Leading Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng (魏京生) called yesterday for Japan to take a more assertive role to promote human rights and regional stability, despite jitters in Asia over Tokyo's past aggression.
"Japan does not take responsibility in Asian issues such as human rights and democracy," Wei, an activist who has lived in exile in the US since 1997, told a news conference in Tokyo.
"Japan has a lot of potential," Wei said. "What Japan has been doing is not matching its real status."
Japan has had strained relations with Beijing, which resents Tokyo's wartime aggression. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has tried to repair relations with Asia and paid a breakthrough visit to Beijing on Oct. 8.
Abe also favors a stronger Japanese role in international security operations. Japan was forced to renounce its right to use military force after defeat in World War II.
Wei said he supported a more active Japan, saying it was key to preventing conflict between China and Taiwan.
"If Japan as a country expresses clearly that it takes responsibility for security in Asia then I think it would not be very good news to China," Wei said, but "then maybe this war might be stopped."
Wei feared growing friction between China and Taiwan, saying Beijing's passage of a law last year that gave the legal grounds to invade Taiwan was "basically a declaration of war."
"This war against Taiwan would result in a war against the United States," Wei said. "And if the United States cannot get help from Japan, would it be able to stay in the war?"
However, Wei also said that the Beijing Olympics in 2008 could moderate China.
"Team members and coaches of foreign teams will be able to express their opinions clearly, and I think it will be enough to put pressure on the government," he said.
Former electrician Wei, 56, spent nearly 20 years in prison for his writings against the communist authorities. He was allowed to go into exile in 1997.
Meanwhile, group of 78 prominent academics, business leaders, lawmakers and journalists yesterday urged Abe to reject the idea that China is a threat, saying such a view would only leave Tokyo "isolated" in Asia.
"If Japan continues to regard any growing trend toward cooperation and [Asian] integration with suspicion, it must be prepared to find itself isolated from the rest of Asia," they wrote in an unofficial study presented to Abe.
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