Ezra Vogel, a leading expert on Japan and China, told an audience at the Japan Society recently that both nations should avoid negative steps that impact relations and try to improve bilateral ties despite current challenges.
Bilateral ties hit an all-time low when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made annual visits during his tenure to Yasukuni Shrine.
The visits fueled outcries in China and South Korea. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took a significant step in visiting Beijing and Seoul immediately after replacing Koizumi, some fear he, too, might choose to visit Yasukuni. "I think Japan has to stop the prime minister's Yasukuni visit," warned Vogel, a emeritus professor at Harvard. "But from the Chinese, and also the Korean point of view, if the prime minister visits Yasukuni, I think the state of public affairs in those countries is such that there will not be any progress forward."
In his seminar "Japan: From China War to China Peace," he suggested that Abe, who visited the shrine in April 2006 as chief Cabinet secretary and has since adopted a policy of "strategic ambiguity," should follow Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone's example.