Gratitude and Resentment in China Japan Relations: Japan's Official Development Assistance and China's Renunciation of War Reparations
Abstract:In this article I explore the connection between historically based emotional issues and economic interests in China Japan relations by analyzing the linkage between China's renunciation of war reparations and Japan's official development assistance (ODA) to China. I argue that there is no legal linkage between the two, and previous scholarship about the linkage between the ODA and reparations involves emotional arguments or entanglements surrounding "assistance" and "history." I conclude that, in explaining China Japan relations, there exists a "dual gratitude theory," related to history and assistance, as well as a "dual obligation and enmity theory." In the first decade of the twenty first century, the chain reaction of mutual recrimination between the two countries became increasingly unmanageable, apparently continuing to the present day.