Fast-forward fifty years, however, and East Asia presents a different picture. Japan no longer constitutes the great exception, a Western level of development surrounded by a sea of backwardness. On the contrary, the first four Asian tigers enjoy a GDP per head not far short of Japan ’s, [994] living standards in the region have risen enormously, and Japan ’s old nemesis, China, has been the subject of a remarkable economic transformation. In short, history has finally caught up with Japan. [995] As a society and culture, Japan has always been at its best when its goals — and the path towards those goals — were set in concrete. But when both the goals and the path need to be adapted to changed circumstances, perhaps even subject to wholesale revision, Japan seems to find the shift inordinately difficult. [996] Rather like France, it tends to fiddle and delay until nothing short of a revolution — or, in Japan ’s case, a restoration — is required. In the face of the transformation of East Asia, and above all China, Japan has been effectively paralysed, unable to change direction, offering little other than more of the same. The ruling Liberal Democrats, who have dominated Japanese politics since 1955, have found lateral thinking virtually impossible. [997] As Chinese East Asian expert Zhu Feng argues: ‘ Japan has been less prepared for the rise of China than any other country. They can’t believe it. They don’t want to believe it. Yet it affects them more than anyone else.’ [998] For the most part, Japan has gone into denial about the rise of China, wishing that somehow it might go away or that it was perhaps a figment of everyone else’s imagination.

From the early nineties, Japanese politics began to shift to the right and become more nationalistic, a process hastened by the collapse of the Social Democratic Party, which had always been a staunch opponent of Japanese rearmament. [999] Japanese ruling politicians grew more aggressive towards China, displaying impatience with traditional deferential tendencies towards their neighbour, increased concern about China ’s rise, and frustration with what they saw as China ’s exploitation of Japan ’s colonial past. [1000] In 1996 for the first time the proportion of those saying in an annual poll that they did not have friendly feelings towards the Chinese exceeded those that did. The crisis over North Korea and its threatened development of nuclear weapons, together with its abduction of Japanese citizens between 1977 and 1983, served to harden nationalist sentiment: indeed, the North Korean threat was seen as a proxy for the Chinese threat, thereby helping to ratchet up hostility towards China as well. [1001] In 1999 an extreme nationalist, Ishihara Shintaro, was elected governor of Tokyo: previously anti-American, he quickly became rabidly hostile towards China. Meanwhile, Japan entered into a new defence agreement with the United States which was clearly directed against China and which implicitly involved Japan in the defence of Taiwan. [1002] The growing enmity towards China found its fullest expression to date during Junichiro Koizumi’s premiership between 2001 and 2006, with his annual visits in his capacity as prime minister to the Yasukuni Shrine — a politically inspired memorial to Japan’s fallen soldiers, including Class A war criminals — which were intended to encourage nationalism at home while also being provocative towards China. Since Koizumi, however, both the short premiership of Shinzo Abe, previously regarded as hawkish towards China, and especially that of Yasuo Fukuda have revealed a desire in ruling circles to temper the hostility of the Koizumi era and seek a more accommodating relationship with China. [1003] It remains to be seen what course Japan will steer during the premiership of Taro Aso, who also has a nationalist reputation, but his period in office is likely to prove of short duration.

Japan, meanwhile, finds itself more or less isolated in East Asia. Although it has been generous in bestowing aid on many countries in the region, it has failed to address its wartime legacy, which is a continuing source of resentment for many of its neighbours, especially South Korea and China. It has remained, furthermore, relatively aloof from its neighbours, having refused to open up its market and resisted entering into multilateral, rather than bilateral, arrangements with them until its hand was finally forced by China ’s recent initiatives with ASEAN. [1004] There have been two recent illustrations of Japan ’s continued isolation. The first concerned its failed bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2005, when China succeeded in mobilizing most of the region in opposition to Japan’s proposed membership, thereby effectively torpedoing it. [1005] The second example was the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in 2005, provoked partly by Japan’s UN bid but mainly by the publication of a new school history textbook in Japan that sought to downplay Japanese crimes against China during the last war; [1006] in this case, as in that of the United Nations, the sympathies of the region were overwhelmingly on the side of the Chinese rather than the Japanese government. [1007] In both instances, the underlying cause of Japan ’s isolation is the same: its failure to address not only China ’s grievances about the last war but nearly everyone else’s as well. [1008]

China ’s rise requires a fundamental shift in Japanese thinking — indeed, Japan ’s interests would have been best served if it had been willing to address the wartime treatment of its neighbours several decades ago [1009] — but there remains little sign of it. Instead Japan has clung to variants of its post-war stance, with the result that China has succeeded, with the adroitness of its recent diplomacy in the region, in outmanoeuvring it. Meanwhile, the relationship between the two remains frozen in the manner of the Cold War, with each twist and turn being seen in terms of a zero-sum game. [1010] The issues of contention between the two are many, though the historical questions clearly predominate over all others. In terms of the present, by far the most important — and dangerous — issue concerns the disputed Senkaku/ Diaoyu islands and the similarly disputed maritime border in the East China Sea. [1011] There have already been clashes over the islands, most notably in 1990. [1012] Unlike the disputed islands in the South China Sea, there are known to be significant oil and gas deposits in the area, thereby lending them an added strategic significance. China has offered to shelve the issue of sovereignty, as it has done with the Spratlys, in favour of joint development, but the Japanese have rejected the idea. The Chinese, meanwhile, have begun exploration in a disputed area of sea. [1013] An agreement between the two countries on joint exploration and development would help to ease tension, though it would not resolve the underlying issue of sovereignty over the islands or the maritime border. [1014] Until some kind of agreement is reached, this dispute is the one most likely to provide a flashpoint between the two countries. [1015]