Japanese government unilaterally engendered the storm of Diaoyu Islands and caused unprecedentedly grim situation in China-Japan relations. The insightful people in the two countries had hoped to push the bilateral relationship to a new height on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the normalization their diplomatic relations, but their ties fell into an impasse due to the erroneous words and deeds of the Japanese side on historical issues, influencing the important bilateral and multilateral cooperation. The antagonism between the two people also became more obvious.
The dispute over the Diaoyu Islands exposed the vulnerability of China-Japan relations. The vulnerability is a result of three factors, namely historical problems, territorial issues and geopolitics.
The vulnerability is clearly not in line with the common interests of both sides. The key of reducing the vulnerability is whether the two sides can abide by the four political documents formed between China and Japan during the past 40 years, namely the "China-Japan Joint Statement" published on Sept. 29, 1972, the "China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship" signed on Aug. 12, 1978, the "China-Japan Joint Declaration" announced on Nov. 26, 1998 and the "China-Japan Joint Declaration on Comprehensively Promoting Strategic and Mutually Beneficial Relations" signed on May 7, 2008.
The core spirit of the four political documents is "taking history as a mirror and facing the future." The use of the spirit in dealing with the Diaoyu Islands issue concerns whether the issue can be solved peacefully.
The largest common interests of China and Japan is to achieve peaceful development. China has regarded the peaceful development as its long-term national strategy while Japan is still in an important crossroad of whether to take the peaceful development as its long-term national strategy. For the long-term interests of the two countries' development and cooperation, it is very crucial to properly handle the Diaoyu Islands issue. To calm the storm of the Diaoyu Islands down, Japan should acknowledge and shelve the islands dispute.
