Kishida keen to keep in step with Washington

In his speech at Waseda University on Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he would like to visit China. This is the first time Kishida has aired that prospect since he took office in October 2021.

Due to the Kishida government's one-sided pro-Washington diplomacy, Tokyo has discarded the comparatively balanced approach of the Abe government to deal with relations with Beijing and Washington, enthusiastically jumping onto the United States' anti-China bandwagon. And Japan has since been acting as a pawn of the US in the Asia-Pacific for the latter's China-containment strategy.

Because of that, Sino-Japanese relations have once again soured.

While Kishida has not specified the purpose for his desired China trip, Beijing has so far maintained a studied silence on the possibility of such a visit.

Interestingly, Kishida mooted a visit while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was embarking on his two-day visit to Beijing, which has served to thaw the frosty ties between Beijing and Washington by re-opening communication channels on some specific questions according to both sides' statements on his trip.

As some analysts have pointed out, Kishida must have been keeping a close eye on Blinken's China trip and its outcomes. His I-want-to-visit-China statement likely stems from Tokyo's judgment that it must keep in step with Washington lest it be left high and dry should Beijing and Washington bury the hatchet.

But that does not mean Tokyo wants a rapprochement with Beijing. Rather, it shows that Tokyo continues to choose to sacrifice Japan's strategic autonomy to Washington, leaving Sino-Japanese relations subject to the whims of Washington's strategy toward China.

As close neighbors and important countries in Asia and the world, China and Japan share many common interests and ample room for cooperation. The importance of China-Japan relations has not and will not change.

In his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok in November last year, Kishida said that Japan and China, as close neighbors, pose no threat to each other, and the two sides need to and should coexist in peace, adding that Japan could hardly achieve development and prosperity without China, and the same is true the other way around.

If Tokyo really means that, it should treat China with sincerity and win back its neighbor's trust by abiding by the principles of the four political documents that are the pillars for friendly relations. The Kishida government should uphold strategic autonomy and good-neighborliness, reject conflict and confrontation, practice true multilateralism, and work together with China to advance regional integration, rather than act as a proxy for Washington's efforts to divide the region.