Reassuring and Unnerving Japan } 719
of American global dominance was historically unprecedented, Shi warned,
and Washington would use its power to try to stifle China’s rise. If China
could use Japan to balance the United States, that would be greatly to China’s
advantage, Shi argued. Unfortunately, China’s emotional Japan bashing had
the opposite effect, driving Japan into Washington’s arms. Shi’s policy rec-
ommendations were bold. China should accept for now such apologies over
“history” as Japan was willing to offer, essentially putting that issue on hold.
China should publicly thank Japan for its large ODA, stop stressing exagger-
ated and alarmist predictions of the restoration of Japanese militarism, wel-
come Japan as a “great power,” and stop giving Japan the notion that China
was trying to hold it down or keep it in an inferior status relative to China. Shi
went so far as to recommend that Beijing support Japan’s UNSC permanent
membership. This would be a small price to pay, Shi argued, for a “diplomatic
revolution” that would change Japan’s position and role in the US-Japan-PRC
triangle.^24
Hu Jintao inducted former ambassador to the United States Li Zhaoxing
as foreign minister in March 2003, and assigned him responsibility for con-
tinuing to voice nationalist resentment over various “history issues” while
also reigning in anti-Japan demonstrations. Substantive negotiations with
Japan took place through low-profile channels. In fall 2004, Hu appointed
Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a fluent Japanese speaker, as ambassador
to Japan. In the MFA, Dai Bingguo, with rich experience in foreign affairs
and one of Hu’s closest foreign policy advisors, became vice foreign minister.
Together Wang and Dai steered Sino-Japan relations in a more amiable di-
rection.^25 The resignation of Koizumi in September 2006 and his replacement
by Shinzo Abe provided Beijing with an opportunity to shift policies back
toward friendship. In 2007 and 2008, tensions eased, creating conditions for a
visit by Hu Jintao to Japan in May 2008. Shifts in Japanese policy also played a
role. Abe’s first visit as prime minister was to Beijing. He also visited the Meiji
Shrine in Tokyo to commemorate war dead rather than the Yasukuni Shrine.
Hu’s 2008 visit was the first by China’s top leader since Jiang Zemin’s
ill-fated visit a decade earlier. It was carefully choreographed to send a dif-
ferent message than had Jiang’s abrasive visit. A new prime minister, Yasuo
Fukuda, was in office (Abe had resigned in September 2007 after only a year
in office) and was recognized by Beijing as belonging to the “Asian school”
rather that the “Western school” of Japanese diplomacy, and this facili-
tated Beijing’s effort to rebuild Sino-Japanese ties. In a speech at Waseda
University in Tokyo, Hu noted the “unfortunate history” that “caused not
only great misfortunes among China’s people, but also great suffering for the
Japanese people,” thereby taking an even-handed approach that recognized
that “history” had been cruel to Japanese too. In a television broadcast to the
Japanese people, Hu lavished praise on Japan’s post–World War II develop-
ment. Regarding history, Hu said that the reason to remember history was