For Good Relations with China and ROK

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the leaders of China and South Korea have agreed to hold summit talks to improve their respective bilateral relations.

Japan gets chance to improve Asian relations as Tokyo and Seoul, Beijing agree to talks

Mainichi Shinbun
Oct. 2, 2006

Abe has made improving Tokyo's relations with Beijing and Seoul the core of his diplomatic policies. Chinese and South Korean leaders hope that Abe will play a leading role in taking concrete action in clarifying the Japanese government's view on its history of wartime atrocities in Asia, according to the sources.

However, the Chinese and South Korean governments are sticking to their demand that Abe refrain from visiting the shrine, where Class-A war criminals are enshrined among the war dead. If summit talks between Japan and China and Japan and South Korea highlight the wide gap on the Yasukuni issue and views on Japan's wartime aggressions, it could make it more difficult to improve their strained relations, observers fear.

...."China-Japan relations are at an important historical phase," Premier Wen Jiabao said, with another top official repeatedly calling for leaders to "work together" to improve bilateral relations. Observers say Tokyo may have already promised that Abe will at least make a statement on the issue during the upcoming summit meeting that will satisfy Beijing. .....As Japan and China move toward improving ties, South Korea also appears to have made a realistic decision when it also agreed to hold summit talks between Abe and President Roh Moo-hyun, the diplomatic sources said.

However, it remains to be seen whether the upcoming Japan-South Korea summit talks will be a turning point in bilateral ties. "Even if the Abe administration is inaugurated, our stance toward the Yasukuni issue will remain unchanged," a high-ranking official of the South Korean government said. Seoul has also urged Japan to take "sincere action" to clarify its interpretation of history, specifically the brutal acts committed during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula during World War II.

Anyway, Abe should not visit Yasukuni shrine, which will solve the problems between China, ROK and Japan in the end. However I don't think so. The difficulties could not be overcome as long as China and ROK play the role of the heroine of tragedy. As far as Abe doesn't insist on his ideas about the visit to Yasukuni and his interpretation of the Japanese aggression history, Japan could not have China and ROK understand well what it will do for improving the relations with China and ROK.