Genron NPO President Yasushi Kudo has stressed the importance of non-governmental organizations' roles in promoting calm discussions between Japan and China, at a time when governance in East Asia has become unstable.

In a panel discussion as part of the political dialogue session on the first day of the 9th Tokyo-Beijing Forum on Oct. 26, Kudo said that it has become difficult for countries to compromise on sovereignty-related issues in this part of the world. If a solution is hurried, people's nationalist sentiment will be stimulated, and this will make it rather difficult to improve the situation and find a solution, causing a "diplomatic dilemma" for the countries concerned, he said.

Outlining the results of various Genron NPO-organized opinion surveys on pending problems between Japan and China, particularly a bilateral dispute over the sovereignty of a group of islands in the East China Sea, Kudo said that Japanese opinion leaders are more interested in a possible military conflict following an accidental incident over the territories and a possible full confrontation amid overheating nationalist sentiment, rather than how to solve the dispute itself. The two countries should strive, first of all, to forge a mechanism to prevent the situation from worsening further over the territorial dispute, he said. Since the situation is difficult to　improve only through existing intergovernmental diplomatic negotiations, efforts led by the private sector must be stepped up to find a solution, he said.

Among participants on the Chinese side, Wu Jinan, director and senior fellow of the Department of Japanese Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, referred to various discrepancies in understanding about pending problems between the two countries, such as an apparent agreement on shelving the dispute between the two nations over the territories, called the Senkaku Islands on the Japanese side and the Diaoyu Islands on the Chinese side.

Wu stressed the importance for Japan and China to look for common interests by deepening mutual understanding while promoting interchanges in an intelligent and rational manner. Specifically, Wu proposed that the two countries should work together to solve important problems of mutual concern on every occasion, such as problems related to air pollution in China and the handling of the leak of radioactive contaminated water from the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeast Japan, following the devastating earthquake of March 2011, so that a clue may be found to reactivate relations between the two countries.

Ichiro Aisawa, chairman of Japan's House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Administration, noted that various countries in the world pin strong hopes on efforts to improve relations between Japan and China as they are core countries in East Asia that should lead the world economy.

A conflict between Japan and China must be avoided by all means, he stressed. If the two countries can work together in overcoming the territorial dispute, Japan and China will be able to establish grown-up relations, such as those forged between Germany and France when they overcame their difficulties after many wars, Aisawa said. To this end, Japan and China should make steady efforts to promote mutual understanding at the level of each one of their people so that buds of mutual distrust may be picked, he said.

Yasushi Akashi, chairman of the Japanese Executive Committee of the forum, expressed his doubt about the effectiveness of proposals for shelving the territorial dispute between the two countries. Recalling his experience as undersecretary-general of the United Nations, Akashi said that wars rather tend to occur accidentally in most cases. It is important to create a mechanism to prevent an occurrence of accidental incidents and keep the situation from worsening, he said.

Referring to the efforts Japan has made as a peace-loving country in the postwar period, former U.N. Undersecretary-General Akashi called on the Chinese to separately consider Japan's acts until the end of the war in 1945 and those in later years. Even when Japan comes to discuss the possibilities of changing the interpretation of its pacifist constitution and enabling it to enter a collective self-defense system, these moves will have a peaceful purpose aspect and should not be seen as a rightist move in general, Akashi said.

On the Chinese side, Zhao Qicheng, dean of the School of Journalism and Communications at Renmin University of China, expressed his concern about remarks made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other Japanese leaders concerning how to recognize historical problems between Japan and China.

China-Japan relations are not simply bilateral relations and they will come to have a strong influence on the whole of the world, Zhao said. He called on the Japanese to use self-restraint over problems related to bilateral relations.

Asked about criticism that Japanese political leaders' visits to Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine have hurt Chinese people's feelings, Aisawa said that he visits the shrine on a war-related occasion every year in order to renew his resolve in front of the war dead not to repeat a war.

Koichi Kato, chairman of the Japan-China Friendship Association, said that the shrine is not an anti-Chinese entity and it may be rather seen as anti-U.S. in view of its nature. Japanese people are at a loss about how to bow their heads to their predecessors and how to think about the last war, Kato said. Japan is unlikely to come up with an answer any time soon toward the criticisms by China and other countries concerning Japanese leaders' visits to the shrine. He asked the Chinese for a grace period until Japan finds a solution to the Yasukuni issue.

Yang Bojiang, deputy director of the Institute of Japanese Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who served as the Chinese moderator, referred to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's recent visit to Tokyo's Chidorigafuchi cemetery, dedicated to the unknown war victims, to lay a wreath before them. He noted that the development may amount to a certain message toward Japan regarding the Yasukuni issue.

In concluding remarks after three hours of discussions, Kato and Zhao, as his Chinese counterpart, referred to the presence of many young participants at the discussions, and agreed that Japan and China should reconstruct their relations steadily over many generations. (End)