Chinese military personnel are visiting their Japanese counterparts this week, raising hopes of more stable bilateral relations or at least greater familiarity to manage any future crises. What it probably won’t do, however, is make any fundamental change in their East Asia stand-off.
On May 14, a delegation of 20 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) senior officers arrived in Japan for six days of exchanges with Japan Self-Defense Forces counterparts. Sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, it marks the first PLA visit to Japan in four years.
The tour will include stops at the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo, Komaki Air Base near Nagoya and Maizuru Naval Base on the Japan Sea northwest of Kyoto. The more important US bases at Yokosuka, on Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan are not on the PLA’s tour schedule.
Japanese officers last visited China in July 2023 but a reciprocal visit by Chinese officers to Japan that had been scheduled for the following September was canceled when Beijing expressed diplomatic displeasure with Japan’s decision to release wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.
The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, a privately owned non-profit policy research and project financing organization headquartered in Tokyo, established the Japan-China Field Officer Exchange Program in 2001.
The original idea was to arrange reciprocal visits on an annual basis but the two sides’ bubbling dispute over control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and then controversy surrounding the Covid pandemic ended all that.
Nevertheless, 26 visits involving some 400 officers have taken place so far under the program, with PLA delegations also paying calls on Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (army), Japanese companies and even farming villages.
In May 2023, amid tensions over the situation in the South China Sea and Taiwan, the foundation’s honorary chairman, Sasakawa Yohei, told The Diplomat that “At times like this, it is effective for the private sector to create a window for mutual understanding. It’s very important to hobnob together and have informal conversations. This military exchange is unique even in the world.”
China’s Communist Party-run Global Times, known for its nationalistic stances, also favors the officer exchange program.
In an article published on May 14, it cited the views of Xiang Haoyu, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies who believes that the resumption of bilateral military exchanges is a positive development that contributes to the rebuilding of trust.
“Starting from last year, China-Japan relations have shown signs of bottoming out and the beginnings of a gradual rebound. While negative factors affecting bilateral relations, especially Japan’s dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater and some Japanese politicians’ hyping of [the] Taiwan question, still exist, both sides have maintained some exchanges and gradually restored relations,” said Xiang.
That may be an optimistic – or even opportunistic – spin on the actual situation, but it provides some insight into China’s official position on the matter. The Japanese press has given the PLA officers’ visit minimal coverage.
The Sasakawa Peace Foundation was established in 1986 with endowments from the Nippon Foundation and the Japanese motorboat racing organization.
The story of the Nippon Foundation dates back to 1951, when Sasakawa Ryoichi persuaded the Japanese Diet to pass the Motorboat Racing Law, which allowed gambling on motorboat races to raise funds for the rebuilding of Japan’s maritime industry and other projects.
Sasakawa Ryoichi was a prominent right-wing mover and shaker who made a mint in rice speculation, mining and other ventures. He used his wealth to finance a private air squadron in the 1930s. In 1939, he and his squadron flew to Rome to meet Mussolini, whom he called a “perfect fascist.” In 1941, he donated his aircraft and related facilities to the Japanese military.
In 1942, Sasakawa won a seat in the Diet as an independent candidate advocating free speech. Getting nowhere with that idea, he spent much of the war years in Manchuria and China, where he is rumored to have begun highly profitable smuggling operations many years earlier.
After the war, Sasakawa provoked the American occupation authorities into arresting him for “instigating aggression, nationalism and hostility against the United States.” After spending three years in Sugamo prison with the leaders of wartime Japan, seven of whom were hanged, he emerged as the author of a book defending their actions.
He then turned to anti-communist political activity and philanthropy. He was on good terms with Chiang Kai-shek, Syngman Rhee and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church.
In 1962, the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation was established and given the legal right to administer grants from the proceeds of motorboat racing. Ryoichi Sasakawa naturally became its chairman.
In 2011, it was renamed the Nippon Foundation, which has developed a respectable image by working with the UN on maritime law, donating more than US$70 million to the WHO’s campaign against leprosy and funding other philanthropic projects.
Sasakawa Ryoichi died in 1995 at the age of 96. Sasakawa Yohei is one of his three sons. In 2011, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation was transformed into a public interest incorporated foundation, which is one type of Japanese non-profit organization.
As such, it contributes to international exchange and cooperation via specific projects and events, and four regionally oriented funds – the Sasakawa Pacific Island Nations Fund, the Sasakawa Pan Asia Fund, the Sasakawa Middle East Islam Fund and the Sasakawa Japan-China Friendship Fund.
The Japan-China Friendship Fund aims to promote peace and mutual development between Japan and China through Japanese language education, book translation and publication, university student, young journalist and young leader exchange programs, joint disaster prevention, rural health activities and the military field officer exchange program described above.
The Sasakawa Japan-China Friendship Fund was conceived by Sasakawa Ryoichi as a vehicle “to promote permanent peace and mutual understanding between China and Japan.” At present, it serves as a back channel to China at a time of escalating tensions.
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