Articles:
Shinzo Abe´s pivot to Asia

Overthe past year, relations among East Asia’s three most successful economies – Japan,
South Korea, and China – have been slowly but steadily improving. This is
notable, because their ties with one another have never been easy or smooth. The
history of the twentieth century and their longer-term rivalries have seen to
that.

This August, when Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gives a major speech to mark the 70th anniversary of
the end of World War II, he has a chance either to accelerate the rapprochement
or bring it to a halt. Given his rightist pedigree and revisionist views about
Japan’s wartime history, the region is bracing itself for a new bout of diplomatic
turbulence surrounding his address.

Abe should remember
that it is within his power to bring about a different outcome. And, though not
delivering a speech at all might have been the most prudent course, he can
still use the occasion to reinforce an image of his country as a positive force
in Asia. He should take pains to present Japan as a strong country that looks
forward rather than backward, and that wants to contribute to economic
development, peace, and security around the world – and especially within Asia.

During
the 1960s and 1970s, after Japan’s economy had recovered, the country dealt
with its wartime history in large part by becoming a generous donor of overseas
aid throughout Asia, including China. Abe should place this type of generosity
of spirit and action at the center of his speech.

The
power of generosity can be disarming. In 2007, I visited the “Museum of the War
of Chinese People’s Resistance against Japanese Aggression,” an institution
whose name reflects the sentiment expressed by the bulk of its exhibits. So it
was a pleasant surprise to see that the last exhibit on display was a wall of
items acknowledging Japan’s aid and investment in China in recent decades.

Last month, Abe showed
that he may be thinking along these lines when he announced a Japanese plan to
invest $110 billion in infrastructure projects in Asia over the next five
years. The trouble was in the timing. Both the United States and Japan have
made the mistake of refusing to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB) and criticizing the more than 50 countries – including the
United Kingdom, Germany, and France – that have done so.

That stance has left
both countries isolated and looking somewhat churlish. For Japan, it has had the
additional effect of making its investment announcement look like a tit-for-tat
response to the AIIB, even to the extent of topping the bank’s initial capitalization
of $100 billion.

Abe
would do even more damage to the region’s perception of Japan were he to use
his speech to try to mollify right-wing supporters. Chinese and Koreans, in
particular, will be incensed should he avoid overt apologies for Japan’s
behavior during World War II or question criticism of its conduct at the time,
such as the Imperial Japanese Army’s sexual enslavement of Korean “comfort
women.”

Instead, Abe should take
a leaf from his speech
to the US Congress in April. There, he described a “deep repentance in his
heart” when he visited a memorial to American soldiers who died in World War
II, to whom he offered his “eternal condolences.”

Concerning Japan’s
actions in Asia, however, Abe pledged only “to uphold the views expressed by
the previous prime ministers in this regard,” without repeating their actual apologies.
In August, Abe should  reiterate – and go
beyond – his predecessors’ statements. Words similar to those he used to address
the subject of America’s war dead would demonstrate that Japan does not intend
to rewrite history, and that Abe feels repentant toward not only its US ally,
but also its neighbors in Asia.

Abe would then have an
opportunity to pivot from the past to the future by declaring Japan’s intention
to be generous and constructive. He could talk about the sort of Asia he would
like to help build and describe the kind of regional institutions that he
believes are necessary.

One dramatic way to
seize the initiative would be to build on Japan’s existing initiatives in
post-conflict peace-building with a proposal for an inclusive plan for Asia’s defense
and security. Such a scheme would include joint military exercises and
information-sharing arrangements not just with South Korea and the US, but also
with China, India, the Southeast Asian countries.

Such a proposal might
turn out to be too bold to realize; it would, after all, come up against Asia’s
very real divisions. But as a gesture for peace and a better future, it certainly
would allow Japan to claim the moral high ground. And that is where the country
should aim to be.