Japan's new ruling party leader Shinzo Abe, who is certain to
succeed Junichiro Koizumi as the country's prime minister next
week, is urged to improve strained relations with Asian neighbors
by a former Japanese premier and major Japanese press Thursday.
"In the area of foreign policy, normalizing Japan's frayed
relations with China and South Korea will be an urgent priority for
the Abe administration," said Japanese former prime minister
Yasuhiro Nakasone, in an opinion article published on the
English-language newspaper Japan Times on Thursday.
Under Koizumi administration, "diplomacy towards Asian neighbors
has floundered," Nakasone said, "Japan's relations with China and
South Korea, key players in our Asian diplomacy, must be
restructured on a sustainable basis so as to promote prosperity in
all of East Asia," he said in the article "Abe needs to bring
vision, pragmatism to the job."
"...it is important to deal properly with the Yasukuni issue,"
he said.
Abe garnered 464 votes out of a total of 703 votes at the
presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday,
while the other two competitors, Foreign Minister Taro Aso and
Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, won 136 votes and 102 votes
respectively.
The chief cabinet secretary, who turned 52 on Thursday, is
expected to become the nation's first prime minister after World
War II on Tuesday. Though he swept to an easy win, major press said
on Thursday that the would-be young leader faces real challenges in
running the administration, one of which is Japan's Asian
diplomacy.
"...it was public popularity rather than his vision and policies
that was behind the strong support for Abe," said an editorial of
the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper on Thursday," ... He has
never directly managed the nation's economic policies, and we are
deeply concerned about this," the paper said.
"Abe also failed to present clear-cut views on the issue of
Yasukuni Shrine and the recognition of the nation's history. His
strategy seems to have been to avoid raising the issue during the
campaign," it said.
Koizumi's repeated pilgrimages to the war-linked Yasukuni
Shrine, where top war criminals are honored, have impaired the
political basis of bilateral relations between Japan and China and
has become a major obstacle against improvement of the ties.
"Although Abe has stressed the need to improve relations, he has
not said how he would accomplish that goal," the Asahi
Shimbun newspaper said on Thursday.
"One major question he faces is whether he can make a
breakthrough in foreign affairs. Relations with China and South
Korea have fallen to their lowest levels in recent memory because
of Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine," the paper
said.
"Political analysts both in and outside of Japan agree it will
be crucial for Abe to realize a visit to the two countries at an
early stage of his administration to remove the diplomatic thorn
that has become a concern in Japanese business circles as well as
the United States, Japan's closest ally," Kyodo News said
Thursday.
In a separate article on the Asahi named "Mending ties with
China, South Korea pressing issues," the paper noted that Abe's
"most immediate task on the diplomatic front" will be to restore
Tokyo's tattered ties with Beijing and Seoul.
Quoting a journalist Ryuichi Teshima, the paper said that "as
for the Yasukuni problem, it has the potential to develop into an
unpleasant issue with Washington," as Japan and the United States
have lacked a common strategy in East Asia since the end of Cold
War.
"By not making any more shrine visits, Abe will prevent Japan
from being isolated from the rest of the world," it said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2006)
