Japan can revitalize by strengthening ties with neighbor

China and Japan have markedly intensified their efforts to try and reinvigorate bilateral ties since the Shigeru Ishiba government took office in October, particularly after his meeting with the top Chinese leader on the sidelines of the 31st APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima in November.

In the latest move in that regard, the ruling parties of the two countries agreed on Tuesday that they would maintain close dialogue and communication no matter what the state of China-Japan relations. The two governments also reached a 10-point consensus on people-to-people and cultural exchanges in Beijing last month.

People-to-people and cultural exchanges and exchanges between their respective ruling parties served as important icebreakers in the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations in 1972, which ushered in a new chapter for the two neighbors.

In their meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Tuesday, the Japanese delegation, led by Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama of the Liberal Democratic Party and Secretary General Makoto Nishida of the Komeito Party, expressed Tokyo's willingness to work with Beijing to push for concrete results in practical cooperation in various fields.

That's a clear message that Ishiba is not only looking to improve the communication with Beijing but more importantly seeking to strengthen pragmatic economic and trade collaboration with the world's second-largest economy.

The Ishiba government undoubtedly faces an acute need to inject some vitality into the Japanese economy, which has endured long-term stagnation since the 1990s, when Washington successfully contained Japan's catch-up through imposing on it a series of trade, financial, technological pacts favoring the United States. Both the former Shinzo Abe and Fumio Kishida governments failed to do so.

Although it is correct to fuel growth through innovation as the Japanese policymakers propose, Japan needs such a huge market as China to digest its commercialized innovation capacity so as to fully realize the values of its world-class industries and labs.

The structural complementarity between the Chinese and Japanese economies and industries has remained largely untapped due to the interference of external forces.

Born and growing up after World War II, Ishiba and his colleagues should be well aware that although it was the US that boosted Japan's quick recovery after the war, it was the common development of China and the Asia-Pacific that had sustained Japan's prosperity afterwards.

Those historical lessons in both mending ties and rebooting the economy walk hand in hand with each other, and are still of strong reference value today.