Middle Kingdom & Empire of the Rising Sun Sino-Japanese Relations; Past and Present
Volume 41, Number 4, Winter 2016
87
BOOK REVIEW ARTICLE
Middle Kingdom & Empire of the Rising Sun:
Sino-Japanese Relations, Past and Present
June Teufel Dreyer
Oxford University Press, 2016
Sino-Japanese Relations; Past and Present
Aldric Hama
Hamamatsu, Japan1*
A nuanced understanding of past Chinese and Japanese policy
and Sino-Japanese relations helps explain the actions of these pivotal
Asian nations. Dr. June Dreyer’s current book does not distill
history down to a “good-guy, bad-guy” caricature, as done in so
many contemporary textbooks, but clarifies the national interests
that have so largely shaped East Asian history. The early 20th
century was punctuated by a brief period of mutual cooperation
between Republican China and Imperial Japan, but the People’s
Republic of China’s current assertive policy towards its neighbors
should be viewed as a return to historical imperial thinking which
saw China at the center of a universal order and barbarians populating
the periphery. That is something very different from the
Maoist vision of spreading proletariat revolution. By contrast, Japan’s
recent foreign policy and actions represent less an aggressive
return to historic national interests. Than a collaboration with U.S.
interests. Foreign policy specialists and others who wish to understand
the policies and actions of the world’s second largest (and
nuclear-armed) economy, China, and those of the world’s third
largest economy, Japan, will find Dr. Dreyer’s current discussion
highly enlightening.
As an annual ritual around August 15, the day Imperial Japan
accepted the Potsdam Declaration in 1945, the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) denounces Japan—and only Japan—on its alleged
lack of historical perspective, asserting that Japan’s current internal
affairs and foreign policies are based on “misremembered” or
“distorted” history. The CCP further condemns Japan’s “insuffi-
1* Address for communication:
The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies
88 Aldric Hama
cient expression of remorse” for past alleged atrocities, visits by
Japanese politicians to Yasukuni Shrine, and Japanese history
textbooks revisions. By contrast, no nation annually chastises the
CCP, to reflect on its own murderous past or demands that they
apologize for oppressing the Tibetan people. One may not have
high regard for either China or Japan, but given their economic
scales, the world’s second and third largest economies, respectively,
one should not be ignorant of their potential to influence
regional and global events. Indeed, events that have originated
within Asia, from civil conflict to disease epidemics, have had a
tendency to spread worldwide. Thus, understanding of the source
of current tense relationship between China and Japan would be
markedly facilitated with an understanding of their past.
University of Miami Political Science Professor June Dreyer’s
current work is highly laudable in that it does not take the one-dimensional,
“good-guy, bad-guy” tact in discussing the historical
foundation of contemporary relations between China and Japan.
This reviewer sees contemporary discussion of China-Japan relations
as being overshadowed by the post-war “Tokyo Trials,” or
the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the primary
mission of which was to ensure that Japan would never again be
able to militarily challenge the international order as represented
by the Allies. To do this, the “Tokyo Trials” elaborated a history
that laid blame for the (second) Sino-Japanese War and subsequent
US-Japan War squarely on the shoulders of Japan.2 Based
on the Allies’ version of history, Japan was summarily found guilty
of “aggression”—China being one of many “helpless victims” of
what FDR called “mad dog” Japan. The Allies claimed that the
verdict was entirely appropriate and executed or imprisoned Japanese
authorities who were, in the Allies’ minds, somehow linked
to a “conspiracy” to wage an “aggressive war” to conquer the East
2 Details of the Allies’ version of history can be found Richard Minear’s Victors’ Justice:
The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (1971). In addition to “Problems of History,” Minear
pointed out numerous legal issues, including the fact that laws against the “crimes”
committed by the defendants did not exist before they were committed (ex post facto)
and that the tribunal was not to “be bound by technical rules of evidence.”
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Book Review Article: Middle Kingdom 89
and dominate “the rest of world”. The American Occupation authorities
condemned traditional Japanese society and substituted
it with western-style liberalism. Japan was made to accept history
as defined by the “Tokyo Trials.”3
Dreyer’s book is a broad history of the interaction between
China and Japan but on closer reading, to the current reviewer, a
theme that conspicuously emerges is that closely-knit groups form
enduring attitudes and behaviors that maintain in-group cohesion
and exclude outsiders. The idea that hostility to outsiders is a naturally
evolved human behavior is hardly a popular one. The current
book describes the evolution of Chinese and Japanese cultures
from ancient times to demonstrate the development of respective
distinct thinking of their place in the world. While initially similar,
the Japanese eventually developed their own culture and social
structure. Also, while to an extent xenophobic to outsiders, the
Japanese have been more accepting of outsiders than the Chinese.
Historical trends
The Chinese worldview, in essence, is shown as us vs. them.
Dreyer states that China always saw itself as the “central state” and
the “outer realms” were “populated by uncivilized barbarians”. In
fact, Dreyer explains that “Confucian society did not conceive of a
Chinese civilization: there was only civilization and barbarism…
What was not civilized was barbaric.” The Chinese emperor was
a “righteous man designated by Heaven,” a “mediator between
heaven and earth, the apex of civilization…” The emperor performed
rites to bring continuing harmony in the universe. Thus,
the book concludes, the emperor did not just rule China but “All
under Heaven”. Barbarians may become civilized by performing
the proper rituals and paying tribute. As the emperor received the
Mandate of Heaven and is responsible for order in the universe,
it would behoove visitors, especially barbarians, to show proper
3 Chinese dynasties have actively changed history, upstart regimes proclaiming that
the previous regime lost their Heavenly Mandate to rule while erasing the existence of
their predecessor, which included exterminating their immediate and extended family
(Rekishitsu, Bunyu Ko, March 15, 2015). Dr. Dreyer points out that the PRC has yet to
be forthcoming with their own blood-stained history.
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90 Aldric Hama
“feelings of humility” in his presence. The book mentions that China’s
neighbors demonstrated their acceptance to the Chinese order
in varying degrees. At one end, the Korean kingdoms were “most
sincere in their acceptance of a position of inferiority…” By contrast,
Japan was “never entirely comfortable” with their assigned
status and the few tributary missions they sent to China reflected
this unease. As such, the Chinese looked down on the Japanese
as uncivilized, calling Japan woguo or “country of the dwarves.”
This dynamic between China and Japan, from the earliest times
up until the present, is documented throughout the current book.
Chinese insistence on Japanese submission persisted from
the reign of the Mongols (Yuan Dynasty), who attempted to subdue
Japan with two separate invasions, through the Ming Dynasty.
Dreyer relates the crude chauvinism expressed by a Chinese
emperor, who went so far as to threaten Japan with destruction if
they failed to show obsequiousness. Relations between China and
Japan were not always contentious. Conciliatory gestures by the
Japanese to the new Chinese emperor in 1398 apparently placated
him, and the Japanese were granted license to trade with China.
Nonetheless, old attitudes die hard—despite defeat at Japanese
hands in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the Chinese
government continued to refer to the Japanese as “dwarves” and
“dwarf pirates” in official publications.
Whereas the Chinese portrayed themselves as the center of
the universe, presided over by a righteous, Heavenly-appointed
mortal, Japan defined itself in mystical terms—the earliest written
records feature “supernatural and cosmological” and “aristocratic”
themes. Rather than a mortal chosen by Heaven, the emperor
of Japan is a “direct descendent of the gods” who created Japan.
While Japanese tribute missions to China were few and far between,
as Dreyer points out, they were continued as the returnees
brought back “material goods” and “useful information about
Chinese culture”.
In 1592, Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea—the book does
not elaborate why. In any event, the Korean king fled Seoul and,
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Book Review Article: Middle Kingdom 91
as a Korea’s suzerain, China dispatched military forces to Korea.
Eventually, a truce was arranged between China and Japan. Further
forays into the Asian continent ended with Hideyoshi’s death.
An earlier Japanese foray into Korea was in support of the Paekche,
one of the Korean kingdoms. One of the other kingdoms, the
Silla, backed by the Tang Dynasty, went on not only to defeat a
combined Japanese-Paekche force but subdued the entire Korean
Peninsula. Control for Korea as a final step from Asia to Japan, or
from Japan to Asia, depending on the Russian, Chinese or Japanese
point of view, continued into the 20th century.
The focus of the current book is relations between China and
Japan. However, one could ask why Korea, claiming that it was
either independent or a Chinese vassal as the situation dictated,
never sought the path of neutrality, as did Switzerland, being surrounded
by larger nations.4 Instead, Korea frequently called in Chinese
military assistance when westerners or the Japanese arrived
off Korean shores, resulting in the stationing of Chinese troops for
months on end in Korea. Sometimes the Chinese troops bullied
Koreans and other times the two combined to massacre Japanese
residents. The Koreans mimicked Chinese attitudes—condescension
and derision—when dealing with Japan. Korean social structure
generally mirrored that of China, wherein a tiny elite ruled
a vast peasantry. “More than five hundred years of misrule had
reduced the Korean people to a cultural and economic condition
deplorable in the extreme…”5 Such was the state of Korea up until
the early 20th century.
As China forced barbarians to conform to its celestial order,
Japan sought to define its own worldview. Dreyer summarizes the
composition of the Japanese government of around the 16th cen-
4 The contentious interaction between Korea, a true vassal of China to the end, and Japan
and attitudes that emerged from this history has been discussed elsewhere (e.g. In
Korea with Marquis Ito, G.T. Ladd, 1908). Ladd states that Koreans view non-Chinese
foreigners as inferior—as their Chinese master did. More recent books (e.g. Getting
Over It! Sonfa Oh, 2015) also note how ancient Koreans considered the Japanese as
barbarians—again as the Chinese did. Perhaps these ancient Korean attitudes drive
modern relations with Japan.
5 Ireland, A. (1925) The New Korea. NY, NY: E.P. Dutton & Co.
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92 Aldric Hama
tury: “While the imperial house was endowed with the symbolism
of national authority, it was almost devoid of power. The opposite
was true of the institution of shogun,” the leading “general” of
the warrior class and his government, the shogunate, or “military
government”. The shogun took the title “Great Prince of Japan” as
the form of address in foreign relations. The title was intended to
differentiate Japan from China and to suggest the Japan was not a
Chinese vassal, like Korea. The book suggests that this marked a
turning point in Japanese history, a “declaration of independence”
from a Sinocentric world order that had heretofore “dominated
East Asia.”
The Tokugawa clan headed the Shogunate in the 1600s and
embarked on a policy of national isolation, while continuing limited
trade with the Dutch and Portuguese. Unlike the Chinese,
who belittled anything that originated from beyond their borders,
the Japanese welcomed the chance to trade for western “goods and
knowledge”.
The Chinese contempt of the Japanese extended to the technologically
advanced Europeans. Believing that they had everything
they needed, the Chinese generally rejected foreign ideas
and technology. To an outsider, accommodation would have
been in China’s best interest. The Qing emperor rejected a British
mission sent in 1792 to enhance economic activity between China
and Great Britain, stating that they had no need for products
“manufactured by outside barbarians” and ordered the British to
show “proper demeanor”. Western attempts to improve Chinese
infrastructure, so as to enhance foreign trade and internal commerce,
was derided by the Chinese court as “unnecessary”. Given
the Chinese distain for western civilization and its technology,
it should not be surprising how effortlessly Europeans carved up
China’s territory in the 19th century.
Perhaps a key differentiation between the Chinese and Japanese
is that the Japanese are not as xenophobic as the Chinese.
Rather than disregard the western presence, as China did to its
detriment, Japan “quickly realized the need to respond …rather
than try to ignore them.” Seeing how its vast and ostensibly more
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Book Review Article: Middle Kingdom 93
powerful neighbor China was rapidly turned into a patchwork of
western colonies in the 1800s, Japan rapidly assimilated western
knowledge and technology—the Japanese had long appreciated
western technology as well as Chinese material goods. The Japanese
modernized and displayed western trappings—including
colonialism. Japan also was amenable to the “Westphalian conception
of theoretically equal sovereign states,” a concept utterly
contrary to Chinese ethnocentrism.
The current book points out that Japan later realized that
“equality” between states was, in fact, reserved for Europeans, as
white Western markets restricted Japanese goods and most white
western nations barred Japanese citizens from immigrating.6
America had proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine for the western
hemisphere, a warning to European powers to keep out of the Caribbean
and South America while reserving the right to intervene
in these areas. When resource-poor Japan attempted to pursue a
“Monroe Doctrine” for East Asia, the US strenuously protested,
demanding that access to Chinese markets remain free (“open
door”). This and other actions taken by western colonialist nations,
especially the US, to isolate Japan and detach it from China
fueled Japanese anti-western resentment, eventually culminating
in a drive to kick westerners out of Asia.
Given these circumstances, one could surmise that the lack
of a major war between Japan, China and the West would have
been sheer luck. What if xenophobic China had rapidly modernized
while Japan continued to reject contacts with the West? Perhaps
Japan, rather than China, would have been a western colony.
(This reviewer suggests that one would not be far off the mark to
view the current situation in this manner.)
Up to and throughout World War II, the Republic of China
sought western aid to oust the Japanese from Manchuria and
elsewhere in China, despite the fact that one of the goals of the
6 Japan, as one of the charter members of the League of Nations, proposed a “racial
nondiscrimination” amendment to an article of the League’s Covenant. Despite majority
support, Chairman Woodrow Wilson rejected Japan’s proposal, declaring that an
amendment of this nature required “unanimous” support.
The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies
94 Aldric Hama
Chinese was to “oust the barbarians,” including western ones. This
theme, of pitting barbarians against barbarians, of violently ejecting
outsiders while clamoring for their money and arms, appears
with regularity throughout the current book.
Current trends
The current book points out the fallacy of a number of historical
“facts” that fall under the rubric of “conventional wisdom”.
One could say with confidence that it is unlikely that the current
book’s points will find their way anytime soon into history
textbooks, given the prevailing pandering to groups that portray
themselves as historical “victims”. As an example, the Chinese
have claimed that the so-called “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” was
a plot “aggressive” Japan hatched to provoke the “peaceful” Chinese
into attacking the Japanese, thereby giving Japan the excuse
to attack China. However, the book points out that the “Incident”
was not at all premeditated, that it was in fact a Chinese military
unit that attacked a Japanese unit firing blanks during night maneuvers.
Live ammunition was indeed brought out later when the
Japanese found themselves under fire. Furthermore, following the
“Incident,” both the Chinese and Japanese sought to contain the
situation. Also not likely to be mentioned in history textbooks
anytime soon are the massacres of Japanese civilians living in settlements
in China and the ambushing of Japanese military units
by Chinese militias—which were armed and trained by the Japanese
for the purpose of protecting Japanese settlers.
The CCP, as the book points out, offers a “mythical version”
of World War II, in which the Chinese Communists single-handedly
defeated Japan. As the CCP pass their contrived history off as
real, the rest of the world says absolutely nothing. If Japan, however,
pointed out errors in China’s version of history, such an act
would be condemned as “revisionist” and would be further condemned
for a lack of “remorse” for past “aggression,” by the CCP
and “right thinking” people. Serious discussion of the facts would
be lost in the strident recriminations against “aggressive” Japan.
The Chinese court of the past demanded barbarians show “proper
Volume 41, Number 4, Winter 2016
Book Review Article: Middle Kingdom 95
demeanor” and to “trembling obey and show no negligence”. The
parallel with today’s China and historic China is plain enough.
One could characterize current Chinese behavior as nothing more
than old Sino-centrism.
The conventional wisdom is that the frequent complaints by
the CCP regarding the “revision” of Japanese school history textbooks
and visits to Yasukuni Shrine by political figures are due
to Chinese fears that Japan is re-militarizing. While there is talk
within Japan of increasing military capabilities in order to participate
in international obligations, such as peacekeeping, the book
makes clear that it is the United States which ultimately decides if
any “rearmament” occurs. As far as actual military spending, the
book points out that Japanese spending has “remained stationary,
even actually declining for more than a decade,” whereas the People’s
Liberation Army has had “double digit increases” since 1989.7
The PRC does not appear to be willing any time soon to give up its
nuclear-armed ballistic missiles for the sake stability in East Asia
much less world peace.
While Japan does have a modern, high-tech military, it is apparently
incapable of independent offensive operations, not only
because of its primary objective, homeland defense, but also due
to restrictions placed on it by Japanese law. Dreyer points out that
Japan has been frequently criticized, particularly by Americans,
for “distaining” from “meaningful participation” in international
military operations such as the 1990 Gulf War even though Japan’s
lifeline to oil was at stake at the time. Perhaps conveniently forgotten
by most Americans is the fact that the post-war US occupational
authorities wrote and imposed the “peace” constitution
on Japan, in which the Japanese people “forever renounce war as
a sovereign right and the threat or use of force as a means of settling
international disputes” and that military forces “will never
be maintained”. While Americans show frustration over Japanese
7 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested that Japan pay more to
maintain US forces in Japan. In fact, maintenance of US bases is within Japan’s defense
budget. The current book also points out that most of the defense budget is spent
on personnel rather than weaponry.
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96 Aldric Hama
“restraint,” as dictated by a constitution written by Americans,
at the same time, there is little American support to amend the
constitution, which, ironically, would benefit the US. The CCP,
however, views discussion of constitutional revision as a revival
of Japanese “militarism” and Japan, and only Japan, is denounced.
Observing this behavior, one could conclude that PRC, after hundreds
of years, still considers the “country of the dwarves” as its
vassal.
The book points out controversies such as Japanese politicians’
visits to Yasukuni Shrine, history textbook revisions and the
Senkaku Islands dispute are relatively modern in origin. Almost
all of Japan’s post-war prime ministers made a pilgrimage to Yasukuni
Shrine, which “clearly honors all Japanese who have fallen
in battle anywhere and not just those of World War II.”8 Foreign
Minister Shintaro Abe (1986; father of the current Prime Minister)
pointed out that Japan had previously expressed “regret” for the
war in a 1972 Sino-Japanese normalization communiqué. Abe also
pointed out that the communiqué stated that neither side would
“interfere in each other’s internal affairs.”9 Visits to the shrine were
to “simply mourn those who have died.” As another example of
the CCP ignoring the normalization communiqué, in 1982—and
almost annually thereafter—the CCP castigated the Japanese government,
as reported by the Japanese media, for “revising” its high
school history text books to “deny” Japanese “aggression” during
World War II. In fact, in this particular case, there was no revision—
the Japanese media were entirely mistaken.10 The CCP has
8 Yasukuni Shrine was created during the Meiji Era to honor Japan’s war dead. Within
the Yasukuni Shrine precinct is a memorial (Chinreisha) to the opponents who fell for
their country. Yasukuni Shrine thereby houses non-Japanese as well as Japanese souls.
9 In contrast, Japan has kept to the letter of the 1972 communiqué: while the rest of
the world reacted in horror and moved to sanction the PRC following the Tiananmen
Square massacre, Japan refrained from commenting or acting, as this would “constitute
interfering with the internal affairs of another country.”
10 The current book notes that the “comfort woman” issue is the result of the media
totally disregarding the truth for what is fashionable. A major daily newspaper, the
Asahi Shinbun, recently apologized for not fact-checking their “comfort women” articles,
which were based on a fraudulent book. Nonetheless, the “comfort women” has
embedded itself into the modern western psyche.
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Book Review Article: Middle Kingdom 97
taken to solving modern problems with ancient thinking. It may
not matter what barbarians are thinking, even if they are in the
right, so as long as they hold China in high esteem.
Amazingly, as the CCP repeatedly pried into Japan’s internal
affairs and admonished Japan for whatever it found, the CCP
continued to receive low-interest loans and other economic assistance
from the Japanese government as Official Developmental
Assistance (ODA), channeled into a wide range of infrastructural
and environmental projects.11 One could speculate that Japanese
aid greatly boosted PRC military capabilities as well. The PRC
surely benefited from Japanese largess, and their surpassing of the
Japanese economy in 2010 shows that this was indeed the case.
Government aid to the PRC continued even as Japan underwent
a period of economic decline and it was not until prior to the Beijing
Olympics that aid was terminated. The Japanese private sector
also poured money into the PRC to further modernize and buildup
its infrastructure. The Japanese hoped that aiding China would
promote regional “peace and stability.” While Japan continues to
rely on the PRC as a key export market, the importance of Japan
as a Chinese market greatly declined over time. During all this, the
PRC continued to benefit from Japanese investment.
It was only after the discovery of undersea natural resources
in the late 1960s near the Senkaku Islands that the PRC (and Taiwan)
showed interest. The United States returned administrative
control of Okinawa, which included the Senkaku Islands, to Japan
in 1972. The CCP did not make settlement of the Senkaku Islands
“issue” a condition for normalized relations with Japan in 1972.
To conclude a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Japan (1978),
Deng Xiaoping stated that any concerns over the Senkaku Islands
were “to be put off for another generation”. Later, PRC Rear Ad-
11 A similar ODA was given to South Korea from the 1960s well into the 1990s,
wherein Japan gave Seoul the equivalent of several billions in US dollars in low-interest
loans and grants (Editorial Supplement in Ireland, 1925). The Japanese government
hoped to improve relations with South Korea. South Korea repays Japan with nearly
annual rituals of strident denunciation that echoes those of the PRC. Other issues
raised particular to Korea include the so-called comfort women and ownership of
Takeshima Islands.
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98 Aldric Hama
miral Yin Zhou announced that the Senkaku (“Diaoyu”) Islands
were not “core interests,” or interests important enough to go to
war over. In contrast to previous ambiguity, the PRC’s National
Peoples’ Congress annexed the Senkaku Islands in 1992, among
other disputed islands. A surge of Chinese fishing vessels, PRC
surveillance ships and aircraft brazenly intruded into the Senkaku
Islands’ territorial waters and airspace. In response, the Japanese
government did nothing, granting the PRC requests economic aid
all the while. The current situation is surreal: while Japan claims
the Senkaku Islands as its own, it does little to enforce its claim
and the PRC crosses borders with impunity.12 In keeping with historical
behavior, the PRC does as it pleases in the South China Sea,
a “Chinese bathtub.”13
The current reviewer suggests that the facts as laid out by
Dreyer’s book more accurately reflect circumstances rather than
the “good vs. evil” fiction favored by the CCP and other anti-Japan
groups. There are a number of historical issues the current book
discusses, including the so-called comfort women issue and the
“Nanking massacre,” that may be of interest to readers searching
for enlightenment.
The current book should help to raise understanding of the
background of current Sino-Japanese relations, which is a result
of behavior shaped hundreds of years ago rather than a recent result
of World War II. It may not be entirely clear to readers that
12 Dr. Dreyer cites the Japanese government’s 2010 handling of the captain of a
Chinese fishing vessel, who rammed two Japan Coast Guard vessels. The Japanese
government released the captain following threats by the PRC of economic sanctions.
It is not entirely clear whether the captain was under orders to provoke Japan or did
it under his own volition, as the captain was placed under house arrest after he was
hailed as a hero. Nonetheless, the PRC took advantage of the episode to “strengthen its
presence in the area”.
13 In a case brought by the Philippines against the PRC of its delineation of its maritime
boundary in the South China Sea (2013-19, “The South China Sea Arbitration”),
the PRC did not even bother to send a representative, since, they stated, that the Court
had no jurisdiction. On July 12, 2016, the Court found that that the boundary claimed
by the PRC, the “Nine-Dashed Line,” had no historical basis. In response, the Chinese
stated that it will ignore the ruling. What the Chinese really mean, consistent with the
theme of the current book, is that a barbarian court of law has no bearing on the celestial
order as defined by the Middle Kingdom.
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Book Review Article: Middle Kingdom 99
the Chinese continue to persist in believing that the universe revolves
around them. The current reviewer suggests that Chinese
ethnocentrism has survived despite the current era of “equality”
and “democracy,” because the Chinese people themselves have not
changed. Human attitudes and behavior shape culture and culture
shapes human attitudes and behavior.
While neither Chinese nor Japanese would have submitted to
the other in the past, neither has truly dominated the other. Dreyer
suggests that for stability in East Asia, both countries will need
to see the other as a co-equal—perhaps problems can be “managed”
if they can’t be “resolved”. While both the PRC and Japan
are aging, given the sheer size of the PRC’s population, time may
be on the PRC’s side and at some time in the future it may finally
claim the woguo as it has with Korea, as its own.