The younger the generation of Japanese, the more friendly they are to China.
text / Ba Jiuling (WeChat official account: Wu Xiaobo Channel)
On September 29, 1972, Premier Zhou Enlai and Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka jointly signed the " Sino-Japanese Joint Statement ", and the two countries resumed normalization of diplomatic relations.
From now on, a full 50 years.
Over the past 50 years, Japan has changed a lot, China has changed more, and the relationship between the two countries has been ups and downs, sometimes cold and sometimes hot.
We will use 10 pictures to tell the ups and downs of the years.
strength has increased and decreased
1972, China's GDP was US$113.7 billion, which is only one-third of that of Japan.
With the rapid growth of Japan's economy and the appreciation of the yen, the GDP gap between the two countries in US dollars is getting wider and wider. In 1993, Japan's GDP once reached 10 times that of China.
However the bubble has begun to burst. Since then, Japan has entered the "lost twenty years".
Until 2012, Shinzo Abe tried to recover its economy with " Abe Economics ", but since one of the means was to promote the depreciation of the yen, Japan's GDP in US dollars still did not improve.
Since 1993, China's nominal GDP has increased nearly 40 times, surpassing Japan in 2010, and more than triple that of Japan by 2021.
This year, the Federal Reserve hikes hikes five times hikes , and the yen depreciates sharply. If the current exchange rate is maintained, Japan's GDP in 2022 may fall below US$4 trillion for the first time in 30 years.
The various entanglements between China and Japan are all derived from this most basic change in strength.
In 1995, Fortune magazine released the "Foreign 500" list for the first time, with a total of 149 Japanese companies on the list.
list 1 Mitsubishi Commercial , second place Mitsui Products , third place Itochu Commercial , fourth place Sumitomo Commercial , sixth place Marubeni , ninth place Japanese Shang Iwai, all of them are Japanese companies.
That year, a total of 6 Chinese companies were on the list, including 3 in the mainland, 2 in Taiwan and 1 in Hong Kong.
Later... Of course, the fate of an enterprise depends on its own struggle, but it also takes into account the historical process.
is on the list and there are fewer and fewer Japanese companies, and more and more Chinese companies, but until 2022, it has not yet reached the number of Japanese companies.
Although "lost" a lot, Japan is still a very wealthy country and is still the world's third largest economic power (maybe it will be surpassed by Germany this year).
Even in US dollars, per capita GDP is more than three times that of China, and it should not be underestimated in any case.
When many Chinese tourists go to Japan, the biggest confusion is: what exactly have they lost?
Economic and trade exchanges
1
China and Japan are often "political and hot". Regardless of whether the official and civil relations are close, business exchanges continue.
When diplomatic relations were normalized in 1972, the bilateral trade volume between China and Japan was only US$1.1 billion, but by 2021, it hit a record high of US$349.5 billion (data comes from the Japanese Ministry of Finance, and the Chinese customs data is US$371.4 billion).
has grown by more than 300 times.
China has been Japan's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, and bilateral trade volume accounts for more than 20% of Japan's total foreign trade volume.
On January 1 this year, the " Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement " (RCEP) jointly joined by China and Japan came into effect. This is also the first time that the two countries have established a free trade relations agreement. Looking ahead, China-Japan economic and trade cooperation should continue to deepen.
It can also be seen from foreign direct investment that the Japanese business community is constantly "betting" about China's economic development.
Japan's investment in China has peaked three times:
The first time after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992, then encountered the Asian financial crisis and fell to a trough;
The second time after China joined WTO in 2001, then encountered the global financial crisis and entered a trough;
The third time after the crisis, as China's labor costs continued to rise, the "Japan R&D + China Production" model was unsustainable and gradually declined.
Even so, Japan is still the country with the highest cumulative investment in China.
The source of foreign direct investment, ahead of Japan, is only Hong Kong, and British Virgin Islands , which is a tax haven.
In addition, there is also the 40-year-old Japanese government development assistance to China (ODA, including free financial assistance, technical cooperation, and yen loans. China's economic development is inseparable from these assistance.
People exchanges
Japanese Cabinet Office conducts diplomatic public opinion surveys every year. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1978, the Japanese people's closeness to China has peaked in 1980, and then fell all the way.
In 2010, Chinese fishing boats and Japanese patrol boats collided in the waters of Diaoyu Islands , and the relationship between the two countries was suddenly cold.
In 2012, Japan promoted the nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands, and the Chinese government and the people protested many times, making the relationship between the two countries increasingly cold.
Four or five years later, the leaders of the two countries resumed talks and mutual visits, and Sino-Japanese relations rebounded.
Since the epidemic, it has gradually become colder.
Review of every alienation of Sino-Japanese relations, almost all related to territorial and historical issues.
It is worth mentioning that although the Japanese people are in a terrible mood towards China. But by age, the younger the generation, the more friendly they are to China.
There is some interesting psychology behind this.
2010, China's GDP surpassed Japan. Judging from media reports at the time, the Japanese people were very uncomfortable with this change - after decades of being the second in the world and being suddenly surpassed by neighboring countries.
But imagine a 19-year-old Japanese teenager. Since he became sensible, China has become an economic power. His gaze on China is of course different from his ancestors and parents.
In China, the post-60s and post-00s have different perceptions of their own inertia, and the same is true in Japan.
In the past two years, young Japanese netizens have become popular to call China "Chinese dad". Although this title is certainly joking and sarcastic, it is more or less recognized for its strength, right?
Maybe you will be curious about how the Chinese people view Japan.
Japanese private non-profit group "Rhythm NPO" has launched a set of mirror surveys since 2005.
In 2012, after the Noda Yoshihiko government tried to nationalize the Diaoyu Islands, Chinese public opinion's attitude towards Japan reached a freezing point.
then gradually improved, and suddenly worsened in 2021.
When analyzing the reasons, the NPO said that in addition to the consistent territorial and historical issues, the interruption of exchanges brought about by the epidemic has also hit the relationship between the two countries with a heavy blow.
2014-2019, the number of tourists visiting Japan in mainland China surged from 2.41 million to 9.59 million. Face-to-face exchanges have enhanced the mutual understanding and recognition of the people of the two countries.
In 2020, the number of tourists visiting Japan in mainland China dropped to 1.07 million; in 2021, it dropped to 40,000.
China National Bureau of Statistics has not released data on inbound tourists from Japan from 2019 to 2021, but it is not difficult to guess.
When the communication in reality is interrupted, the new impressions of each other are all from the media.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, the relationship between the two countries also faces huge challenges. Every stage is a necessary path for a country to grow.
Looking forward to China-Japan friendship, I don’t know if the hope can be placed on the younger generation.
Author of this article | Wu You Pharmacist | Duty Editor | Wu Xinyue
Editor in charge | He Mengfei | Editor-in-chief | Zheng Yuanmei
