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Japan's Abe to send envoy to China to mend ties: Nikkei
Shinzo Abe, Japan's incoming Prime Minister and the leader of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), attends a meeting at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo December 21, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai
TOKYO |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's next Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to send senior ruling party member Masahiko Koumura as an envoy to China as early as next month in a bid to repair ties between Asia's two largest economies, the Nikkei business daily said.
Abe, a hardliner who has questioned claims by China and others that Japan's army forced woman from occupied territories into prostitution during World War II, wants to bolster relations with his nation's biggest neighbor after anti-Japanese protests there this year, the paper reported, without saying where it obtained the information.
Komura will carry a letter from Abe for China's leaders, the Nikkei said. Komura is a former foreign minister who served as Abe's defense minister during his first administration in 2007. As head of the Japan-China Friendship Paliamentarians' Union, the lawmaker is known for his strong ties with China.
During campaigning for the general election that returned his Liberal Democratic Party to power after three years, Abe pledged to take a tough line with China in the dispute over islands in the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
A Chinese boycott of Japanese cars, electronic gadgets and other products earlier this year, however, hurt Japanese companies, while violent anti-Japanese protests damaged some businesses.
Abe also plans to send an envoy to South Korea following the election of Park Geun-hye as president, the Nikkei said. Ties with South Korea have been strained over a separate territorial dispute.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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“Abe pledged to take a tough line with China” is a politically motivated stance than a strategic one. Of course the USA and others would love to see an alliance of Pacific Ream countries to counter China’s inevitable total dominance in that region.
Confrontation with China would be more like barking up the wrong tree. Only political dialogue can produce a peaceful solution.
America’s business is business after all, and as China is on its way in becoming the largest economy in the world, American business interests will do anything that would impede them, and just as the Chinese monopolies are the Chinese Party & government itself, so are the American Big Business & monopolies, they control the American government.
The region has more potential than you give it credit. The U.S would rather we reach that potential, China wants to control it (And swallow the territories of many of us). As a citizen of one of these countries it has become clear, that the aggressive and arrogant moves made by China is moving public opinion resolutely away from China as a friend and ally. This will thwart any ‘dominance’ of this region by China. (I stopped laying this all at the feet of the CCP, when Chinese nationalists have made it quite clear the public is as culpable as the Chinese government).
Human behavior is quite similar to animals… Only those with bad intention need strength through ganging up with other with similarly bad intention.
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