Following in the footsteps of his predecessor and political mentor Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe has been elected president of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and prime minister. Abe's ascension to the top job not only indicates a continuation of Koizumi's pro-US and anti-China stance, but also a new conservative era for Japan.
Sino-Japanese relations will remain at a low ebb and the Japanese will also begin a new wave of debate on whether their top leaders should continue to visit the Yasukuni shrine or begin to mend relations with China. Earlier this year, Koizumi angered China on many occasions, but Beijing decided to put up with him simply because it had high expectations for Abe.
Beijing believes that as Koizumi's era has come to an end, it can accept anyone who is willing to refrain from praying at the shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals from World War II. However, many are probably unaware that even though Koizumi is on his way out, the debate that he has triggered or further visits to Yasukuni will have a tremendous impact on Japan's future. Beijing's hopes will soon be dashed because Japan's neo-conservative faction is poised to exert its influence and stir things up with Abe coming to power.
In August, major Japanese political journals such as Bungei Shunju and Chuo Koron held a debate on whether the next prime minister should continue the visits to Yasukuni or bow to China. Participants included Kato Koichi, a pro-China politician, and Makoto Koga, former LDP secretary-general and head of Nippon Izokukai, an association for the families of World War II war dead.
The way they presented their arguments was reminiscent of the debate Japan had at the end of the 19th century: Should Japan emulate the advanced nations of the West and "leave Asia" by dissociating itself from its neighbors, especially China and Korea? What the past and present debates have in common is that they both symbolized the rise of Japanese right-wing nationalism.
The past debate on whether Japan should "leave Asia" was initiated by Fukuzawa Yukichi, an advocate of imperialist expansion who was also the initiator of the theory of "breaking away from Asia and joining Europe." Fukuzawa came up with the theory during the Meiji Restoration in the 19th century because he was convinced that the reason Asian countries would lag behind the West was related to China's feudalism and conservatism.
Fukuzawa maintained that Japan needed to dissociate itself from other Asian nations and emulate the achievements of the West. To do so, he added, Japan must thoroughly distance itself from backward China ideologically and culturally and stop feeling sentimentally attached to the Chinese and Koreans. Following this line of thinking, Japan became the most aggressive and isolated Asian country in the beginning of the 20th century.
Controversy surrounding Yasukuni did not become a bone of contention until Koizumi came to power in 2001. Faced with China's rapid rise to the world stage, Koizumi proposed Japan should once again distance itself from the rest of Asia. He believed that China was nothing to be afraid of as long as Japan's and the US' foreign policies remained in step, and that the shortest route to communicating with Beijing was through Washington.
With US support, Koizumi also believed that his visit to Yasukuni was a personal matter and a Japanese domestic affair, so China and other neighbors shouldn't have a say in the issue. He used the Yasukuni issue to anger Japan's neighbors, while at the same time basing his arguments for the normalization of Japan on a thoroughly pro-US foreign policy.
Among the pro-China, pro-Taiwan and pro-US politicians in Japan, all are ultimately pro-Yasukuni. On the other hand, the Japanese public is becoming increasingly opposed to their officials visiting Yasukuni. Nevertheless, even many pro-China politicians such as Yasuo Fukuda have visited the controversial shrine. This is currently the most painful and sensitive issue in Japanese politics.
Some believe that Abe becoming prime minister will force Japan's right-wingers toward the center, thereby allowing Tokyo to mend its tattered relations with China. Of course Abe isn't Koizumi, but that will not make extinguishing the flames of nationalist fervor that the former fanned any easier.
If Japan continues to be entangled in the debate over whether its politicians should continue visiting Yasukuni or improve relations with China, Sino-Japanese relations will remain on thin ice, and the controversy over Yasukuni will be brought up annually on the Aug. 15 anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender.
Tsai Zheng-jia is an associate research fellow at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
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