Li Qiang's Realist Pitch Seeks To Reset Sino-Japan Ties

2025-06-07 03:09:02

(MENAFN- Asia Times) In a moment of diplomatic clarity that quickly gained traction across Chinese and international media, Chinese Premier Li Qiang recently remarked :“China and Japan are neighbors who cannot be moved. Since we cannot move, we should be good neighbors.”

This deceptively simple statement carries a deep sense of geopolitical realism. It reflects Beijing's awareness that proximity is not merely a geographical fact-it is a strategic condition that requires sober diplomacy, especially amid rising regional volatility and heated rivalry with the US.

Few bilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific are as fraught and intertwined as those between China and Japan. Rooted in centuries of interaction, marred by the horrors of 20th-century warfare and shaped by decades of economic symbiosis, the China-Japan relationship has historically and recently swung between wary competition and cautious cooperation.

In invoking the idea of immutable geography, Premier Li also hinted at a basic truth: China wants stability with Japan, not out of sentimentality but strategic necessity.

Geography's inescapable reality

“Cannot be moved” is a blunt admission of reality. From Shanghai to Fukuoka, the distance is less than 800 kilometers.

Between them lies the East China Sea-an arena of resource disputes, overlapping air defense zones, and naval brinkmanship, but also a vital artery of commerce and energy transit.

Despite maritime tensions, this shared body of water anchors both countries in an unavoidable relationship.

Li's appeal to geography recalls the thinking of the late Japanese diplomat Yukio Okamoto, who argued that China and Japan are condemned by fate and physics to coexist-so they must learn to do so constructively.

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