Diaoyu Islands dispute can be laid to rest if China and Japan accept joint sovereignty

Forty years ago, Deng Xiaoping visited Tokyo, as the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China was coming into force. There, Deng addressed the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute, articulating his famous idea that the issue should be shelved, because “the people of our generation don't have sufficient wisdom to settle this discussion, but the people of the next generation will probably be wiser than us. At that time, a solution that everyone can agree on will probably be found.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has finally paid an official visit to China, almost six years after returning to the Kantei. But this is not Abe’s first visit to China as prime minister. In 2006, just two weeks after first becoming prime minister, Abe visited Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping has also visited Tokyo in 2009, less than two years after becoming vice-president of China. So why did it take so long for Abe or Xi to visit each other?

As much as Deng wanted to set the Diaoyu/Senkaku issue aside, so it wouldn’t affect political and economic relations between China and Japan, there was too much political passion on both sides to isolate the dispute from broader relations. The 2012 crisis, with massive protests in China that followed the Japanese government’s decision to acquire some of the islands from their private owners, froze bilateral relations for almost six years.