Shinzo Abe next week goes to China and South Korea in
his first overseas trip as Japan's prime minister in an effort to repair frayed
ties and seek common ground on halting North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Japan's two biggest Asian trading partners were angered by Abe's predecessor,
Junichiro Koizumi, who made visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Japanese
convicted of war crimes are memorialized. China and South Korea refused to hold
summits with Koizumi, complicating negotiations with North Korea, which three
days ago said it will test a nuclear bomb.
Abe has refused to say whether he will visit Yasukuni, and during his
campaign to succeed Koizumi cast doubt on a 1995 apology by former Prime
Minister Tomiichi Murayama for Japan's Asian aggression in the first half of
last century. This week he re-affirmed the validity of Murayama's statement,
signaling he may issue an apology on his trip to help mend diplomatic fences.
Japan "has reached a point where we can't be complacent about the impact of
diplomatic ties on economic relations," said Noriko Hama, an economics
professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto. "If China, and to a lesser extent
Korea, allow Abe to get away with his Yasukuni stance it will mean they are
willing to look toward the future. He must navigate a tightrope.''
Abe starts his two-day visit on Oct. 8 in Beijing by holding talks with
President Hu Jintao in the first state visit by a Japanese leader since Koizumi
went five years ago. The next day Abe travels to Seoul to meet President Roh
Moo-Hyun.
Yasukuni
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon in a Sept. 30 interview urged Abe
not to visit Yasukuni, and the Nihon Keizai newspaper on Sept. 26 said China
made the same request during diplomatic talks in Tokyo. The newspaper didn't say
where it got the information.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Sept. 27 that Abe will make
a decision on going to the shrine based on "personal beliefs."
Yasukuni's museum says Japan's invasion of Asia 60 years ago was to liberate
the region from Western colonial rule and that it was forced into war with the
U.S. Koizumi went to the shrine annually during his five-year term.
Koizumi's precedent makes it almost impossible for Abe to yield to Chinese
and South Korean requests to not visit the shrine, said Koichi Nakano, a
political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. In meeting with Abe
after snubbing Koizumi, China may have agreed to downplay the issue, Nakano
said.
Deal?
"What may be possible is there's some deal not to talk about it with China
on the understanding Abe is not going to go to Yasukuni for the time being," he
said. "The Japanese side may be giving hints without saying anything
concrete."
Such an understanding will allow the two countries to focus on improving
economic ties, something Abe stressed during his campaign. China is Japan's
second-biggest trading partner, and Japanese exports there rose 26 percent to
4.955 trillion yen ($42 billion) in the first six months of the year from the
same period in 2005, according to Finance Ministry figures.
The two counties are arguing over gas drilling rights for as much as 200
billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves in the East China Sea. Hu and Abe
will discuss joint development of the fields, the Yomiuri newspaper said today,
without citing anyone.
"There might be room for compromise" on the gas fields, Doshisha's Hama
said.
Better relations with China and South Korea will also help present a united
front in dealing with North Korea. China is North Korea's biggest trading
partner and has been able to persuade it to come to the negotiating table in the
past.
Nuclear North
The announcement that DPRK will conduct a nuclear
test prompted calls by South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the U.S. to abandon
the plan and return to six-nation talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's arms
program.
Japan and the U.S. are concerned the country may test a nuclear
weapon as soon as this weekend, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi
said in Washington yesterday.
If a test occurs, the U.S. will draft a United Nations resolution that will
include the threat of military action against North Korea, U.S. Ambassador to
the UN John Bolton said on Oct. 4.
Abe's trip "is aimed at resurrecting relations and dealing with common
problems and one of these is North Korea," said Jeffery Kingston, head of the
Asian studies program at Temple University in Tokyo.
"The U.S. and China are the keys to North Korea and until now Japan hasn't
been talking with one of them. Koizumi set the bar so low that Abe doesn't have
to do very much to make the trip a success."
