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04/06/2006
Yasukuni
Tensions have been rising between China and Japan and to the
casual observer the primary reason may surprise you; Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s ongoing visits to the
Yasukuni war shrine.
The Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo contains the names of Japan’s
war dead, some 2.5 million, but it also includes 14 convicted
“Class A” war criminals from World War II.
Kent E. Calder, Director for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins
University, explains in the March / April edition of Foreign
Affairs.
“Only two other sitting prime ministers in the past twenty years
visited the shrine at all, and each only went once. In Japan,
opinion over Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni is almost evenly split,
with six former prime ministers and five of Japan’s six largest
newspapers opposing them. But the dominant Mori faction of
the LDP, to which both Koizumi and the influential chief cabinet
secretary, Shinzo Abe, belong, has strong connections to Japan’s
political leadership of the 1930s and 1940s. [Abe, for instance,
is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, a member of Prime Minister
Hideki Tojo’s wartime cabinet; Kishi’s legacy remains
controversial even though later, as prime minister, Kishi began
Japan’s policy of providing large-scale reparations to Southeast
Asia.] Such ties make the Koizumi government prone to holding
conservative conceptions of national interests and render it more
suspect than its predecessors in the eyes of many Asians,
including the Chinese.”
While Koizumi stresses the personal nature of his visits, which
aren’t official, Beijing has had it. Last week Chinese President
Hu Jintao said he would not meet with Prime Minister Koizumi
until the latter stopped with the shrine visits.
“If the Japanese leader makes a clear commitment not to visit the
Yasukuni Shrine again, I’m willing to engage in meetings and
dialogue on the improvement and development of Sino-Japanese
ties,” Hu said.
But the aforementioned Shinzo Abe, a frontrunner to succeed
Koizumi, said:
“It is wrong for us to decide to stop our prime minister’s visits to
a shrine which is located in our country just because a foreign
country demands it.
“Diplomatic dialogue shouldn’t be stopped just because there are
some disagreements in the field of politics. If you stop visiting
Yasukuni because China demands it, then the next demand could
be about the territorial disputes over the gas fields in the East
China Sea.”
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso backed Mr. Abe:
“Because the shrine is a religious facility in the Japanese
territory, it gets harder and harder for our prime minister to stop
visiting Yasukuni if a foreign country presses it.”
[Agence France-Presse / South China Morning Post]
Kent Calder:
“Seasoned U.S. diplomats suggest privately that the Yasukuni
issue is more damaging to Japanese regional influence now than
it was even two or three years ago, because China is emerging as
a skilled diplomatic player that can use the history card more
effectively to marginalize Japan than previously due to its
growing political and economic clout .Many observers note
that Beijing has particularly strong incentives to prevent any
strengthening of the U.S.-Japanese alliance on Taiwan-related
matters. And China, claiming that Japan has not sincerely atoned
for its wartime aggression, has also used the issue to hinder
Japan’s bid for the permanent UN Security Council seat that
many feel it richly deserves. [Tokyo, after all, funds 20 percent
of the UN budget, compared to China’s 3 percent.]
“Whatever the personal or political rationale for Koizumi’s
visits, Yasukuni is a flashpoint for widespread, if often ill-
informed, international misgivings about Japan’s foreign
policies, misgivings that erode the regional and global
effectiveness of Japanese diplomacy. The visits make it difficult
for leaders in both Japan and China to manage bilateral economic
and security relations; hurt Japan’s ability to take proactive
diplomatic steps (for instance, by preventing Tokyo from taking
a leadership role, amply justified by its capabilities, in regional
energy and environmental cooperation); reduce Japan’s leverage
with third countries, such as Russia, that may care little about the
visits themselves but care about tensions between Japan and
China, with which they do business; and divert Japanese public
attention from the serious security issues looming over Northeast
Asia.”
Japan and China account for nearly 3/4s of economic activity in
Asia but among the other contentious issues facing the two is
energy, with Japan importing 100% of its oil and natural gas,
while as you know China’s demand continues to explode in both
areas.
It’s all about the oil and gas fields in the East China Sea that both
have claimed. China is sending its surveillance aircraft into
disputed airspace, while Japanese companies have begun
exploring contested areas for natural gas. Chinese warships have
approached Japan’s fields and in turn both major political parties
in Japan have prepared bills authorizing the use of force to
protect Japanese drillers and fishermen. And in the midst of this,
the Yasukuni Shrine visits severely impede any hopes of true
diplomatic progress.
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Hott Spotts returns next week.
Brian Trumbore
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