By Ryosei Kokubun, Chairman of the Asian Affairs Research Council

"A mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests" is a phrase that has often been used in recent Japan-China relations. This term carries a complicated history, and understanding it is important to grasp the current situation and challenges of the bilateral ties.

The term was first used in 2006 between then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and concurrent Chinese President Hu Jintao. Its contents were afterward specified in the Japan-China Joint Statement exchanged between later Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Hu during the Chinese leader's state visit to Japan in 2008.

The 2008 statement is one of the four important political documents in Japan-China relations, along with the 1972 Joint Communique, the 1978 Treaty of Peace and Friendship and the Joint Declaration of 1998.

When President Xi Jinping's visit to Japan was considered before the coronavirus pandemic, a fifth political document was rumored to be in the making with the advent of the Xi era. However, it never materialized amid deteriorating relations between Tokyo and Beijing.

Perhaps due to that, Xi has long tended to avoid using the term "mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests." The expression, however, was recently revived at a summit between the president and former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in November 2023, and was also used in Xi's meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba this year.

The two countries apparently first agreed on the use of the term around the inauguration of the first Abe administration, during a comprehensive, strategic policy dialogue between Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of China Dai Bingguo in 2006. The term is said to have been created with two senior Japanese Foreign Ministry officials playing major roles: Kenichiro Sasae, Director of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and Takeo Akiba, Director of the China Division.

There were various issues in the bilateral negotiation process to select the term to describe Japan-China ties. At first, the Foreign Ministry was worried that the word "strategic (senryaku=zhanlue)" would provoke the United States. Also, "mutually beneficial (gokei=huhui)" was selected because the Chinese word for "win-win (shuangying)" does not have a direct Japanese equivalent.

At the time, I was a member of the New Japan-China Friendship Committee for the 21st Century, and the secretary general of the Japan side. The bilateral relationship was going through considerable turbulence triggered by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's official visit to Yasukuni Shrine, which is considered by some as a symbol of Japan's prewar militarism. In these circumstances, the committee was established in 2003 as a dialogue mechanism to make recommendations from the private sector to the two governments.

Transition from 'friendship'

Prior to the establishment of this committee, I asked if the word "friendship (yuko=youhao)" could be removed to broaden the significance of Japan-China relations, but the Chinese side did not agree and left it as it was. In the committee, there were many opinions that the current situation between the two countries, which was all about historically thorny issues, could be pictured so as to be more positive, long-term and broad. From the panel's beginning, the need for a strategic perspective was agreed upon. In other words, there was a current to shift from "friendship" to "strategic relationship."

Abe, who succeeded Koizumi in 2006, chose China and South Korea instead of the United States as his first destinations for foreign visits. In China, he declared the establishment of the "mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests" with President Hu.

The joint statement said this: "The Japanese side emphasized that Japan more than 60 years after the War, has been consistently following the path of a peaceful country, and would continue to follow this, and the Chinese side positively appreciated this." This announcement was an attempt to break away from the historical issues rooted in Japan's invasion of China.

The statement even mentioned the issue of the East China Sea, saying, "Both sides reaffirmed that, in order to make the East China Sea a 'Sea of Peace, Cooperation and Friendship,' each should firmly maintain dialogue and consultation, ... and confirmed that they would adhere to the broad direction of joint development and seek a resolution acceptable for both parties." Incidentally, this expression on the East China Sea was also raised by the 21st Century Committee.

The 2008 statement went further than the 2006 document and described in more detail the content of the earlier document. It held that Japan-China relations should not be merely bilateral, but "strategic" and broadly positioned in the world, that Japan has contributed to world peace and stability as a peaceful nation after WWII, and that China agreed to "attach importance" to Japan's position in the United Nations.

Flexible stance of the Hu era

Moreover, the document even stated that the two sides will "engage in close cooperation to develop greater understanding and pursuit of basic and universal values (fuhenteki-kachi=pushijiazhi) that are commonly accepted by the international community." At that time, there was discussion in China over "universal values." Later, "universal values" were replaced by "Chinese values," but this sentence in the joint statement shows that at this stage Hu was committed to "universal values" that respect human rights and democracy.

During the Hu period, there were several anti-Japanese demonstrations over history and territory. Demonstrations in China generally have some kind of organization behind them. Back then, I argued that it was an attempt by the Jiang Zemin faction to destabilize the Hu regime under the guise of anti-Japan movement, but this view was not widely held. Now, however, such an interpretation is rather common.

As for the issue of Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, the 2008 Joint Statement contains only a short sentence that does not even mention "One China." It goes like this: "Regarding the Taiwan issue, the Japanese side again expressed its adherence to the position enunciated in the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China." Considering today's tense international situation, China's flexible stance back then is astonishing.

These documents should not be viewed solely as the achievements of Japan's diplomacy. If China never had the idea of moving toward international cooperation, the joint statement would not have been so flexible. It can be said that the document contained the stance of President Hu, who in 2022 had to leave the venue of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China on the closing day as if he were being chased away.

Xi not simply 'anti-Japanese'

Naturally, Xi Jinping must have closely read these sentences. He has sometimes used the term "mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests" and at other times avoided it. Now, he has returned to using the phrase. In Japan, there is a strong tendency to view Xi's excessively authoritarian posture as a constant and to see him as an anti-Japanese activist who stays firm on issues involving history and sovereignty, but his thinking also fluctuates according to circumstance.

Xi frequently interacted with local politicians and business people in Japan during his time working in the countryside, and his wife Peng Liyuan is said to have visited Japan frequently. There is also word that his only daughter was enrolled in a university in Japan before studying in the United States. Xi is not simply "anti-Japanese."

I have been a consistent critic of the authoritarian Xi regime, but I can also see that his political position seems to be quite difficult given the terrible economic situation, the inauguration of the Trump administration and a chaotic military personnel reshuffle. In this sense, we need to firmly determine that the return to a mutually beneficial, strategic relationship with Japan is not a temporary one.

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Ryosei Kokubun received his Ph.D. in law from Keio University. He served as the dean of the Faculty of Law and Politics and the director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Keio, and was the president of the National Defense Academy of Japan from 2012 to 2021. He is the president of the Japan Society for Defense Studies and a former president of the Japan Association of International Relations (2006-2008) and the Japan Association for Asian Studies (2005-2007). He was appointed chairman of the Asian Affairs Research Council in May 2024.