September 28, 2006
The meaning of Abe
It is startling how little serious comment the western media (with the FT an honourable exception, naturally) has devoted to the appointment of Shinzo Abe as the new prime minister of Japan. It is not just that Japan is still the second biggest economy in the world. It is also that Abe’s appointment touches directly on a crucial strategic issue - the relationship between China and Japan. It is a cliché that the “rise of Asia” will be a dominant geopolitical theme for the next generation. But the shift of the power balance within Asia deserves more attention. China’s policy catch-phrase that it will have a “peaceful rise” has not re-assured the Japanese. They have been worried for some time by rising anti-Japanese sentiment in China and increasing Chinese military spending. The Chinese, for their part, often accuse the Japanese of resurgent nationalism and militarism. It could all get quite nasty - particularly since Mr Abe has stressed the need for a more assertive Japanese foreign policy and seems disinclined to take a softer line on Japanese war-guilt - an issue that particularly infuriates the Chinese. Abe’s first cabinet is said to include several Japanese nationalists. But in the FT, Victor Mallet points out that there are also some grounds for optimism. He reckons that Abe’s “impeccable nationalist credentials” might make him just the man to defuse the vexed issue of the Yasukuni shrine. However Martin Jacques in the Guardian takes a much darker view of modern Japan. He argues that: “Abe’s premiership is likely to presage growing tension between China and Japan over the latter’s conduct in the war, their respective roles in east Asia in the context of China’s ever growing influence, and the disputed Diaoyu (or, as Japan calls them, Senkaku) islands, whose territorial waters are believed to contain major supplies of oil and gas. His election will be viewed with considerable concern in Beijing, although that outcome has been fairly predictable for some time.”
