Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama expects relations with China and South Korea to improve because his government is calling for the public to be more willing to acknowledge Japan's history of colonial rule and aggression.
In a Friday interview with Al-Ahram, a major Egyptian newspaper, Hatoyama, who has advocated creating an East Asian community modeled on the European Union, said he does not believe China and South Korea are cold to his initiative.
Hatoyama has said his Democratic Party of Japan-led government has "the courage to move things forward with its eyes wide open to history."
The administration says it stands by a 1995 statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama that expressed remorse and offered an apology for Japan's colonial rule and wartime aggression.
"I believe Japan's relations with China and South Korea will be better than ever," Hatoyama said. "That, I believe, derives from the fact that we have insisted more than the previous administration that we should turn a serious eye to Japan's so-called past history."
Saying China and South Korea will undoubtedly form the core of his community concept, Hatoyama said cooperation among Japan and these countries has become "an extremely indispensable factor" in pushing his concept.
"In East Asia, it has become very important to cooperate not just in the economy, trade and finance but in such various aspects as human exchanges, cultural exchanges, education, the environment, energy and antidisaster measures," he said.
Hatoyama acknowledged the need to have the public better understand his concept for a regional bloc.