Japan's likely new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has a golden opportunity to improve sour relations with China and South Korea if he chooses pragmatism over his "hawkish ideology," analysts say.
Japan's neighbors have already sent signals that they hope for a fresh start with the successor to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has enraged them by repeatedly visiting a shrine linked to his nation's militarist past.
The US also wants tension to abate, even though it has never criticized Koizumi, one of President George W. Bush's most stalwart foreign allies.
But Abe, whose grandfather was a Cabinet minister during World War II, is known to have views on history well to the right of Koizumi, such as questioning the legitimacy of US-led trials of war criminals.
Japanese business leaders have been outspoken in seeking better relations. China is Japan's biggest trading partner and a lynchpin in Japan's economic recovery during Koizumi's five-year tenure.
China last year successfully blocked Japan's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council. But its key interest now is to ensure stability in the region as it modernizes, China expert Joseph Cheng (
"I think Chinese authorities certainly do not want to give up any opportunity to improve relations with Japan during the coming Abe government," said Cheng, a professor at the City University of Hong Kong.
"Chinese leaders always hold this view that once you take power, you have to be pragmatic. They have similar experiences with the United States with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton," who were harsher on Beijing before entering the White House, Cheng said.
"I think Abe also understands this. That is why Abe has been very careful and refused to make any clear-cut stands on his visits to the Yasukuni shrine," Cheng said.
Abe was all but certain to win a vote by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party yesterday and replace Koizumi.
He is expected to seek meetings with Chinese and South Korean leaders when they gather in Vietnam in November for an Asia-Pacific summit.
Neighboring countries which suffered under Japanese rule have refused to meet Koizumi in protest at his annual pilgrimage to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors war dead and top war criminals.
Koizumi made his final pilgrimage on Aug. 15, the emotionally charged anniversary of Japan's wartime defeat which Koreans call Liberation Day.
In a sign that China and South Korea are looking to the future, their reaction to Koizumi's defiant last visit was muted. South Korea also agreed to a joint survey of islands it disputes with Japan.
Unlike the flamboyant Koizumi, who prayed at the Shinto shrine with cameras rolling, Abe has refused to say if he would go as prime minister but hinted he would visit secretly.
However, Abe has strongly defended the shrine in the past and gone further than Koizumi by refusing to say that wartime leaders were war criminals.
Abe has also championed revising the US-imposed post-war Constitution, which declares Japan a pacifist nation.
His views are "a source of great alarm for South Korea," said Peter Beck, the Seoul-based northeast Asia director of the International Crisis Group.
"It's one thing to talk when you're not in power and another thing when you're in office," Beck said. "But his track record doesn't leave one very optimistic."
The Bush administration has refused to comment on Japan's friction with its neighbors. But two senior congressmen with war memories, Henry Hyde and Tom Lantos, this month urged Koizumi's successor not to go to Yasukuni.
"Japanese leaders feel totally dependent on the US because of the potential threat from China and North Korea," said Robert Dujarric, a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, speaking in a personal capacity.
"The establishment is convinced that it cannot antagonize the US," he said.
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