ចៅហ្វាយនាយ Zen សំណព្វចិត្តរបស់ Xi កាន់គន្លឹះនៃទំនាក់ទំនងជប៉ុន

17th-century monk traveled to Edo. Now his statue may be coming home

While Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to extend his reign, he is moving to replace a symbol of friendship between his country and Japan

The Chinese Communist Party will close a key four-day gathering on Thursday after adopting the "third resolution on history."

Following similar resolutions in 1945 and 1981, the document will etch into history party General Secretary Xi Jinping, who doubles as Chinese president, paving the way for Xi to make a play for an unusual third term at the party's next national congress, in 2022.

As Xi prepares for a new term as the party and nation's unrivaled leader, the "face" of Sino-Japanese friendship may also switch to a new figure.

For many years, eighth-century high priest Jianzhen, Ganjin in Japanese, has played that role. Determined to spread Buddhist teaching to the small island to China's east, the monk attempted to cross the sea to Japan by boat but failed five times.

He finally arrived in 753, on his sixth attempt, but by then had lost his eyesight. He spent the rest of his years in Japan as a respected teacher.

Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, like Ganjin a native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, loved to tell the tale of the resolute priest whenever he hosted distinguished Japanese guests.

The role model of the bilateral exchanges, however, could possibly become that of another priest, this one more closely aligned to Xi.

On Nov. 3, Japanese Ambassador to China Hideo Tarumi visited Wanfu Temple in Fuqing, Fujian Province, accompanied by Japanese diplomats and businesspeople.

The visit, made shortly after a new Japanese prime minister had taken office, caught the attention of close watchers.

Why Wanfu Temple?

Around five years ago, a local resident in Fujian Province predicted to Nikkei that monk Yinyuan Longqi, Ingen in Japanese, would be a name appearing more often in the Xi era.

"Zen master Yinyuan Longqi, who is closely associated with President Xi, will now probably draw attention as a cultural bridge between Japan and China as Ganjin did in the era of Jiang Zemin," the resident said.

Ingen (1592-1673) practiced Zen Buddhism at Wanfu Temple before sailing to Japan when he was in his 60s. There, he founded the Obaku school of Zen and established the Wanfu Temple equivalent in Kyoto, named Manpukuji, as the Obaku head temple. This was made possible by the Tokugawa Shogunate, which provided strong protection.

Ingen is said to have introduced ingen mame (kidney beans), sencha green tea, watermelon and lotus root to Edo-period Japan. For the rich food culture he brought to Japan, he is affectionately called "Ingen-san" in various parts of the country.

It was in 2015 that Xi referred to Ingen in a high-profile manner. In a speech during a Sino-Japanese cultural event in Beijing, Xi expressed his admiration for Ingen and stressed the importance of private-sector exchanges between Japan and China.

Xi reflected on his time in Fujian, where he spent nearly 17 years working as a young party official.

"When I was working in Fujian," Xi said, "I heard about how the celebrated priest and Zen master Yinyuan Longqi traveled to Japan in the 17th century. He took with him advanced cultures and technologies, and contributed to the social and economic development of the Edo period.

"During my 2009 trip to Japan, I visited Kitakyushu and elsewhere and I felt directly the inseparable cultural and historical links between the peoples of both countries."

According to local sources, Xi visited Wanfu Temple during his Fujian years. Ingen served as the temple's chief priest before going to Japan. It was probably a considerably damaged and rundown temple at the time, having gone through China's civil war between communists and nationalists. But it was fully refurbished recently, thanks to large donations from the business world.

It has been six years since Xi mentioned Ingen. Private-sector exchanges between Japan and China remain stalled due to a combination of China's wolf-warrior diplomacy, Japan's strong resistance to it and COVID-19.

But 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between the countries, and there are plans to rekindle the friendship.

Around the time Ambassador Tarumi visited the temple, it emerged that there is a plan to have Ingen's wooden statue in Manpukuji, Kyoto -- one that used Ingen's actual hair -- make a "homecoming" to Fujian.

There is a precedent of a statue making such a return voyage. The seated statue of Ganjin, housed by Toshodai Temple in Japan's Nara Prefecture, temporarily returned to Jianzhen's native Yangzhou in 1980. It was two years after the 1978 Sino-Japanese peace and friendship treaty was concluded, and exchanges between the countries were becoming brisk.

The shift from Ganjin to Ingen overlaps with the real-life shift in power from Jiang to Xi.

Jiang long reigned as the party's "core" leader, but there is no denying the 95-year-old has been put on the back foot. Xi's anti-corruption campaign has ensnared many of his cronies.

Xi's planned state visit to Japan in the spring of 2020 was postponed due to COVID travel restrictions. Sino-Japanese relations have remained deadlocked since then.

But the new administration of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida opens a new chapter, especially with the appointment of Yoshimasa Hayashi as foreign minister.

Hayashi is the chairman of the Japan-China Friendship Parliamentarians' Union and is said to be a "China hand."

Kishida's choice of Hayashi as foreign minister initially raised concerns among some within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that it might send a wrong signal to China, putting Japan at odds with the Biden administration.

But in a balancing act, Kishida appointed former Defense Minister Gen Nakatani to the newly created post of special adviser to the prime minister on human rights issues. Nakatani has harshly criticized China's crackdown on human rights in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Nakatani serves as the co-chair of the Nonpartisan Parliamentary Association for Reconsidering Human Rights Diplomacy. He has advocated for the enactment of a version of the U.S.'s Magnitsky Act to impose sanctions on foreign countries for serious human rights violations.

Hayashi on Monday night appeared on a Japanese TV program and described the human rights issues in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and elsewhere as "issues that we should be seriously concerned about, no matter how we think about them."

How much will Ingen's shadows be felt during Sino-Japanese exchanges in 2022? The implications will certainly impact political and economic relations between the two countries.

Nikkei Asia