Why will Japan and China avoid conflict? They need each other. (CS Monitor)

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Why will Japan and China avoid conflict? They need each other.

Despite dark allusions to Germany and Britain in 1914, the two powers' economies are deeply intertwined, and Japanese doing business in China are guardedly optimistic.

By Justin McCurry, Correspondent / February 5, 2014

Tokyo

One of the most striking warnings that Sino-Japanese tensions could descend into conflict came from none other than Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.

Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Abe suggested that Japan’s relationship with China was in a “similar situation” to that between Britain and Germany before the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The most common interpretation: that close economic ties between nations are not always enough to prevent them from going to war with each other.

Japanese officials insisted that Mr. Abe’s comments, as reported by some foreign media, had been taken out of context. But his analogy raises an important question about the ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and China: whether strong bilateral trade will be enough to pull them back from the brink or, at the very least, help them weather the current diplomatic storm. The answer – at least for now – is yes, according to the consensus emerging among the myriad Japanese companies with business interests in China.

That guarded optimism contrasts with the autumn of 2012, when Japan’s decision effectively to nationalize the Senkaku islands – East China Sea territories also claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyu – sparked riots in several Chinese cities and forced Japanese businesses in the country to temporarily close amid calls for boycotts of Japanese products.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2014/0205/Why-will-Japan-and-China-avoid-conflict-They-need-each-other