On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country and China had agreed to establish a “maritime communication mechanism.” The announcement came the day after he and Chinese President Xi Jinping shook hands at a symbolically powerful public event on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Beijing and then met for about 25 minutes. On the proceeding Friday, China and Japan announced a vague four-point plan that looked like a roadmap to improve ties.
Most analysts see a gradual warming in relations between the two nations. Given political distress in Communist Party circles in China, that’s unlikely, however.
Why the need for a maritime mechanism? The most visible dispute between the two countries involves eight Japanese-administered outcroppings in the East China Sea. Tokyo calls the uninhabited islands the Senkakus, but Beijing, which knows them as the Diaoyus, claims them as well. In recent years, China has attempted to wrest the islets from Japanese control by sending its vessels into Japan’s territorial waters surrounding them and flying its planes through territorial airspace there. Beijing’s aggressive actions are, in the minds of many Chinese, justified by the notion that Japan stole the islands from China. Moreover, there is no shortage of other insults, injustices, and crimes the Communist Party perceives.
Pile one incident on top of another, and you can see why many have worried about armed conflict. Therefore, the handshake at the beginning of the week brought relief.