## Understanding the Destiny of China and Japan **By Bi Ruixie (Writer, New York)** **Author’s Note (July 11, 2022):** This essay was originally published in July 2014 on BBC Chinese and the *World Journal* in the United States, eliciting a strong response. In light of Vice President Lai Ching-te’s recent visit to Tokyo, I have chosen to republish it. --- Japan has finally secured the long-sought right of collective self-defense, while China faces growing unease. Those who advocate Sino-Japanese friendship often repeat the familiar cliché that “China and Japan are close neighbors, linked by a mere belt of water.” Yet paradoxically, this very proximity may be the source of profound misfortune. East Asia is a small stage; even a single great power strains its limits. How can two regional giants coexist without friction? For centuries, from the Ming dynasty to the present, Sino-Japanese relations have been marked more by conflict than by friendship. Mutual grievances run deep, coupled with enduring mutual contempt. Derogatory labels—“Little Japan” and “Chinaman”—are widely known across both societies. China has historically underestimated Japan as a small, sparsely populated nation with a limited cultural reach, while Japan, though defeated in World War II, has treated China with formal respect but underlying skepticism, regarding China as merely a beneficiary of U.S. support. Moreover, after the Allied victory in 1945, the Chinese Nationalist and Communist parties became bitter enemies. Japan deftly navigated between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, avoiding substantial reparations and quietly taking satisfaction in its relative gain. Viewed dispassionately, China and Japan share striking similarities. China emerged from the unprecedented upheaval of the Cultural Revolution and, over thirty years of reform and opening, has transformed profoundly. Japan, devastated by nuclear attacks, took sixty years to rebuild and internalize lessons from catastrophe. Both nations are dissatisfied with their current international standing and remain entranced by visions of past glory—the “Kang-Qian era” for China and the Meiji Restoration for Japan. Both view the other as a potential rival: China sees Japan as a barrier to projecting influence beyond the first island chain, while Japan sees China as an obstacle to reclaiming the mantle of Asia’s second-largest economy. Both nations carry a sense of exceptionalism. Each believes it could decisively defeat the other in a direct confrontation. They resemble two overgrown warriors attempting to don ill-fitting armor: some rips caused by sheer strength, others torn intentionally to display muscle. Both are eager to return to the battlefield. Being part of the East Asian cultural sphere, China and Japan are, metaphorically, distant cousins sharing certain deep-seated traits. Hegel, and later Richard Nixon in *The Arena*, noted that the Chinese are a people prone to remembering grievances. The Japanese, too, have inherited historical resentments; even today, some in Japan justify the invasions of China in the 1930s and 1940s as retribution for military campaigns by Kublai Khan centuries earlier. Both nations share a fixation: if the top spot in the world order is unattainable, the second-best position must be fiercely contested. Japan has the backing of the United States. China is the only emerging power capable of challenging U.S. hegemony. Time appears to favor China as the gap between China and the U.S. narrows. Yet Japan remains the only regional power with the ability, will, and courage to directly confront China. From Washington’s perspective, the entanglement of these two Asian giants serves U.S. strategic interests, neutralizing potential threats while maintaining the United States’ supremacy. Over the past thirty years, China has enjoyed the benefits of U.S. and Japanese accommodation. The cycle of fortune is shifting; China now faces the consequences of U.S. and Japanese assertiveness. It is often noted that Japan is the only nation to have endured nuclear attacks. Sympathy and horror coexist in global perceptions, but few ask why Japan alone bore this fate. The reality is that the Japanese experience was historically unique: a fiercely martial and audacious people, shaped by a culture that venerates heroic sacrifice, facing unprecedented atomic devastation. Without the atomic bombings, Japan may well have pursued its “one hundred million die gloriously” plan, as MacArthur reportedly called it, with catastrophic consequences. Some argue that Japan’s high economic interdependence with China makes it reluctant to provoke Beijing. This underestimates the Japanese spirit: having survived nuclear devastation, Japan is resilient to extreme adversity. If measured by the ability to endure mutual destruction, Japan has the advantage—its historical experience has forged a nation unafraid of existential risk. The atomic bombings also shape Japan’s moral calculus. While Germany, spared nuclear attacks, can reflect on wartime guilt through conventional ethical lenses, Japan’s view is different: a conventional war met with unprecedented atomic retaliation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely civilian targets. Death by atomic bomb was incomparably more excruciating than conventional deaths, creating a situation where punishment exceeded crime. Thus, in Japanese perception, there is no need for further moral reckoning. Japan’s modern history is, in many ways, a history of overcoming repeated national calamities. Natural disasters like the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake temporarily unite the nation. Likewise, the prolonged struggle with China may, over time, enable Japan to leverage its resilience, recover from decades of stagnation, and reassert itself as a central power in Asia. Inescapably, the fates of China and Japan are intertwined, yet fraught with tension. One cannot exist without the other on this East Asian stage. History is impartial, and the forces shaping these destinies are relentless. --- |
