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Booming economic ties bind Japan to China
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-11-01 12:16
Sixty-three years after Japanese troops stormed ashore, Shanghai is dotted
with neighborhoods of Japanese residents. Japanese-language magazines cater to
the wealthy Asian expatriates with everything from restaurant reviews to message
club listings, and the membership directory of the Japanese chamber of commerce
reads like a who's who of the Japanese corporate world.
The comfortable veneer of life overseas was suddenly stripped away in April,
however, when a large protest march against visits by Japanese Prime Minister
Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese forces responsible for
atrocities throughout Asia, degenerated into a riot. Crowds pelted the Japanese
Consulate with eggs and stones.
Mr. Hori of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank, who is also chairman of the Japanese
chamber of commerce in Shanghai, said his worst fear was another widespread
protest. Still, he added, "it is meaningless to think Japanese companies would
withdraw and go somewhere else."
Among students at the Dalian University of Technology, many of whom will be
vying for jobs at Japanese companies, there is a strong sense of pragmatism.
"History problems are history problems, but I think you have to be realistic,"
Zhang Shuai, a 22-year-old engineering student, told the New York
Times.
Here and there, the same kind of pragmatism can be found in
Japan, in sharp contrast to the anxious, sometimes hysterical public discussion
of a rising China. Like the rest of the heavily industrialized Kansai region of
Japan, Kobe, the port city that was devastated by an earthquake 10 years ago,
has been economically depressed for years.
Sensing opportunity in China's rise, the city government has invested heavily
in attracting Chinese businesses and promoting trade with China, especially the
Shanghai region.
One businessman, Chen Jianjun, 43, is the founder of a
biotechnology consulting firm, Shanghai Rundo Biotech Japan, in Kobe. After
completing a graduate degree in Japan, Mr. Chen worked at Nestlé before going
out on his own. Now he advises Japanese pharmaceutical companies on conducting
clinical trials and marketing in China, giving him a broad perspective on the
countries' problems. "China and Japan are close to each other but have a distant
relationship," he said. "Each does not understand the other well."
In Japan, business tends to support Mr. Koizumi for leading domestic economic
change, but cringes at his government's antagonistic policy toward China.
Businesspeople fear that after Mr. Koizumi retires next year, an even more
nationalistic leader may replace him.
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