Hoping for a US-Japan-China triangle to emerge

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By Mark Hughes (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-02 07:47

Fresh thinking needs to be brought to the dining tables of modern diplomats in a world that is changing at a fast and furious pace, in which certainty has been replaced by doubt and in which anxiety is the norm.

Already, US President Barack Obama's administration is openly talking of pushing the re-set button on relations with Russia.

Now, at another high table, representatives of the three largest economies in the world will soon be sitting down together over a menu more diverse than a Chinese emperor's banquet.

China, Japan and the United States, the world's three largest economies, are soon to hold their first trilateral policy dialogue in Washington DC. And, as many observers agree, there is a lot to be got through.

Yukio Satoh, vice-chairman of the Japan Institute of International Affairs and former Japanese ambassador to the UN, said: "The time has come for the trilateral dialogue for Japan, China and the US at the foreign affairs policy planning level. It is very important for the three countries as they could talk about almost everything."

Hoping for a US-Japan-China triangle to emerge

All three countries have internal and external conflicts to resolve, but all three also share concerns over major international issues, such as how to deal with the global economic slowdown and climate change.

Japan is facing an election before September with public opinion polls suggesting the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party will be replaced. The opposition Democratic Party is skeptical about a number of measures the current government has proposed to reinforce the Japan-US security alliance.

The detonation of a second nuclear device by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has raised tensions in the region that are certain to provoke intense debate. Because China is the DPRK's largest trading partner and provides Pyongyang with most of its fuel and food aid, Washington and Tokyo are pushing Beijing to put pressure on it.

The US and China both are, politically, relatively stable, but both, to differing degrees are suffering, along with Japan, from the current global economic woes.

The US used to be Japan's largest trade partner. Japan now imports twice as much from China and the rest of Asia as it does from the US. In the past year, as the US sank into recession, China became Japan's largest export market. The most recent data show that Asia loomed twice as large as the US on both sides of the trade ledger.

Last, but not least, there is climate change, terrorism and the threat of pandemics that cross national borders.

Wu Jianmin, president of the China Foreign Affairs University, said: "Conflicts can ensue if we talk about differences. Only when we develop common grounds to make solid the base (for relationships), it will be easier to deal with problems."

Masafumi Iida, a researcher with Japan's National Institute of Defense Studies, said there were many difficult problems between China and Japan, but "both sides believe that Japan and China, as nations influential in the Asian region and the world, bear an important responsibility for preserving peace and promoting development."

Joseph Nye, a Harvard University professor told US Congress that Washington wished to see a stable triangle with good relations among the three sides. If we treat China as an enemy, we guarantee enmity," he said. "Integration, plus a hedge against uncertainty, is a better approach."

Optimists are hoping for that triangle to emerge unbroken from the talks, but opinions vary on its likely shape.

With so much on their plates, no wonder the sherpas busy preparing the road ahead are scratching their heads over where to begin.

(China Daily 07/02/2009 page9)