The Asianist

It looks as if Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi's gamble may have paid off and the ruling Liberal Democrats might win the election in Japan.

Some see signs of trouble between Japan and China, arising out of Koizumi's insistence on visiting Yasukuni and China's constant self-victimization-as-best-attack policy toward Japan:

A series of spectacular mass events was held in Beijing last weekend to mark the grand climax of 60 days of nationwide commemorative events.

The Chinese leadership also took the opportunity to stress that Beijing expects Tokyo to handle the painful issue of its wartime suffering with the utmost sensitivity.

Seemingly disregarding the fact that the whole of China was focused on his country's wartime record, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also on the weekend renewed speculation that he will again pay homage at a controversial Shinto shrine which honors convicted Class-A war criminals responsible for atrocities in China. His announcement has already created fresh bilateral tension, and if Koizumi wins Sunday's general election, the current China-Japan political rift looks certain to continue.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why conservative Japanese politicians seem intent on honoring war criminals.

In general, I find much to applaud in Koizumi (pro-US foreign policy, postal service banking liberalization and so on). Unfortunately, however, he continues to insist on a policy of revisionism where Japan's past aggression is concerned, thus making it easy for China to play victim in order to assert its regional dominance (very passive-aggressive, actually).

While Germans went through something of a collective national reflection about their Nazi past in the 1970s, Japan never did so, despite outward apologies of its political leaders. Thus, while German textbooks emphasize the complicity of their elders in the Nazi aggression, Japanese textbooks often engage in revisionist nonsense of Japanese imperialists as "liberators" of fellow Asians who just went a little wild once in a while.

This pervasive attitude among Japanese conservatives unfortunately hinders Japan from balancing the rising Chinese might. Every time Japan even thinks of flexing its muscle to counter Chinese influence, the latter cries "The Rape of Nanjing" (or "revisionist textbooks" and so on).

Only when the Japanese society truly embraces this issue, will it stop being a useful ploy for China in keeping Japan down from its rightful role as the Asian primus inter pares and the best US ally in the region.