Japan or China? Australia Picks Both

Last week there was a lot of talk in the media about Australia’s relationship with two nations in our region, Japan and China.

The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was visiting Australia to finalise a free trade agreement between the two countries. The visit had an added poignancy because military ties between the two countries were discussed and Abe’s government had just lifted a constitutional ban, untouched since the end of World War Two, that has kept the Japanese military from fighting abroad.

The predominant headline for Abe’s Canberra visit was about how Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott jammed his foot in his mouth and said of Japanese soldiers in World War Two, “We admired the skill and sense of honour they brought to their task.”

Saying that the relationship between China and Japan is fraught is like saying that mixing a tub of vegemite into your yoghurt is a bad idea. It’s accurate but it doesn’t really go far enough. On top of recent disagreements, such as the territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea, China continues to hold grudges against Japan for actions committed during the Second Sino-Japanese war. Taking into account incidents like the Rape of Nanking, it’s hard to blame them.

While there was no official response from the Chinese government to Abbott’s praise, Xinhua, a state press agency, published this scathing commentary, “He probably wasn’t aware that the Japanese troops possessed other ‘skills’, skills to loot, to rape, to torture and to kill.”

In Abbott’s defence he wasn’t being completely tone-deaf; he was referring specifically to the Japanese submariners that were killed in Sydney and not to the Imperial army’s occupation of China. This probably seemed reasonable to his speechwriters because Japan and Australia were signing a deal to share submarine technology. However, when you’re trying to maintain the foreign relations balancing act Australia has with China and Japan, it’s best not to compliment the actions of the Japanese military during World War Two.

The hellish experience Australians had as prisoners of the Japanese army, the fact that the only foreign soldiers the Australian army has ever officially executed were 137 Japanese men it convicted of war crimes, and that our losses at the hands of the Japanese army pale in comparison to China’s—it suffered somewhere between 17 and 22 million civilian deaths—probably should have given the PM’s office second thoughts.

Not that the comments in Xinhua really damage Australia’s relationship with China. This was more a case of someone in China taking the chance to remind the world of what a non-pacifist Japan looked like, while making Australia’s Prime Minister look insensitive. For the media the episode has highlighted Australia’s current foreign policy dilemma.

Since the beginning of the Cold War Australia’s most important ally has been the USA. Because the USA also happens to be Japan’s most important ally there’s been a lot of cooperation between all three nations. In the past the ability for Japan to contribute directly to any military efforts has been constrained by their constitution, specifically by the ban that Shinzo Abe has just lifted.

China, a Cold War adversary, has seen its stature as a global power rise. This has been a boon for Australia’s economy and problematic for its diplomatic relations. In light of the Japanese move away from pacifism, Australia strengthening ties with Japan has the appearance of provoking China.

But what’s been the effect? Two years ago US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Australia that the choice between the US and China was a false one. We’ve had governments in the past, such as those helmed by Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating, which stressed a greater engagement with the Pacific region and China specifically. Nothing much has come of it.

China is our largest trading partner and Japan is our second largest. Is anything going to happen that will stop us trading with China? No. Nor are we going to do anything that signals to China we are anything other than steadfastly aligned with Japan.

The path Australia has taken between Japan and China has been the broad middle. Close economic ties with both and strategic ties only with Japan, as befits our status as US allies. And China doesn’t mind, our recent deals with Japan won’t ruin future deals with them.

Every so often you hear the occasional Australian politican bluster about China, because there is a cultural mood that seems to insist on it. We’re going to criticise Chinese human rights abuses, in measured tones. China will hit back and criticise our human rights abuses. And while not all of us will strut about and say China doesn’t respect weakness, only to have a Chinese editorial call us “a complete fool”, some of us will. I mean Julie Bishop will. I mean she has already. And the editorial ran Sunday. Good on ya, Bisho.

In the editorial the fiery jingoist Hu Xijin also notes, “Bishop calls for standing up to China, but what resources does she have to do so with? The next day, Australian leaders will smile at China again, just as they do now to Japan.”

Xijin is not altogether wrong because Clinton was right. In Australia we’re not choosing between Japan and China. We pick both.

Follow Girard on Twitter: @GirardDorney