A 'warm spring' may make the winter that much colder for Beijing

BEIJING - This week here in China, the media coverage from the national media organs has been dominated, as one might expect, by President Hu Jintao's trip to Japan. And what is interesting to watch, particularly from a media awareness point of view, is just how additionally cautious Xinhua is being surrounding the content it's putting out surrounding the trip.

Xinhua is, by nature, generally very conservative. If there is even the remotest possibility of upsetting someone within the upper echelon of power in government, Xinhua will avoid it like 7 year old avoiding her creepy uncle. That said, even at the most critical of times, Xinhua will at least make mention of certain issues 'country X' and China have. But this gem from the state-run monolith, to me, epitomizes just how much pressure surrounds President Hu Jintao's trip to Japan this week.

TOKYO, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda held talks in Tokyo Wednesday on furthering the strategic and mutually beneficial relations between the two countries.

Chinese Foreign Ministry officials said the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and other issues of common concern.

The two leaders are expected to attend a signing ceremony for mutual cooperation documents and meet the press following their talks.

Earlier in the day, the Chinese president met Japanese Emperor Akihito, who hosted a welcome ceremony for the visiting Chinese leader.

Hu arrived in Tokyo Tuesday for a five-day state visit aimed at boosting bilateral relations. This marks the first visit by a Chinese head of state to Japan in 10 years.

In a written statement issued at the airport upon his arrival in Tokyo, the president said the development of a long-term stable and good neighborly relationship between China and Japan is in the fundamental interests of both countries and both peoples.

Hu expressed the hope that his visit will help enhance mutual trust, strengthen friendship, deepen cooperation and inspire plans for the future. He added that China will work together with Japan to open up new prospects for comprehensively pushing forward their strategic and mutually beneficial relations.

Hu's visit to Japan is seen as a step to further improve the once-chilly relationship between the neighbors, which began to warm with former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "ice-breaking" visit to China in October 2006. That event was followed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's "ice-thawing" trip to Japan last April and Fukuda's "spring-herald" visit to China last December.

In an interview with Japanese journalists in Beijing on Sunday, Hu described his visit to Japan as a "trip of warm spring" and wished for a "warm spring for the friendship between the two peoples."

Don't get me wrong. Xinhua has never been viewed as a bastion of hard-hitting information by any stretch of the imagination. However, the inherent lack of anything substantive seems, in my estimation, to show that the government is really trying to make sure that nothing offends the current Fukuda administration during Hu Jintao's visit. The larger question in my mind though, is why has Beijing all of a sudden decided to enter into this 'love-in' with Japan right now? Fukuda's current hold on the leadership of the LDP in Japan is tenuous at best right now. If the current political climate in Japan continues on the path it's on at the moment, odds are Fukuda won't be Prime Minster by the time 2008 comes to an end. And the odds of finding another LDP leader who is willing to placate China the way Fukuda has is pretty minimal. So, from a political perspective, this current state of rapprochement from Beijing toward Tokyo may well leave the Chinese government in a difficult situation if a hard-liner takes over as the Prime Minister in Japan.

I've always been in support of China and Japan building a stronger relationship. The mudslinging that's taken place between the two countries over the last 10 years has gone from sublime to ridiculous and back again. And while both sides should be applauded for at least trying to make the effort, the political realities in Japan are more than likely going to swing the pendulum the other way in the not-too-distant future.