Correspondents' Correspondence
BERGER, MICHAEL
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Japan's China Policy Tokyo--What to do about China?...
...Although breaking the commitment to Taipei seems necessary to normalizing relations with Peking, in a recent public-opinion poll 72 per cent of those sampled said they would oppose a severing of all bonds...
...Recognition of the Peking regime in recent months by Canada, Italy and Chile has spurred every major Japanese newspaper to comment on the "absurdity," as one put it, of pretending that the Taipei government represents 800 million Chinese...
...Even without most of the giants, commerce between the mainland and Japan in 1969 amounted to a record $625 million...
...That is the question dominating both public debate and media analysis here these days, as pollution did six months ago...
...Because Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years, many older people still have an almost paternalistic feeling toward it...
...Moreover, the prewar generation remembers Chiang Kai-shek's declaration in 1945 that Japanese prisoners should be allowed to return home unmolested, and that the Nationalist government would seek no reparations...
...And several major Japanese companies --including Mitsubishi Trading, Toyota Motors, Asahi Chemical, and Mitsubishi Steel--are "restudying" their China trade policies...
...The 1970 total, according to Japan's leading industrial newspaper, is expected to be roughly $800 million...
...While Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, a protege of Shigeru Yoshida, claims he is not bound by the letter, he has yet to violate it...
...A "Dietman's League for the Promotion of Japan-China Diplomatic Relations" was established the same month...
...Not only did it attract 379 members--more than half the combined Upper and Lower Houses--but 95 of them were from the ruling Liberal Democratic party (although some LDP members later admitted that they joined in order to act as a moderating force...
...They argue that it will be years before the mainland market matures, and that meanwhile Japan should strengthen itself in areas where it is competing with Peking, like Southeast Asia...
...Whether or not Japan's China policy will in fact change may soon be known...
...The prevailing sentiment for rapprochement is intensified by Japan's desire to free itself from U.S...
...But no journalist, or politician, has produced a formula for recognizing Communist China that would not cut Japan's historic bonds with Nationalist China...
...These men also feel tied to Taiwan by the famous Yoshida Letter, in which the powerful postwar Prime Minister guaranteed the Nationalists that Export-Import Bank loans would not be made available to firms wishing to deal with the mainland...
...In December, for example, Minister Kiichi Aichi told the Diet that Japan may no longer co-sponsor the UN resolution making Red China's admission "an important question" (and thus subject to a two-thirds-majority passage...
...The Foreign Ministry reportedly has set this spring as the target time for answering that question.--Michael Berger...
...But the urge to reestablish formal relations with the mainland appears irresistible, too: In this same poll, 72 per cent favored a new China policy...
...The president of the League, former Foreign Minister Aichiro Fujiyama, is an old-guard liberal committed to a "one China" policy, not the "one China, one Taiwan" course the government currently seems to favor...
...In anticipation of a drift toward Communist China, more than 700 Japanese businessmen have already accepted Chou En-lai's "four trading principles...
...These bar from the mainland any businesses dealing actively with Taiwan and South Korea, engaging in joint ventures with American firms, or supplying materiel to South Vietnam...
...Others, including many old-guard leaders of the so-called "Taiwan lobby," believe Communist China ought to be isolated as a matter of military and economic national interest...
...influence in international affairs...
Vol. 54 • February 1971 • No. 3
