The 9th Beijing-Tokyo Forum meeting kicked off with a plenary session in Beijing on Oct. 26 under the title "The Peace and Development of East Asia, and the Responsibilities of Japan and China - Reconfirming the Importance of the Japan-China Peace and Friendship Treaty."

At the start of the annual two-day meeting, Zhao Qicheng, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University of China, noted in a speech that the two countries are faced with great difficulties as they are at odds with each other over the ownership of a group of islands in the East China Sea.

The Beijing-Tokyo Forum is the highest-level platform for non-governmental diplomacy between China and Japan, Zhao said, adding the forum should fulfill its role during these difficult times.

Yasushi Akashi, chairman of the Japanese Executive Committee of the forum, said that participants at this year's meeting should hammer out ideas and initiatives for solving deadlocked negotiations between the two countries over diplomatic and territorial issues. This is a role the forum hopes to play as a Track 2 or Track 1.5 dialogue organizer, he said.

Akashi, a former United Nations undersecretary-general, warned that the spread of exclusive nationalist moves is the most dangerous development for bilateral relations. He stressed the importance of private-sector dialogue between the two countries to keep the situation from worsening.

In order to make the vow of renunciation of war, as declared in the Japan-China Peace and Friendship treaty, more irreversible in the years to come, Akashi stressed the need for the two countries to build a crisis management system.

His speech was followed by statements by Cai Mingzhao, director of the State Council Information Office of China, and Masato Kitera, Japanese ambassador to China, who represented their respective governments.

Cai praised the forum as a successful example of non-governmental diplomatic efforts between the two countries. He stressed the importance for the forum to fulfill its role to help improve soured Japan-China relations. Specifically, he said that the two countries should strive to resolve differences with each other in their views through negotiations. He also called for expanding mutual interests, strengthening private-sector exchanges, and furthering interchanges and cooperation between Japanese and Chinese media people and organizations.

Kitera emphasized that relations between Japan and China have been strengthened and developed since the normalization of their diplomatic relations in 1972, as illustrated by an increase of over 300 times in the bilateral trade volume from the 1972 level of $1.1 billion to $333.6 billion in 2012. He emphasized that Japan attaches importance to more active youth exchanges between the two countries as part of efforts to improve the current hard political environment between Tokyo and Beijing. "There is no magic or miracle in diplomacy," he said, adding he will further strive to help improve Japan-China relations steadily.

While reconfirming the importance of Japan-China relations for East Asia and the world in the 21st century, Tang Jiaxuan, former Chinese foreign minister and currently chairman of the China-Japan Friendship Association, praised four postwar political documents between Japan and China, including the Japan-China joint declaration of 1972, as "precious political assets" between the two countries.

Referring to the bilateral dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in a keynote speech, Tang said the islands are originally China's territory. Then, he asked whether Japan considers China as a threat or as a partner, whether Japan attaches importance to East Asia or to cooperation with major countries in other regions. These remarks amounted to a strong warning against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy of exploring a more active diplomatic initiative and further cementing Japan's relations with the United States.

Meanwhile, Koichi Kato, chairman of the Japan-China Friendship Association, devoted his keynote speech to discussing ways of improving and developing Japan-China relations in the years ahead, particularly calling for promoting exchanges between Japanese and Chinese young people.

Referring to mutual misunderstanding resulting from differences in the stages of economic development between Japan and China, Kato said that the two countries should resolve their pending problems through mutual dialogue. He noted that Japan's fast economic development since the end of the war led to the destruction of Japan's culture and tradition.

He warned that China's quick economic growth in the past years may serve to destroy its culture and said that China should not try to be the second-largest economic power in terms of per capita gross domestic product, too.

Kato, a former influential parliament member and an advocate of closer Japan-China relations, noted that Japan's pop culture, such as works by animation film director Hayao Miyazaki, has caught on well with young Chinese people. If the director's visit to China or a popular Japanese singer's performance in Beijing were realized, "10,000 Chinese youngsters would gather to see them," he said. "We may then feel political issues pending between the two countries as small problems." In order to strengthen favorable emotional aspects shared by the two countries' young people, youth exchanges should be further promoted from now on, Kato said.

Debates at 2nd half of plenary session

The second half of the first-day plenary session was devoted to discussions among panelists from both sides.

At the beginning of the discussions, Reitaku University professor Kenichi Matsumoto, who served as the moderator on the Japanese side, called on participants to exchange views with each other while confirming two principles shown in the peace and friendship treaty - that is, peaceful co-existence and mutual non-aggression, as described in Article 1, and not to seek hegemony, as described in Article 2.

An initial keynote speech from the Japanese side was delivered by Fumio Sudo, former chief executive and president of JFE Holdings Inc., who noted that the two nations' prime ministers at the time when they normalized diplomatic relations in 1972, Kakuei Tanaka of Japan and Zhou Enlai of China, established relations of mutual trust based on their understanding of Chinese classics such as the "Analects of Confucius."

He emphasized that the spiritual bond the two leaders shared can be a starting point for considering Japan-China relations in the postwar period and said, "We should be back there."

Among Japanese panelists, Gen Nakatani, deputy secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, outlined the notion of Japan's proactive contribution to peace, so described by Prime Minister Abe. Nakatani said that diplomatic efforts based on such an initiative should be focused in East Asia, not in other areas. As a condition for effectively pushing the peaceful diplomatic initiative, he said that Japan should carefully explain its historical recognition and diplomatic attitude to China and South Korea. Nakatani also stressed the need for Japan to make a success of the prime minister's so-called Abenomics economic policy agenda.

Referring to the Japan-China territorial dispute over what the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands, the group of islands in the East China Sea, Nakatani said that order in the oceans should not be changed by force. Any dispute should be resolved by law, he said.

At the same time, Nakatani said that the two countries should refrain from mutually repeating unilateral arguments so that bilateral discussions may be held in a manner that forges better mutual understanding.

Ichiro Aisawa, chairman of Japan's House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Administration, said that Japanese people should seriously think about what happened in Asia in the past 100 years and what Japan did in this part of the world during the period. At the same time, he asked the Chinese to properly look at Japan's history as a peace-loving country since the end of the war in 1945.

Regarding the dispute over the Senkaku Islands, Aisawa explained Japan's position that the islands are Japan's inherent territory and there is no territorial question between Japan and China. But he also noted that the sovereignty of the islands has actually come up for discussion between the two countries and said that politicians should properly grapple with the situation. He expressed his hope that calm minds will come together to solve the issue so that it may not adversely affect Japan-China relations as a whole.

Among Chinese panelists, Lu Shumin, vice president of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, painted a relatively favorable picture of future Japan-China relations while citing the results of a recent public opinion survey. The opinion poll, jointly conducted by the Japanese and Chinese forum organizers in each other's country, showed the impressions toward each other's country to be the worst ever among respondents polled this year, but at the same time, more than 70 percent of the polled in both countries were aware of the importance of relations between the two countries, Lu noted. This means a favorable foundation exists in public opinion and may indicate a clue to improving China-Japan relations, he said.

Yuji Miyamoto, a former Japanese ambassador to China, stressed that Japan-China relations are important not only for Asia but also for the whole world. The two countries have serious responsibilities to develop the world, he said.

Noting that national interests represent a combination of various kinds of interests, such as economic and security issues, Miyamoto said that any single issue, such as the Senkaku dispute, cannot be more serious than comprehensive national interests. Japan-China relations as a whole should not be interrupted only because of the territorial question, Miyamoto said. Challenges facing East Asia should be addressed not with force, but by upholding such ideas as justice and impartiality. Japan and China should strive to build a new model order as core countries in this area so that they can lead the world from East Asia.