Michael Richardson: Bristling Asia rivals turn down the heat

SINGAPORE - After a downward spiral that plunged relations to their lowest level in years, Japan and China have acted to smooth over differences.

But a closed meeting between Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and China's President Hu Jintao, which lasted nearly an hour, left many issues unresolved, although both leaders said that talks were needed to bridge differences.

The leaders of the two East Asian giants met in Indonesia late on Saturday. Earlier, Koizumi expressed remorse for the "tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly those of Asian nations", caused by Japanese military occupation before and during World War II. He made the apology in a speech before dozens of world leaders at an Asia-Africa summit.

The rest of the Asia-Pacific region and the United States were watching the confrontation with increasing concern. Other East Asian nations that suffered under Japan's often brutal occupation were sympathetic to China's criticism of Japanese behaviour. They objected to the recent publication of a school textbook that glossed over Japan's past record of aggression and the repeated visits of Koizumi and other Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni shrine near Tokyo which is dedicated to 2.5 million Japanese who died in various wars, including World War II leaders hanged for war crimes.

But the dispute was getting out of hand, potentially threatening regional economic growth and stability and casting a shadow over efforts to build a wider regional community at a planned inaugural East Asian Summit in Malaysia in December.

Reflecting Southeast Asian concerns, Singapore's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday saying it was unfortunate that the textbook authorities had chosen to approve a strange interpretation of the war in Asia, straining relations with Japan's neighbours. "We believe that Japan has an important role to play in Asia and the world," Singapore said. "Japan will be better able to play such a role once this history issue is overcome."

The US was worried that the resurgence of tension between its longtime ally, Japan, and China would make it even more difficult to apply regional pressure to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. China, which has more influence over North Korea than any other country, is the host and a key participant in the six-party talks - a negotiating forum that includes Japan, the US and Russia as well as North and South Korea.

Koizumi's apology, which was almost identical to one given in 1995 by a previous Japanese prime minister, followed several weeks of unrest in China, where demonstrators hurled insults - and sometimes missiles and paint - at Japanese diplomatic and commercial premises and organised a boycott of Japanese goods.

However, Hu said after meeting Koizumi that remorse expressed for Japan's invasion and occupation before and during World War II "should be translated into action". Chinese officials had earlier questioned the sincerity of Koizumi's apology after a Japanese Cabinet minister and more than 80 Japanese lawmakers visited Yasukuni shrine late last week.

Many millions of Chinese died in Japan's assault on their nation in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan, then an ally of the Nazis, conquered much of East Asia before its forces surrendered in August 1945. Their atrocities included mass executions, sex slavery and germ warfare.

But Japan, which became a democracy and US ally after the war, has made many apologies to Asian countries since then for its behaviour as an imperial power. Chinese animosity is also fuelled by the rivalry between Japan, the region's established giant, and China, its rising power, for regional influence.

The bad blood between China and Japan is not just about history. They are feuding over territorial and energy rights in the East China Sea, Beijing's effective veto of Japan's bid for a permanent seat in an enlarged United Nations Security Council, and Tokyo's recent agreement with Washington to include peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue as one of the common strategic objectives on the US-Japan alliance.

Still, the Chinese Government has evidently realised that it has much to lose if the feud with Japan gets out of hand. To start with at least, the anti-Japanese protests in China had the tacit approval of Chinese authorities. The ruling Communists have promoted nationalistic and patriotic sentiment, using it to buttress the legitimacy of the Government as it jettisons old-style socialism and frees its market.

But China's leaders know anti-Japanese protests could turn anti-Government. Even before Koizumi's apology, Beijing had begun to discourage the protests and quietly compensated Japanese businesses for damage caused.

Both countries have much to lose from escalating hostility. Asia's two largest economies are bound by commercial ties that neither can afford to break.

China last year overtook the US as Japan's biggest trading partner, when trade with Hong Kong is included. Two-way trade reached nearly US$207 billion ($283 billion) in 2004, nearly double the value in 2000. Exports to China were a key factor in helping the Japanese economy return to growth in the past two years, after years in the doldrums.

Japanese companies have made huge investments in China and now have about 20,000 factories operating on the Chinese mainland, employing as many as one million Chinese.

So a boycott of Japanese goods was quickly seen by the Chinese Government as a bad idea. This concern was reinforced when Japanese tour groups, fearful of becoming targets of violence, started cancelling trips to Hong Kong and other parts of China.

In the past, when China has been strong, Japan has been weak, and vice versa. Now that both are strong for the first time in their history, other Asian and Pacific nations must hope that the ties that bind these old antagonists outweigh the nationalistic impulses driving each to vie for regional supremacy.

* Michael Richardson, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.