An unsettling race seems to have started in Japan, where frontrunners to take over the top spot after Koizumi are already trying to out-do one another in their scaremongering over China. Taro Aso, the current foreign minister, and Shinzo Abe, the chief cabinet secretary, have both criticized Hu Jintao for stating his displeasure at Prime Minister Koizumi’s annual visits to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, including some four convicted war criminals. Mr. Aso also raised concerns about China’s military spending and lack of transparency.
It is easy to sympathize with the Chinese (and Koreans) when they protest the honoring of Japanese generals who were responsible for unspeakable atrocities during the war. And these countries are right to demand that Japan admit to its militaristic past in its own textbooks. But on this last point, China has a lot of admitting of its own to do, and a lot of missing pages in its own schoolbooks. Those who live in glass houses…
Still, Japanese investment in China grows larger every year. And with each generation of new Chinese leadership, there is an increase of reality-based policy and an embrace of the modern world. Perhaps in our children’s lifetimes we will see these neighbors admit their respective pasts and agree to let them stay where they belong: behind them.
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