Kakuei Tanaka, the Japanese leader who normalized relations with China 50 years ago, feared for his life when he flew to Beijing for the high-stakes negotiations at the height of the Cold War, his daughter told AP.
Much has changed, too, in the China-Japan relationship over the past half-century. The neighbors enjoy deep business and cultural ties. Japan has given China more than $25 billion in development aid over the years, and China is Japan’s biggest trade partner.China, a relative backwater then, is now the world’s No. 2 economy and a growing military power. Tensions surround Beijing’s rivalry with Washington and its increasingly assertive activity in the region, especially around Taiwan.
“Japan’s alliance with the United States is a lynchpin of our diplomacy, but we should not isolate China,” Makiko Tanaka said. Wang Jiaxun, president of the China Enterprises Association in Japan, which includes 150 Chinese companies, acknowledged difficulties but said the neighbors need each other as business partners.“China and Japan have thousands of years of up-and-down relations,” said Wang, whose association sponsored a weekend Japan-China festival in Tokyo in hopes of improving rocky ties.
Makiko Tanaka accompanied her father on many foreign trips, but he refused to take her to Beijing because of safety worries.
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