ABSTRACT

Except for a few political incidents, Japan-China relations largely proceeded apace in the 1980s until the Tiananmen Incident of 1989. The Japan-China Long-Term Trade Agreement had already been concluded in February 1978, and it was agreed that Japan would export construction materials and equipment along with technology and industrial plant, and import crude oil and coal from China. A major goal of Japan's economic cooperation with China was to support China's stable development through its modernization policy line, thereby seeking for China to develop and maintain cooperative relations with the Western world. A main objective of China's independent foreign policy was adjusting the sense of distance with the United States. Japan pursued wide-ranging development of its relations with China, a developing country that had adopted a modernization path and embarked on reform and opening of its economy. In 1980s China, criticism of the gradually deepening policies of reform and opening at times grew powerful and surfaced.