TOKYO - For many observers of the Japanese
diplomatic scene, it may look like deja vu.
Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will make
a speedy fence-mending tour of two Asian neighbors
soon, just as his predecessor did five years ago.
That trip proved to be a complete failure later
on. Will the new one be any different?
The
fence-mending trip will take Abe to Beijing on
Sunday for talks with top Chinese leaders
President Hu Jintao and Premier
Wen
Jiabao, and then to Seoul for talks with President
Roh Moo-hyun the following day.
The visits
will be Abe's first overseas since he took office
on September 26, succeeding Junichiro Koizumi.
This underscores the importance Abe, a
conservative hawk, attaches to mending the deep
rift in political relations with the Asian
neighbors - the negative legacy left by his
predecessor - early in his new administration. It
is rare for a Japanese premier to make an overseas
trip so soon after being elected.
Japan's
relations with China and South Korea have plunged
to their lowest points in decades because of
Koizumi's repeated visits to the war-related
Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo and other issues stemming
from Japan's history of aggression and atrocities
to its neighbors. Also, Tokyo is locked in
territorial disputes with Beijing and Seoul, and
the row over natural-gas reserves in the East
China Sea is smoldering between Tokyo and Beijing.
Koizumi's pilgrimages to the Shinto shrine
drew particularly angry protests from China and
South Korea as implicit glorification of Japan's
past militarism. The shrine is widely regarded as
a symbol of Japan's militarist past, as it honors
World War II Class A war criminals among some 2.4
million war dead. China and South Korea had
rejected summit talks with Koizumi since last
year.
Abe's visit to Beijing will be the first
by a Japanese premier since Koizumi went there in
October 2001. The summit talks will be the first
since April 2005, when Koizumi and Hu met in
Jakarta on the sidelines of the Asia-Africa
Summit. Abe's meeting with Roh will be the first
Japan-South Korea summit since last November, when
Koizumi and Roh met in Busan on the fringes of an
annual meeting of leaders from member nations of
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
forum.
Assuming that Abe would become
Japan's new leader, China had softened its
rhetoric toward Japan in the closing days of the
Koizumi administration, with Premier Wen saying,
"China-Japan relations are at an important
historical phase." At the behest of Abe, who was
still Koizumi's chief cabinet secretary, the
government sounded out China and South Korea about
holding meetings. As Japan and China began to move
toward improving ties, South Korea also agreed to
hold talks between Abe and Roh. Abe had
instructed the Foreign Ministry to set his tour of
Beijing and Seoul before Roh's planned visit to
the Chinese capital on October 13. That was
apparently because the new Japanese premier wanted
to nip in the bud the possibility of Chinese and
South Korean leaders publicly showing a unified
stance against Japan over the Yasukuni,
history-perception and other issues.
Political observers say Abe also hopes
that by choosing China and South Korea for his
first overseas visits and thereby demonstrating
his firm resolve to get Japan's hamstrung Asia
diplomacy up and running again, his ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) will be able to gain
momentum in by-elections for the House of
Representatives set for this month, the first
electoral test of the new premier.
To be
sure, Abe's forthcoming tour of Beijing and Seoul
has raised hopes for a significant improvement in
ties. But it has also raised some concerns,
because it is reminiscent of Koizumi's trips to
the two capitals in October 2001, six months after
he took office. In Beijing, Koizumi met with
then-leaders president Jiang Zemin and premier Zhu
Rongji. A week later, Koizumi met with South
Korea's then-president Kim Dae-jung in Seoul.
Koizumi's 2001 visits to Beijing and Seoul
were also for fence-mending, amid criticism then
of Japan's resurgent militarism. Earlier that
year, the Japanese government had approved a
history textbook that China and South Korea
claimed glossed over Japan's wartime atrocities,
and Koizumi had already made his first pilgrimage
to Yasukuni Shrine as premier.
In China,
Koizumi laid a wreath at a Chinese war memorial
and visited a museum dedicated to China's wartime
resistance against Japan. "Looking at this museum,
I felt again the horror of war," he told
reporters. "I looked at the various exhibits with
a feeling of heartfelt apology and condolences for
those Chinese people who were victims of
aggression. We must not go to war again."
At the time many people in China and South
Korea thought these words showed that Koizumi had
repented for his visit to Yasukuni Shrine and that
he would not repeat it. But Koizumi continued to
worship at the shrine every year. His last shrine
visit as premier was on August 15 this year, the
anniversary of Japan's 1945 surrender in World War
II. As things turned out, the 2001 visits to
Beijing and Seoul by Koizumi sowed the seeds of
further distrust and conflict.
Abe's
ambiguity strategy In the lead-up to his
election, Abe was studiously vague on whether he
would continue his predecessor's policy of shrine
visits. During his upcoming tour of Beijing and
Seoul, Abe is likely to similarly vague on the
issue. Abe has also said he will not say whether
he has visited the shrine. As Koizumi's chief
cabinet secretary, Abe made a secret visit to the
shrine in April, although he has refused to
confirm it.
China has demanded that Abe
pledge not to visit the shrine while in office.
But Abe said, "It's important that leaders realize
frank talks without attaching conditions."
Japanese officials say that in arranging Abe's
visit to Beijing, they have not agreed to a
Chinese demand for him to pledge not to worship at
Yasukuni Shrine during his tenure. If that is
true, the question remains: Why has China dropped
its condition for accepting Abe's visit?
Some observers point out that it is
possible that Japan and China reached some
agreement on the Yasukuni issue during prior
consultations, which satisfies Chinese officials
to a certain extent. There is even speculation
within the Japanese government that aides to Abe
and Chinese officials have reached a secret accord
under which Abe will not visit the shrine during
his tenure. "China understands that Prime Minister
Abe will not visit Yasukuni Shrine while he is in
office," a Chinese government source said.
Some observers also say that Tokyo may
have already promised that Abe will at least make
a statement on the issue during the upcoming
summit that will satisfy Beijing. "We each have
our previous position, but we need to consider the
public sentiment on both sides and work to use our
wisdom," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki
said.
The new Japanese leader's stance on
the Yasukuni issue has been criticized even at
home. Yukio Hatoyama, secretary general of the
largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan,
grilled Abe in parliament over his ambiguous
stance on the Yasukuni issue. Hatoyama claimed
that Abe's "ambiguity strategy will hurt the
trust" of China and South Korea and that he would
"commit the same error as former prime minister
Junichiro Koizumi".
Many observers believe
that Abe's visits to Beijing and Seoul will not
bring about a dramatic turnaround in Japan's
strained ties with them. Rather, they believe the
visits will be just a first - albeit significant -
step in the process of putting the ties back on a
sounder footing. That is because of sharp
differences between Abe and Chinese and South
Korean leaders over the Yasukuni and
history-perception issues.
Abe has
declined to clarify his personal views on Japan's
wartime responsibility, saying, "Politicians
should be modest about analyzing history." He also
sidestepped a long-running and sensitive debate
within Japan about whether the emperor or executed
war criminals led the country into defeat in World
War II by saying that it was "not appropriate for
the government to determine who exactly was
responsible as the national leader for the last
war".
At his upcoming summits, Abe is
expected to say that he will uphold the
government's view on history as presented in
prime-ministerial statements that admitted and
apologized for Japan's past invasions and
colonization. These statements include one issued
in 1995 by then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama,
a socialist, on the 50th anniversary of Japan's
defeat in World War II, and another issued in 2005
by Koizumi on the 60th such anniversary.
In South Korea, meanwhile, Abe is expected
to show his intention to deal with history issues
further, such as expediting the return of the
ashes of former Imperial Japanese Army soldiers
and civilian personnel who were interred on the
Korean Peninsula. Abe is also expected to convey
to Roh a Japanese decision to support South Korean
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon's candidacy to become
the United Nations chief, although Ban is now
assured of a victory in the race to succeed
outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
In his separate talks with Chinese and
South Korean leaders, Abe is also expected to
propose a resumption of suspended exchanges of
visits by them to each other's country. Chinese
President Hu said in June that he hopes to visit
Japan "at an appropriate time if conditions are
met". Abe is likely to agree with Hu and Roh at
least to meet again on the sidelines of this
year's APEC summit in Hanoi in mid-November.
Pyongyang's dangerous
brinkmanship In addition to putting
bilateral relations back on a sound track,
defusing tensions over North Korea's nuclear and
missile programs has impinged on Abe's agenda
during his Beijing and Seoul visits. Abe quickly
condemned Pyongyang's announcement on Tuesday that
it would test a nuclear bomb as "absolutely
unacceptable" and warned that the international
community would adopt a "stern" response to it.
Abe has a reputation as a headliner on
Pyongyang, especially over the issue of past North
Korean abductions of Japanese citizens. This has
earned him a high degree of public popularity in
Japan, enabling him to take the helm of the LDP
and government at the relatively young age of 52.
Many in Japan found Pyongyang's actions
unforgivable, lighting a nationalist fuse here.
In step with the US, Japan imposed
financial sanctions on North Korea recently over
its volley of missile test launches in early July.
Japan and the US are stepping up pressure on North
Korea as Pyongyang still refuses to return to
six-party talks, which have been stalled since
last November. But many observers question the
effectiveness of unilateral financial sanctions.
The other countries participating in the
six-nation talks - South Korea, China and Russia -
remain reluctant about pushing Pyongyang even
further.
Top Japanese and US security
advisers Yuriko Koike and Stephen Hadley, meeting
at the White House on Tuesday, agreed to increase
cooperation to deal firmly with any North Korean
nuclear test, sharing ''strong concerns'' over
Pyongyang's announced nuclear-testing plan.
Koike said she and Hadley agreed that
their countries will maintain close contact and
cooperate to deal with the matter, working first
on a UN Security Council presidential statement
and also promoting cooperation on crisis
management in advance of a possible nuclear test.
Japan wants to get the council to adopt a
statement before Abe's visits Beijing and Seoul so
it can avoid exposing differences during the
visits over how to deal with Pyongyang.
Should North Korea carry out a nuclear
test, Tokyo is poised to impose additional
unilateral sanctions on Pyongyang, including the
expansion of the current ban on port calls by the
Mangyongbyon-92, a North Korean passenger-cargo
ferry that serves as the main direct link between
the two countries, to include freighters from
North Korea and other countries. Tokyo is also
poised to work toward the adoption of a Security
Council resolution to impose sanctions, based on
Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.
The United
States has welcomed Abe's plan to visit China and
South Korea. There have been growing concerns in
the US, even within the administration of
President George W Bush, that a possible isolation
of Japan, the closest US ally in Asia, could hurt
US interests in the region. In his talks with
Koike, Hadley also noted the importance of Tokyo,
Seoul and Washington taking concerted steps on
North Korean issues.
Hisane
Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist,
commentator and scholar on international politics
and economy. Masaki's e-mail address is
yiu45535@nifty.com.
(Copyright 2006 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
