Friends Again

Signing a peace treaty at last

After nearly half a century of tension and enmity, Japan and China officially buried their differences last week. Following a surprisingly quick breakthrough, representatives of the two countries signed a long-delayed Treaty of Peace and Friendship in Peking. It restores full economic, cultural and diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Peking for the first time since Japan invaded China in 1931, thus ending the technical state of war between them.

Diplomatic relations alone had been resumed in 1972 on the condition that the treaty be signed in the near future. But negotiations soon broke down when the Chinese insisted on an "anti-hegemony" clause, which would have committed Japan to side with China in the event of a Sino-Soviet conflict. The Russians, meanwhile, launched a campaign of their own to keep Japan from signing the treaty.

Early this summer, Premier Takeo Fukuda decided to resume the talks. With the presidency of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party up for election in December and rival candidates calling for the treaty with China for both trade and security reasons, Fukuda needed a foreign policy coup to bolster his position. The Russians responded again with a stiff protest. In a letter to Fukuda, Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev warned that Soviet policy toward Japan might be seriously affected if Tokyo signed the document. This time the warning was ignored. Said Foreign Minister Sunao Sonoda: "Japan will not tolerate instructions from another country on the conduct of its policies."

Once again the antihegemony issue threatened the talks. But when Fukuda dispatched Sonoda last week to Peking in a last-ditch attempt at compromise, the Chinese suddenly agreed to a rewording, declaring that the treaty "does not affect [either party's] relations with third countries." The Japanese foreign office was jubilant, claiming that its views had been "accepted 100%."

The Russians had already registered their displeasure by canceling fisheries talks that were in progress in Moscow. The Soviets had previously cut severely into Japanese fishing rights by declaring a 200-mile protected zone around their northern shores. Japanese officials in Tokyo, however, doubted whether Moscow would go so far as to damage their trading relationship, which at $3 billion a year is beneficial to both countries.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.