ABSTRACT
By its very nature, the diplomacy conducted between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Japan in the years before normalization took place in 1972 must EHFKDUDFWHULVHGDVXQRI¿FLDORULQIRUPDO,QWKHDEVHQFHRIGLSORPDWLFUHODWLRQV Sino-Japanese interaction took place through private channels and was heavily constrained by US pressure on Japan to limit contacts and trade with the communist government for strategic reasons. Nonetheless, the three trade agreements that the Chinese and Japanese concluded in the early-to mid-1950s had the tacit support of their respective governments. Further, cultural exchange was also sponsored by each side under the rubric of China’s ‘people’s diplomacy’ and Japan’s seikei bunri (separation of politics from economics), thereby lending a distinctly RI¿FLDOÀDYRXUWRWKHUHODWLRQVKLS+RZHYHU6LQR-DSDQHVHUHODWLRQVZHUHFRQstantly buffeted by the changing domestic and international environments of the time, not least rising Cold War tensions, so that, after a relatively short period of calm in the early 1950s, by the late 1950s the relationship deteriorated sharply, leading to the cessation of trade and cultural exchange in the wake of the Nagasaki ÀDJLQFLGHQWLQ0D\,WZDVRQO\LQWKDWWKHUHODWLRQVKLSEHJDQWRVKRZ signs of improvement (if these are to be measured by levels of trade), with the beginning of ‘friendly trade’ and then Liao-Takasaki (LT) trade.1 Cultural exchange also began to resume in the early 1960s. 7KHGLI¿FXOWLHVWKDWDURVHLQWKHUHODWLRQVKLSEHWZHHQDQGRULJLQDWHG
from domestic changes in both countries and responses to regional developments. Domestically, changes were afoot when Kishi Nobusuke became prime minister in 1957. Kishi’s pro-Taiwan stance did not endear him to the PRC, which was going through domestic political changes too, leading to the radicalization of Chinese domestic policy and an attendant hardening of policy towards Japan. Regional issues of the late 1950s included a heightening of tension in the Taiwan Strait, the beginnings of the Sino-Soviet split, and the proposed revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty, all of which had an impact on Sino-Japanese relations.
