2025 Volume 2025 Issue 214 Pages 214_144-214_159
This paper explores the policy process of China’s diplomacy of normalization toward Japan by focusing on the relationship between China’s perceptions of the international situation and its diplomacy toward Japan in the early 1970s.
China’s diplomacy with Japan in the 1970s began with fierce criticism of Japanese militarism. In addition to distrust of the Sato administration, strong vigilance against U.S. intentions, which stemmed from the U.S. expansion of the Indochina War, was the main cause of China’s criticism. From China’s perspective, the U.S. was abetting Japan’s expansion in Northeast Asia while expanding the war in Indochina. For this reason, high priority was given to forming an anti-U.S. united front. China’s fierce criticism of Japanese militarism was part of this effort.
Subsequently, China’s views on U.S. policy intentions underwent a significant transformation, and the development of détente in Europe led China to realize the need to break the ice in its relations with the U.S. While giving priority to the breakthrough of ties with the U.S., with regards to Japan, China narrowed the target of the united front to the Sato administration and expanded the scope of the united front from the traditional “leftists” to the so-called “centrists” and “business community.” China’s admission to the United Nations and the U.S.-China rapprochement following Nixon’s visit to China greatly impacted Japanese public opinion. The Sato administration’s stance toward China also transformed. Still, China decided not to negotiate with Sato and to wait for the next administration to emerge, based on its judgment that the diplomatic situation was favorable toward it.
While the Sino-American approach gave China an advantage in its diplomatic position vis-à-vis Japan, it also contributed to the U.S.-Soviet détente, a diplomatic development that China did not want to witness. This was because the Soviet Union, wary of the US-China rapprochement, became more flexible toward a US-USSR summit. For China, even though relations with the United States improved, the development of détente between the Soviets and the U.S. meant that China’s diplomatic position was weakened. Thus, a diplomatic breakthrough with Japan came to be recognized as a necessary means of strengthening China’s diplomatic position and, accordingly, was given high diplomatic priority.
By this point, China, which had previously seen the significance of its relations with Japan in an anti-U.S. context, started to see the importance of its diplomacy with Japan from the viewpoint of strengthening China’s diplomatic positioning in the international system.
