable to govern the country by the rule of law? Do you believe that China should never have the rule of law? After over sixty years in power, you’re still unable to practice good government! The problem is that your Communist Party is fundamentally opposed to real political reform. Every new policy is designed to be a cash cow for your corrupt cadres and officials, on every level. Can one-party dictatorship solve the problem of your Party’s own corruption? Just look at your ‘second generation rich,’ all those children of entrepreneurs, and ‘second generation officials,’ all those children of the Party elite. They’re disgusting. They’re all fat cats of crony capitalism!” She folded her arms in rebuke.
“The Chinese Communist Party is completely hypocritical,” said Fang Caodi. “They’re always lying, hiding the truth, distorting history-you cheat me and I cheat you. It starts with the top leadership and the lower echelons emulate them; even the younger generation has been corrupted. When a nation that used to pride itself on its honesty has become so morally degenerate, how can you talk about prosperity and ascendancy?”
“You’ve just been talking back and forth about the old ideal of ‘enriching the state and strengthening the military,’ ” Lao Chen chimed in now, “about how to grab resources, how to stimulate economic growth, overtake Japan, and catch up with the United States, but the costs of your economic development have been tremendous. You’ve ruined the environment and exhausted all the resources of even your grandchildren’s generation. Following the Western industrial nations’ model of development, sooner or later you’ll come to a dead end and be stopped in
