China and Japan Hug and Make Up

Throughout the vast land, the New China News Agency delivered itself of rhapsodic song. "As the plane carrying Deputy Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing approached Tokyo Bay, towering Mount Fuji caught the eye with its beautiful snowy peak standing out in bold relief against the blue sky."

That effusion was only the beginning. For days last week the avalanche of words and pictures from Peking's official press inundated the Chinese people on the occasion of Teng's historic visit to Japan. Chinese television was dominated by images of the ebullient leader, smiling here, strolling there, chatting, speechmaking, and altogether relishing his role as an eminent guest of his former enemy.

Indeed, the Chinese--and the Japanese, for that matter--were right to treat this visit as a stupendous event. The sleeping giant of Asia, xenophobic, almost rabid in its suspicions of other nations, had awakened to the possibilities of the real world. It had decided to confront the Soviet Union's expansionist designs on the one hand and its own economic backwardness on the other. To achieve this, Peking was willing to make a great leap outward. Not long ago, China's titular leader, Chairman Hua Kuo-feng, traveled to Rumania, Yugoslavia and Iran, making deals, offering Chinese friendship. Now it was Teng's turn.

He was, in effect, renewing a relationship that had flourished for a millennium. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, Japan imported from China its ideographic writing, its Buddhist religion, its form of government organization and codes of law. Chinese civilization deeply influenced Japanese painting, music and architecture. Still, both nations remained distinct and sometimes antagonistic. Teng's visit was a symbol of conciliation.

He had gone to Tokyo for the formal ratification of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, ending the technical state of war that has existed between the two countries since Japan invaded China in 1931. The agreement restored full political, economic, cultural and diplomatic relations, thus marking the end of a half century of enmity between the world's most populous country and Asia's principal industrial power. For Peking, the treaty served a dual purpose. It virtually guaranteed vital Japanese support for China's new and vastly ambitious plans for modernization. At the same time, it was a stunning geopolitical victory over the Soviet Union in the strategic northern Pacific region.

Clearly, Peking had prevailed over Moscow in the race for access to Japan's enormous economic and technological resources. Moreover, by establishing strong links with the Japanese, the Chinese had moved forward in their determination to shift the balance of power and isolate the Soviet Union in the Far East. Peking had even succeeded in inserting a clause into the treaty condemning "hegemony"--the favorite Greek pejorative of the Chinese, used to describe Soviet expansionism.*

As the principal promoter of the treaty and .the leader of China's modernizers, Teng cut a triumphant swath through the Japanese capital. Though he is formally only No. 3 man in the Chinese hierarchy, the Deputy Premier was accorded all the honors due a chief of state. Alighting from his Trident jet at Haneda Airport with an entourage of 40 officials, the tiny (5 ft.), 74-year-old leader briskly shook hands with a welcoming delegation of high Japanese government officials. He was then driven in a motorcade through Tokyo, while a veritable army of 12,000 riot police officers stood guard to prevent an attack by right-wing extremists. As it happened, a relatively few protesters made a lot of noise and did little else.

The treaty ratification ceremony took place in the residence of Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, before a dazzling gold screen and a huge bouquet of outsize chrysanthemums. After the foreign ministers of the two countries had brushed their signatures on the documents, Teng declared: "My heart is full of joy." He drank a champagne toast to the health of Emperor Hirohito with Fukuda, then unexpectedly threw his arms around the Japanese Premier and gave him a panda hug.

At lunch with Emperor Hirohito in the Imperial Palace, Teng continued to show the same startling spirit of reconciliation. A veteran of the ferocious 1937-45 Sino-Japanese War, Teng tactfully dismissed Japan's brutal occupation of China before and during World War II as "unfortunate events. Let bygones be bygones." Said he: "We wish to move forward to better relations." The Emperor agreed that there had been "unhappy events" in the history of affairs between the two countries. That simple statement, coming from the man who had been Supreme Commander of the Japanese forces during World War II, was interpreted as an apology for all the wrongs of the past. Thereupon the two men consumed a sumptuous lunch of swallows' nest soup and poached sole, while court musicians played ancient Chinese melodies.

Next day Teng stopped at the Nissan Motor Co.'s most modern Datsun assembly plant, where he was whisked around in an electric cart. He expressed genuine astonishment at the small number of workers employed on the assembly line. When told that Nissan produces 94 vehicles per worker a year, Teng volunteered the fact that the Chinese figure is currently one vehicle per worker per year. "Now," he said gravely, "I understand what modernization really is." As a memento of the visit, Nissan officials gave Teng the most expensive Japanese-made car, a $23,000 black "President Sovereign" sedan. In return, Teng presented the Nissan factory with a painting of giant pandas. When asked to sign the visitors' book, he wrote: "We learn from and pay respect to the Japanese people, who are great, diligent, brave and intelligent."

Teng was brutally frank about his country's backwardness. "If you have an ugly face, it is no use pretending you are handsome," he remarked at a press conference for Japanese journalists, his own face cracking into a wide smile. China's target date for modernization is the year 2000, he said, conceding that the goal would be hard to meet. Crucial to China's development will be the $20 billion trade agreement that Peking has already made with Tokyo. Even that arrangement, he declared, "must be doubled and redoubled."

Many Japanese businessmen are enthusiastic about what they see as a potentially profitable opportunity to link Japan's export-oriented economy to a China in desperate need to acquire modern technology and expertise. Still, the Japanese business community wonders how the Chinese will pay for their gigantic import program. Since the early 1970s, China has been making most of its major purchases from Japan on credit. Because Peking has inadequate foreign-currency reserves, the Japanese must either grant loans or buy Chinese oil. Both solutions present pitfalls for Japan. Peking has hinted it wants the type of cheap loans, repayable over 30 to 40 years at 2% to 4% interest, that Japan makes to developing countries as a form of foreign aid. The prospect of giving China such easy terms has alarmed many government officials. "It's foreign aid, pure and simple," said one bureaucrat, "and that's no way to finance a huge trade program with China."

The type of loan that Japan wants to extend to China could be repaid partly in the most liquid of China's assets, oil. The trouble with this scheme is that Chinese oil is waxy, heavy and, given its low quality, overpriced. Says the president of one Japanese oil company: "The men in the industry are in an angry mood. They were never consulted. They were simply told they would have to pay the price for Japan-China trade and finance Japanese exports by buying Chinese oil."

As Teng wound up his historic visit at week's end, it seemed that his mission had not been an unalloyed triumph after all. Echoing the sentiments of many Tokyo political analysts and wary businessmen, the Japan Times said: "Teng charmed many people here, but worries persist that China's warmth may not only reduce our foreign policy options, but also trap us in an economic quagmire, rather than grant us the benefits of a combined market of 1 billion Chinese people." Still, that may be the price that Japan will have to pay, as it joins its neighbor in the struggle against hegemony.

*In English, it is pronounced hegemony (literally, leadership); in Chinese, pa-ch'uan (overbearing power)

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