The Road To Sino-Japanese Reconciliation:An Analysis Of The 2010 China-Japan Joint History Research(JHR) Report

The year 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, which is supposed to be a turning point for China and Japan to reduce hatred and work towards reconciliation. However since the end of WWII in 1945, historical disputes have haunted Sino-Japanese relationships, thereby preventing genuine reconciliation in Northeast Asia. In exploring possible methods for improving relations, it is useful to look at a prominent European example. France and Germany used to be bitter enemies, but after 1945 they successfully achieved mutual trust and understanding. In May 2006, a Franco-German Joint History Textbook entered high school classrooms in both countries successfully, which buried hatred and reflected the phenomenon of historical reconciliation.In East Asia, there exist previous efforts of history cooperation as two major axis. One is an official axis that consists of joint Korea-Japan and China-Japan official efforts, the other is a citizen’s axis, which includes Korea-Japan or China-Japan initiatives. In 2006, Chinese and Japanese governments cooperated to establish a Japan-China Joint History Research Committee(JHR) with the aim to exchange divergent historical views and promote common historical understanding. After three years, the JHR did not publish the results as planned in 2008, instead it released the result in the January of 2010. On October 1st,2014, the Chinese Academy of Social Science Press published the JHR report as two volumes of books.The goal of my thesis is to explore the possibility of reconciliation through the method of JHR in Sino-Japanese relations and to find out why JHR in the Franco-German case succeeded while the one in East Asia not. Chapter one is a brief introduction to background information and literature review; Chapter two explains the history of China’s collective memory of the Second Sino-Japanese War(from 1945 to 2015). History disputes are intertwined closely with national collective memory, sometimes collective memory can be regarded as a root cause for sparking hostility in bilateral relations. Chapter three is the body part of this thesis, in which a detailed analysis of the 2010 Sino-Japanese JHR report is presented by using two case studies--- the Nanjing Massacre and the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The finding is that there are still striking differences between the two sides despite the name of "Joint History Research", thus it is more realistic to work for a "reconciled history" rather than "common history" in the future. The fourth chapter analyzes the process of JHR project in France and Germany, in fact without past efforts and consultations of French and German historians since 1930s, the 2006 Joint Franco-German textbooks would be impossible. In the fifth chapter, the conclusion is that the success of JHR projects depends on external and internal conditions, such projects can only function well in advantageous environments. Favorable factors leading to Franco-German reconciliation are missing in Sino-Japanese relations, such as international context, regional cooperation mechanisms and the will of political leaders.Just as a German professor said, it is the political and economic factors that decide war and peace, rather than historical truth. It is true that history plays its role by either helping or postponing the reconciliation process, but it can not be isolated from the general policy. Therefore in the future in order for the second-stage of Sino-Japanese JHR project to go smoothly, favorable political and economic conditions are much needed. Since it took 70 years for France and Germany to produce the 2006 joint history textbook, East Asia historians have a long way to go.