Japanese and Chinese flag pair on desk. (Getty images)
SYDNEY — For the first time in five years, China has sent a sizable military delegation to Japan for a week-long visit.
The purpose of the visit by a delegation from the Eastern Theater Command, according to a Monday statement from the Chinese military, is to “strengthen mutual understanding and trust, while advancing defense exchanges between the two countries.” Likewise, a senior Japanese official, Yoshimasa Hayashi, told reporters that the “promotion of mutual understanding and trust through frank communication at [the] commanders’ level will contribute to the building of constructive and stable relations between Japan and China.
“We think this visit contributes to the peace and stability of the region,” Hayashi, who serves as the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters in Tokyo.
But analysts and experts told Breaking Defense that below the surface, the timing of the rare meeting could signal that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is attempting to improve relations with its Asian rival amid the transfer of power in the US, as both Beijing and Tokyo brace for potentially market-moving tariff’s under incoming US President Donald Trump.
“This is a relatively big deal. Both Japan and China would be thinking about how to position themselves to best advantage in the face of imminent and probable tariff hikes,” John Blaxland, head of the Australian National University’s Washington office, offered in an email to Breaking Defense. He said China and Japan have “highly interdependent economies and have clear motives to look to calm things down and focus on managing Trump.”
Bonnie Glaser, China expert at the German Marshall Fund, agreed that even though the delegation is a military one, economic issues are percolating in the background.
“For both economic and strategic reasons, China may hope to use the opportunity presented by the political transition in the US to stabilize ties with Japan,” Glaser wrote. In addition, she said China could be “trying to drive a wedge between Japan and the US. Beijing likely hopes Tokyo will give [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] a state visit this year.”
Hayashi’s mention of communication at “commanders’ level” is noteworthy, as that’s the level of communication US officials have long-sought with the People’s Liberation Army despite an at-times icy reception.
And though the US and Japan are close allies, Blaxand warned not to “read too much into” the meeting as a sign the Chinese-US military relationship will improve.
Malcolm Davis, a China expert at the Australian Strategic and Policy Institute, agreed, predicting “there will be the usual regular contact between the two major powers on defense issues, but the relationship is still highly competitive and contested.”
A recent sign of that competitiveness, China recently unveiled what appeared to be two new advanced aircraft, prompting a senior Air Force official to tell Breaking Defense that Beijing could “beat [the US] to the punch” in the race for a sixth-generation fighter jet.
On Wednesday Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith mentioned another hot button issue: the presence of US troops in Japan and the agreement with Tokyo to move many of them from Okinawa to Guam in coming years — a move likley welcomed by Beijing as it lowers US troop presence closer to what Smith called the “crisis theater.”
“That’s obviously a domestic issue for the Japanese to decide, but what I do know is every time you give China a foot, they take a mile,” Smith told reporters at a Defense Writers Group event in Washington.
Davis said competition between China and the US is “only going to intensify with the Trump administration, particularly given Trump’s determination to impose sweeping tariffs on Beijing,” Davis said. “But even so, some sort of dialogue will continue, if only to minimise the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation leading to a crisis or conflict in areas such as the South China Sea.”
The bottom line for this week’s series of meetings, on the national security side of the fence, may be whether China changes its behavior around the many islands that make up Japan.
In late August last year, a Chinese aircraft briefly penetrated Japanese airspace, ringing alarm bells in the region. Chinese Coast Guard ships have often sailed close to the Japanese Senkaku Islands and its warships steam the waters close to Okinawa.
“I suppose what matters is whether PRC operations and deployments near Japan change and how,” Ian Chong, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, wrote in an email. “There is no information about the latter at the moment.”
Lee Ferran contributed reporting from Washington, DC.
