By Kato Yoshikazu
As widely expected, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) registered a landslide victory over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Aug 30 election to the lower house of parliament (Diet), giving birth to a new era in Japanese politics.
But it remains to be seen whether Japan will embrace real party politics, which requires checks and balances between the ruling and opposition parties.
It is difficult to predict how the DPJ will fare as a ruling party under new political circumstances and global financial crisis.
The Chinese people and media seem to have welcomed the DPJ victory. The main reason for that is the DPJ's declaration in its election manifesto that "visits to the Yasukuni Shrine by a Japanese prime minister are problematic".
Yukio Hatoyama, DPJ leader and most likely to become prime minister, made his party's stance clearer before the election, saying: "If we become the ruling party, our leaders will not visit the Yasukuni Shrine, nor intervene in China's domestic affairs."
The Yasukuni Shrine honors Class-A World War II criminals alongside Japan's war dead.
No matter who becomes Japan's new prime minister, the Diet will continue its policy of "positive realism" toward China. The policy includes issues such as US-Japanese alliance, participation in East Asian affairs, regional economic interdependence, the Taiwan question, territorial disputes and cooperative exploration in the East China Sea.
Sino-Japanese ties should be interpreted according to the "dynamics" of US-China-Japan relations because it would provide a crucial framework for Tokyo's national interests and stability in East Asia. A lot, however, depends on how efficiently China, Japan and the United States put that policy into practice.
A relatively strong US-Japan alliance and very stable China-Japan ties will help the three countries deal with problems in East Asia. The region is undergoing a dynamic process, with the economic and political prowess of China and Japan matching each other for the first time in history. Under such circumstances, social interactions can only be mutually beneficial.
But there is always the fear that incidents such as last year's contaminated dumplings' scare could mar Sino-Japanese ties temporarily. Chinese and Japanese both tend to react emotionally to such incidents.
When Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, visited East Asia in February on her first foreign tour after assuming office, her itinerary brought the skeptic out in many a Japanese politician and analyst.
They feared that the US would "bypass" Japan to cooperate with China directly to build a day-to-day interactive relationship.
Clinton visited Japan first and China last, stopping in the Republic of Korea (ROK) in between, trying to assure the Japanese that a shift in American policy toward US-China-Japan relations was not imminent.
The US-Japanese alliance will continue to dominate Washington's strategy in East Asia because China's economic rise and the fast pace of its development are considered to be the largest uncertainty for US predominant power and influence even beyond the region. Nonetheless, these are not ideological but pragmatic concerns, based on the "calculation" of US national interest.
The present US administration is trying to "silently contain" China through dialogues, a functional cooperation on climate change and bilateral trade, and issues such as the value of the yuan and regional security, including the denuclearzation of the Korean Peninsula.
The first US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue held in Washington in July could be seen as a "strategic progress", even though its achievement was mainly symbolic. Since the development of US-China ties does not go against Japanese foreign policy, decision-makers in Tokyo should seek ways to co-exist peacefully.
Sino-Japanese relations can stabilize in an interactively harmonious "political atmosphere". The Yasukuni issue is the "bottom line" in Sino-Japanese ties. Japanese leaders should understand that it is not only its domestic matter. And they should know that their visits to the shrine could "freeze" communications between Chinese and Japanese peoples and neutralize the gains made through years of painstaking efforts.
The call of the times is for politicians of the two countries to learn from history and adopt a realistic approach to stabilize bilateral ties.
The author is a Japanese columnist in China.
(China Daily September 2, 2009)
