As noted on Japundit, Prime Minister Abe recently attended the ASEAN-led East Asia Summit in Cebu, Philippines. These regional talkfests have presented sterling opportunities for Abe to quietly engage with his disgruntled neighbours on the sidelines, as he did with China and South Korea at last year’s APEC summit meeting in Hanoi. Cebu was no different.

Following his visits to China and Korea soon after his selection as Japanese PM, there has been a definite thawing of the frosty relations between the three and, in Cebu, Abe has even managed to secure a visit to Japan in April by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the first by a Chinese leader in six years. Abe will also visit China later this year, underscoring his commitment to further improving bilateral ties between the two.

Abe’s diplomatic successes have led some to speculate that China and Japan may at last be coming together, indeed, the headline in today’s Australian reads “Japan and China cement their friendship”.

Well, there can be no doubt that Abe has managed to improve the relationship, but it must be remembered that he was starting from an extremely low base. It would have been difficult for relations to get much worse without leading to outright hostilities. Rather than “friendship”, perhaps what Japan and China are moving towards is more accurately described as civility. This pundit does not view a Sino-Japanese rapprochement as likely or even desirable within the foreseeable future.

Let me explain briefly one reason why this is so.

It is undeniable that economic forces are pulling the two countries closer together, but even stronger forces of geo-politics will ensure that they remain at arms length from one another. The underlying reason for this is that each country, and also the US, has an interest in maintaining some degree of hostility in Sino-Japanese relations.

From the Chinese point of view, Japan is a bogeyman employed in the language of nationalist rhetoric to unite, motivate and frighten the masses as well as providing some external justification for Communist Party rule. There are countless examples of this as seen most recently in widespread anti-Japanese riots, anger over Japanese textbooks and interpretations of history more generally, and a blunt unwillingness to accept any of the countless Japanese apologies for its wartime atrocities. These problems will not be easily remedied and are, in fact, intentionally prolonged by China.

Similarly, in Japan, nationalism is a growing force and many politicians are not afraid to use China as a whipping boy in their bids to ferment a general mood of popular patriotism. Abe himself is no stranger to this particular method, though, notably and understandably his tone has mellowed since taking the helm of the LDP.

The role of the US in this is perhaps the most complex, but can be summed up thusly: enduring tension between China and Japan is a key precondition for the continued US presence in East Asia. The unlikely event of a Sino-Japanese rapprochement would be a nightmare for US strategic policy. If those two great nations were ever to come together, the role of the US in East Asia would be redundant and it would likely be expelled from the Western Pacific altogether, having become an unnecessary evil.

Without elaborating extensively on this point, I have waffled at length already, it can be seen how the interests of many nations are served by enduring tension between Beijing and Tokyo. There are certainly arguments that the Koreas, and even Russia too, benefit from hostile relations. Of course, nobody wants a war and that must be avoided at all costs, but keeping Sino-Japanese relations tense contributes to stability in East Asia and helps to preserve the status quo.