Beijing has frozen youth exchange programmes with Tokyo amid the fallout over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, according to a diplomatic source, raising concern that the bilateral rift could affect younger generations.
The Japanese side was told about the cancelled programmes after China launched retaliatory measures against Japan over Takaichi’s comments earlier this month, the source said.
“Usually, November and December are the season for youth exchanges, but now they have all been called off,” the source said.
Beijing has ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on Japan, seeking to force Takaichi to retract her November 7 remarks suggesting that Tokyo could deploy military forces in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. Takaichi has refused to do so.
As part of that pressure, China has asked its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and told Chinese students to reconsider their plans to study there, citing safety reasons. The island nation is popular among Chinese students and has been one of the top destinations for Chinese tourists.
Dozens of concerts by Japanese artists, including veteran jazz musician Yoshio Suzuki and singer Kokia, have also been cancelled. Kokia’s Beijing concert was cancelled at the last minute, though her shows in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu went ahead last week.
On Friday, J-pop superstar Ayumi Hamasaki wrote on social media that her concert in Shanghai on Saturday had been cancelled after “an urgent request to call off the performance” from the organiser.
In addition, China has postponed planned meetings with Japan and South Korea, including a summit, saying Takaichi’s remarks had “damaged the foundation and atmosphere” of trilateral cooperation. Japan was scheduled to host this year’s trilateral summit.
Earlier this month, Japanese officials told Kyodo News that a group of 16 students and teachers from Wuxi in eastern China’s Jiangsu province had abruptly cancelled a trip to Sagamihara in Kanagawa prefecture. Wuxi and Sagamihara are sister cities.
Meanwhile, education officials in Okinawa prefecture said Chinese hosts had called off a planned visit by a group of 20 high school students who were originally scheduled to spend two weeks in Shanghai from this Saturday on a language and cultural exchange, Kyodo News reported.
No reason was given, though an Okinawan education official told Kyodo News that “the ongoing downturn in relations with China” could have been a factor.
The programme started in 2012 and has been held almost every year since then except during the coronavirus pandemic.
The moves could worsen public sentiment in China and Japan. Ties have frayed in recent years over the countries’ territorial disputes in the East China Sea, Tokyo’s alignment with Washington to counter Beijing and China’s larger military presence in the region.
For a long time, officials in China and Japan have hoped that a strong bond between their respective young people, especially through exchanges, could help stabilise relations that have often flared with tension over wartime history and territorial disputes.
During a meeting in December last year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his then Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya reached a 10-point agreement, with youth exchanges a high priority.
However, this year public sentiment in both countries appears to have waned.
Between July and September, as the mainland commemorated the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II, China released a number of big-budget films about Japan’s invasion of China and some of its most notorious atrocities.
This has fuelled unease about anti-Japanese sentiment in China, fresh from a series of attacks on Japanese citizens, including the fatal stabbing of a 10-year-old Japanese boy in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in September last year.
Shin Kawashima, an international relations professor at the University of Tokyo, called the halting of youth exchanges worrying.
Even though general public perception of China was negative in Japan, younger generations usually had the most favourable views of China, Kawashima said.
“Under the current circumstances, halting youth exchanges is unlikely to improve Japan’s perception of China,” he added. “Maintaining such exchanges during periods of strained relations is, in fact, a more constructive approach.”
In a poll conducted by the Japanese government in October and November last year involving more than 3,000 adults, 31.3 per cent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 and 15.1 per cent between 30 and 39 said they had “friendly feelings” towards China.
That was higher than other age groups, with only 14.7 per cent of all respondents saying they had “friendly feelings”.
Kawashima said China’s travel warning for Japan could be connected to its decision to freeze youth exchanges.
Beijing said the safety of Chinese citizens in Japan had “continued to deteriorate” because of rising crime targeting Chinese nationals. Tokyo quickly rejected the claim, releasing crime data of cases involving Chinese in Japan and called Beijing’s assertion “incorrect”.
“Still, in theory, the Chinese government would not be able to send more young people to Japan” because of its travel warning, Kawashima added.
But the freeze order did not appear to affect other cultural exchange programmes or those involving university students.
Kyodo News reported that a delegation from Zhejiang University paid a courtesy visit to Masanao Shibahashi, the mayor of Gifu in central Japan, last Thursday. However, the meeting was changed from an open session to a closed-door one. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
