China and Japan edging closer to a Xi-Abe meeting at Apec summit
If leaders are to meet in Beijing in November, Chinese and Japanese diplomats must show vision and flexibility to iron out all the details
After almost two years of growing tensions, the leaders of China and Japan may finally meet each other. Both countries are quietly paving the way for a meeting on the sidelines of the Apec summit in Beijing in November.
But with less that two months to go, analysts say flexibility and imagination will be required from both sides if diplomats are to iron out details for a potential rendezvous.
Since both President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in 2012, China has rejected multiple requests from Tokyo for a summit as bilateral ties deteriorated over their territorial disputes in the East China Sea.
Abe's hawkish views on historical issues and his goal of reducing the constraints of Japan's pacifist constitution on its armed forces have further irritated Beijing. He was told he was unwelcome in China after visiting the Yasukuni war shrine, which Beijing sees as a symbol of Japan's militarism, in December.
But diplomats and analysts say high-level exchanges must resume to avoid a miscalculation in disputed territory that could escalate into conflict.
For the two leaders to meet, Beijing has laid down two preconditions: Abe should refrain from visiting the shrine again as prime minister and Japan should admit disputes exist over the contested East China Sea islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyus in China.
Abe has avoided revisiting the shrine, which diplomats and analysts say is a tacit show of goodwill. But many doubt he will publicly admit the East China Sea islands are disputed.
However, Abe is open to negotiation, said Tetsuo Kotani, a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, citing as an example recent talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang on the issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens.
The prime minister agreed to lift some economic sanctions on North Korea after Pyongyang agreed to negotiate on a reinvestigation of the abductions.
"If China agrees to talk, then Abe and his government will try to be pragmatic and flexible and to find certain common ground," Kotani said.
Beijing's attitude towards a Xi-Abe meeting at the November 10-11 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit began to shift in July, he said. "I don't think China is confident yet. But they are now wondering whether they should seek dialogue without any preconditions … the gap between Japanese and Chinese perceptions is now narrowing," said Kotani, who has engaged in unofficial exchanges between the two countries.
For Beijing, there is a more pragmatic motivation for a Xi-Abe meeting than simply to improve bilateral relations: as China is the host country of the Apec summit, any awkward moments could mar the event that is supposed to showcase the country's rising clout, mainland analysts say.
"It's not just a matter of whether we should meet him, but also how we receive him. As a big country we can't act like a child and ignore him at a multilateral occasion," said Liang Yunxiang, a professor of Japanese studies at Peking University.
Despite the potential diplomatic embarrassment, Shi Yinhong, a professor of International Relations at Renmin University, said chances remained low that Xi would meet Abe.
Allowing such a meeting, he said, was unlikely to yield any concessions from Abe and would only gain more international sympathy for Japan.
But Liang and Lian Degui, from the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, are cautiously optimistic. Beijing might be willing to accept less than a perfect concession from Abe. "This is a time to test the imagination of both sides," Lian said, referring to options for getting around the two preconditions.
For example, Abe could merely admit that disputes exist between the two countries without mentioning the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Liang said.
Foreign ministers from both countries met in Myanmar last month, their first meeting since 2012. Former Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda also had a meeting with Xi in Beijing in July. Both meetings have been seen as positive signs of a summit between the two leaders.
More groundwork could be laid this week when Abe attends a series of United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York. Tokyo is trying to arrange a meeting between Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of those gatherings.
An earlier version of this story identified Tetsuo Kotani as a research fellow with the Ocean Policy Research Foundation. His current position should be "senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs."
