Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hoped to herald his economic reform program at Davos last month, Instead, people zeroed in on another of Abe's comments: likening tensions between China and Japan today to those between the United Kingdom and Germany on the eve of World War I.
Abe wasn't advocating war between Asia's two biggest economies. His words, however, exposed a problem in Northeast Asia, one with roots in World War II, not the first: the lack of multilateral institutions to settle disputes matching those created in Western Europe after 1945. Such bodies — including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community (later European Union) — have kept the peace in Europe for almost seven decades. In Asia, no such organizations were forged — bringing conflict today, however unintended, within the realm of the possible.
To understand why, one needs to look back at the messy way in which World War II ended in China. In 1945, the postwar settlement planned by the Allies, including the Soviet Union, envisioned the Nationalist China under Chiang Kai-shek as a pillar in Asia. Chiang's forces had contributed significantly to the war effort against Japan, including the years from 1937 to 1941 before Pearl Harbor, when China fought essentially alone. Its wartime sacrifices, including some 14 million or more deaths and 100 million or so refugees, made it necessary to acknowledge a major role for China in the postwar order.