Just as Japan’s top trade negotiator travelled to Washington for another round of tariff talks last week, a bipartisan delegation bearing the name of “Japan-China Friendship” wrapped up a visit to Beijing.
A week earlier, the head of the junior party in Japan’s ruling coalition was in Beijing delivering a letter from Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Details of the letter are unknown, but the two sides discussed US tariffs in addition to bilateral issues.
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Among all US allies being wooed by Beijing in its tariff stare-down with Washington, Japan stands out.
It is a peculiar case not only for its staunch commitment to its alliance with the United States but also for its complicated and uneasy history with the neighbouring Asian giant — particularly the war history from the 20th century that still casts a shadow over the politics of today.
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“On one hand, they are neighbours and they are important economic partners. There’s a lot that connects Japan and China,” said Matthew Goodman, director of the Greenberg Centre for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But on the other hand, I think there are limits to how far they’re going to lean into China.” While Japan won’t walk away from its alliance with the United States, the linchpin of the Asian country’s diplomacy and security policies, “it’s also true that the tariffs and uncertainty that Trump has created for Japan is really shaking things up in Tokyo,” Goodman said.
Last month, President Donald Trump announced a 24% tariff on Japanese goods in a sweeping plan to levy duties on about 90 countries. The White House has since paused the tariffs but a 10% baseline duty on all countries except China, allowing time for negotiations. Still, Trump’s 25% tax on aluminum, steel and auto exports have gone into effect for Japan.
The tariff moves, as well as Trump’s “America First” agenda, have cast doubts among the Japanese if the United States is still a dependable ally, while China is rallying support from tariff-threatened countries — including Japan.
In Beijing, Japan sees positive signs When Tetsuo Saito led Japan’s Komeito Party delegation to Beijing in late April, China hinted at difficulty in its tariff dispute with the United States, signaling its willingness to improve ties with Tokyo. An unnamed senior Chinese official said his country was “in trouble” when discussing Trump’s 145% tariff on Chinese products, according to Japanese reports.
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Saito’s visit was soon followed by that of the bipartisan delegation of Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians’ Union. Zhao Leji, Beijing’s top legislator, told the delegation that China’s National People’s Congress would be “willing to carry out various forms of dialogue and exchanges.” Beijing did not lift a ban on Japan’s seafood imports as the Japanese delegates hoped, but it signaled positive signs on its assessment of the safety of the discharges of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Beijing banned Japan’s seafood products in 2023, citing those concerns.
Ties between Tokyo and Beijing have long been rocky. In the past several years, they squabbled not only over the seafood ban but also long-standing territorial disputes over the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands in the East China Sea, Beijing’s growing military assertiveness and violence against Japanese nationals in China — an issue complicated by the nations’ uneasy history.
Tokyo’s closer ties with Washington during Joe Biden’s presidency also upset Beijing, which saw it as part of the US strategy to contain China and has lectured Tokyo to “face squarely and reflect on the history of aggression.” An imperial power in Asia for centuries, China fell behind Japan in the 19th century when Japan began to embrace Western industrialization and grew into a formidable economic and military power. It invaded China in the 1930s and controlled the northeastern territory known as Manchuria. War atrocities, including the Nanking Massacre and the use of chemical and biological weapons and human medical experiments in Manchuria, have left deep scars in China. They have yet to be healed, though Japan’s conservative politicians today still attempt to deny the aggression.
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Ishiba, elected Japan’s prime minister in October, has a more neutral view on his country’s wartime history than the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his two successors. Weeks after taking office, Ishiba held talks with Xi on the sidelines of a leaders’ summit.
Chinese scholars, however, see Tokyo’s recent engagements with Beijing as a pragmatic move to hedge against US protectionism and not a long-term strategy for stability with China.
The odds are low for Japan to move into China’s orbit, Goodman said. “They have for a long time had to manage an important but challenging relationship with China,” he said. “And that is, again, a long-standing problem for Ja