Sorry seems to be the hardest word: the 1972 system, the reparation issue, and the history problem in Sino-Japanese relations

Conventional arguments understand history-related disputes between Japan and China to be a result of identity politics that revolve around very different interpretations over the historical legacies of WW II. This article challenges these conventional arguments. It shows that history-related disputes between the two sides have less to do with identity politics than with efforts by the Chinese government to deflect domestic discontent over its 1972 decision to waive reparations claims against Japan in return for the Japanese government apologizing for Japan's actions in WW II. But this tacit arrangement, "the 1972 System," began to fall apart in the early 1980s. This is because it failed to establish a clear institutional framework that could provide historical justice to Chinese citizens for the actions of the Japanese military in China, embroiled the Chinese government in a chronic legitimacy deficit that can only be mitigated if Japan keeps apologizing, and perpetuated Japan's victimizer identity, which the Japanese public has found emotionally unacceptable. The result is the transformation of what originally was a domestic controversy in China over historical justice into a diplomatic dispute with Japan over historical understanding.