Im sure everyone is aware of the animosity between China and Japan, what Im after is their common ground, in what areas of science, economics, etc. do they cooperate, if anywhere?
Well, Mao cooperated with the Japanese against the Nationalists.
Hehe, true dat.
Interesting question.
Within Asia, China was the biggest recipient of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2000. Most of this was devoted to manufacturing.
Then again Asia only comprised about 12% of total Japanese foreign investment. And Chinese FDI was only 17% of that. (OTOH, Hong Kong clocked in at 16%, so together they sum to 33% of Japanese FDI in Asia. Less than half of Japanese FDI in Hong Kong is in manufacturing).
http://www.hiebs.hku.hk/working_papers.asp?ID=72
Japanese investment in China hit a record of $6.5 billion in 2005; total foreign investment in China stood at $60 billion. Call it something over 10%.
http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11755
Same story. The ties between to the 2 countries are not trivial, but I wouldn’t call them mutually dependent.
I think you’ve got it backwards. Or at least the Nationalists did their utmost to avoid taking on the Japanese. Please see Stillwell and the American Experience in China for a long list of where this was the case.
Japanese FDI is HUGE, From FT: Japanese investment into China in 2005 hit a record high of $6.5bn, quelling fears that the severe deterioration in political relations during the year would corrode future economic ties between Asia’s two largest economies. IIRC, That’s about 10% of the total FDI into China and about the same as the *total * global FDI into India. Japan’s FDI into China is 2.1x greater than the US in 2005.
In the first two months of 2006, Sino-Japanese trade volume reached $14.9 billion, up 11.6 percent year on year. As against China’s over 20 percent annual growth in foreign trade, the growth rate seems modest. But considering the long history and maturity of bilateral trade, the figure is quite impressive.
Thousands if not tens of thousands of Chinese students study in Japan. Chinese language study is also popular now in China, and there is a large wave of Japanese (especially women) who come to China to live, work, have an adventure, and build a career here in China.
It’s a complicated love-hate relationship between the two countries.
You can find some more information on the hate part of that relationship by Googling for the Yasukuni shrine.
The not-insignificant amounts of money trading hands lubricates matters quite well.
I bet!
Did you mean Japanese language study in China, or Chinese language study in Japan? Or, both?
You need to get your hands on a copy of Jung Chang and Jon Holliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story. Presumably banned in PRC, which tells its own story. Chinese language edition in the pipeline - hopefully, in simplified as well as traditional characters, so those families who suffered most between the 1934 and 1976 can get some sort of closure - as well as understanding and knowledge.
My Chinese friend said it basically boils down to this.
They trade products and money. That is the end of their relationship.
Japan was heavily involved in China’s economic renaissance, being largely responsible for the foreign investment that kept it fueled, and averaging more than 20% of China’s foreign trade over the last forty years. Politically, the two countries cooperated in pushing forward ASEAN as an organization, curtailing the Soviet Union’s influence in Asia, and in quelling tensions in the Koreas.
The conflicts over the last twenty years over official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine are at odds with their 1972 treaty in which China renounced all further claims for war reparations (mostly in exchange for Japan’s recognition of Beijing as the official government of China in place of Taipei).
As others have mentioned, the Japanese lanaguage is widely studied in Chinese schools (we’ve had several Chinese employees with various levels of fluency, but all from Chinese schools). China is crucial to Japanese industry for low-cost manufacturing, as well as important markets for Japanese steel and finished products.
Does this book refute that the KMT pursued a civil war and the Communists fought the Japanese (and KMT)? I’ve read Wild Swans and color me extremely unimpressed. Decent intro to China if that’s all one knows, but she leaves out volumes especially how her privledged connections protected her and got her out of China. The book on Mao is probably pretty interesting although I doubt if it’s earthshattering to someone who’s been a long time student of China. Probably a good introduction though. Although Wild Swans, Private Life of Chairman Mao, Life and Death in Shanghai, etc are all banned in China, they are all also widely available - just check airport bookshops. Chinese versions are even easier to get.
Sweeping generalization is that the Nationalists did everything they could to avoid engaging the Japanese and concentrated on pursuing the civil war against the communists. The Communists led peasant indigeneous guerrilla warfare against both the Japanese and expanded their area of control from the KMT.
This isn’t communist propaganda but well researched views. Look up what Roosevelt and Truman thought of Generalissimo Cash My Check, who basically had to be bribed during the duration of WW2 not to make peace with Japan. As mentioned earlier, Stillwell and the American Experience in China has well documented how Chiang Kai-shek did all he could to avoid engaging the Japanese.
When I tought English at a Junior College in Taiwan in 1982, the civics class taught (brainwashed) students that of course it is much better to fight a civil war and let the foreign enemy over run a country, than it is to unite against a common invading foe. This was (is?) a widely held view in Taiwan and was definately the party line through at least the 1980’s.
Use a specific example. Perhaps one of the strangest things to ever occur was the Xi’an Incident. Long story short, Manchurian Warlord Zhang Xueliang turned from opium addict and playboy to anti-Japanese leader when his father was assassinated. As a KMT general, he was frustrated at the Nationalists pursuit of a civil war and avoidance of fighting the Japanese invaders, he kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and turned him over to the Communists including Zhou En-lai. Chiang was allowed his freedom in return for halting the civil war and presenting a united front against the Japanese. You can search on Sian Incident or Xi’an Incident and find tons of hits, none of the one’s I saw disputed the fact that the KMT were pursuing a civil war instead of concentrating on the Japanese.
Edgar Snow, western journalist and witness, in Red Star Over China:: The ‘Sian Incident’ (Xian Incident) occurred while he was there. His view - which is controversial - is that the imprisonment of Chiang Kai-Shek by his own generals ensured that Nationalist China fought Japan rather than capitulating.
here is the excerpts from selected works of Mao , the open telegram sent by KMT General Zhang and 8 demands including halting the civil war, and finally Wikipedia (which is blocked in China so not sure what it says)
So China Guy what exactly is your point? That the Nationlists sucked and the Commies were lily white, vice versa? What does this have to do with my OP?
How about the fact that you’re WRONG? Seems like a pretty compelling point to me.
What the hell are you talking about?
I’m talking about Roger Thornhill being wrong when he says this:
and you being wrong when you say this:
Do you need a diagram?
I wouldn’t characterize 10% as “huge”. (Though I wouldn’t call it “small” either.)
From the Japanese side, it’s probably less than 5% of their total investment abroad.
Nice post otherwise.
Uh, well a bit of a hijack and i had to do something with my kids and couldn’t follow up right away. Point being that even the Chinese couldn’t agree whether or not to fight the Japanese, thus highlighting the complicated nature of Sino-Japanese relations. Second point is that I certainly don’t say the nationalists sucked and Commies were lily white, but the fact is the Nationalists did pretty much suck and the Commies did a pretty decent job up until the revolution, and like many revolutionaries sucked big time after they took power. I painted a broad generalization and labeled it as such.
(Kawaiitentaclebeast - I wasn’t really sure what post you were referring to either. Now it’s clear.)
Chinese view toward the Japanese is extremely complicated. There are the disaffected youth/students happy to have a government sanctioned rallying point (Japanese whitewash of WW2). There are those who don’t really care. Plenty of students studying Japanese to either get a better job or move to Japan. The government wants an external “enemy” to rally the population around. China and Japan are competing in global trade, yet Japanese investment into China is huge (and helps China in the global battlefield), and at the same time Japan imports tons of low cost products. Part of Japan’s global economic compete strategy is to offshore production, development and design to China. Chinese and Japanese will also compete globally for scare resources such as petroleum. Many of the older generation vehemently hate the Japanese while others want their kids to study Japanese.
Back to the OP, where do they cooperate? One thing not mentioned in this thread is the tremendous off shoring from Japan to China. Think along the lines of US to India, and it’s Japan to China. Dalian (IIRC Port Arthur) is the center for Japanese offshoring to China. There are Universities there with double engineering/Japanese language majors. A lot of the elder generation in Dalian speak Japanese from the Manchukuo days. There are thousands and thousands of software engineers in Dalian working for Sony, NEC, Accenture, GE, etc all doing Japanese programming. These companies and others can’t fill positions fast enough.
12-13 years ago when I was in Japan with my Chinese wife, her Japanese University classmates couldn’t conceive of going to China. Ironically enough, one of her classmates is now married to a Chinese national, speaks good mandarin, lives in Shanghai and her career is here with no real desire to go back to Japan.
Alsohere is a link from Xinhua News Agency on a Japanese poll
China Guy, you definitely need to read Mao: the Unknown Story.