By Miguel Oropeza De Cortéz-Caballero
Comparing current Sino-Japanese relations to the Soviet-U.S. thaw of the 1970s.
The enthusiasm, or lack thereof, which radiated from Chinese Premier Xi Xinping as he shook hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at last month’s APEC summit in Beijing was surely one of this year’s highlights of the annual meeting. Frostiness aside, it was an important moment that marked a turn in China-Japan relations that in recent years have been anything but warm. The reversal has been such that more and more the term détente, usually reserved to describe the U.S.-Soviet relations during the 1970s, has been used to describe the current state of relations between Beijing and Tokyo, including in a recent editorial in the New York Times written by Akio Takahara, Japanese Secretary General of the Japan-China Committee. What exactly does détente mean in the context of complex Sino-Japanese relations?
Although in the West the term may be synonymous with the thawing of icy relations between any two great powers, the understanding of détente in China goes further, retaining a distinctly Soviet framing. Despite the fact that Sovietology is seen as an increasingly irrelevant field of study in the West 25 years after the end of the Cold War, it remains popular amongst the Chinese leadership, who vividly remember the USSR and have developed what some call an obsession over studying what led to the demise of their former rival. As an example, one need not look further than a film produced last year in China about the fall of the Soviet Union, which had among its intended lessons to “correctly understand the lessons of history.” The Soviet specter being a haunting presence for Chinese policymakers has implications as Tokyo and Beijing retreat from brinksmanship.
Read the full story at The Diplomat