China and Japan ties post Fukuda
Updated
Japan's ruling Liberal Democrats party are on the hunt for a new leader, following the dramatic resignation of Yasuo Fukuda after less than a year in office. In the end, Mr Fukuda's plummeting unpopularity, a tough opposition and a series of scandals were his undoing. But Yasuo Fukuda had developed a positive reputation for his work to repair relations with Asia, especially China, and questions are being asked on how Sino-Japan ties will look, now Mr Fukuda is gone.
Presenter: Linda LoPresti
Speaker: Professor Peter Drysdale, head of the East Asia Forum at the Australian National University, Canberra
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DRYSDALE: There's no question that former prime minister Fukuda made an important contribution to shifting around the relationship with China after the prime ministerships of Koizumi and Abe in Japan. Fukuda's prime ministership was steeped in a deep understanding of Chinese affairs, and he brought to the prime ministership a purpose to restore the relationship with China and set it on a new course. And he succeeded in doing that over the last less than a year of his premiership, which is quite a remarkable feat.
LOPRESTI: So with Mr Fukuda the chill definitely was thawing between Japan and China. Can Mr Fukuda's successor continue those improving relationships with China?
DRYSDALE: Well I think the first thing to understand is that the Japan-China relationship is a big and deep relationship independently of the political tensions there are in it from time to time. It's founded on both countries deep integration into the regional and international economy, a huge trade and investment relationship between them that is too big and too important to both of them to put at risk. So with that Fukuda of course took it forward and further, injected some positive elements into the relationship, including around some of the difficult issues that have bedeviled the relationship over the years; territorial disputes, the possible development of joint energy resources in the Sea of Japan and so on. And the visit that President Hu Jintao under Fukuda's premiership earlier this year of course was an important symbol of development in the relationship between the two countries under prime minister Fukuda.
LOPRESTI: Already there's talk of conservative Taro Aso succeeding Mr Fukuda. He is the former foreign minister who has been wary of China and has talked very openly about wanting Japan to wield more regional clout. Now if Taro Aso takes office do you see any changes in that relationship?
DRYSDALE: Well I think Aso does come with that baggage and there'll be lots of talk about that over the coming weeks, but the truth of the matter is that when Aso stood against Fukuda for the premiership of the LDP, as the prime ministership of Japan, he as part of his platform took the normalisation of relations in East Asia, re-China, as an important objective for Japan as well. But there's no automoticity(?) at all given what I said about the importance of the China relationship to Japan that Aso would significantly change course on the relationship with China.
LOPRESTI: Taro Aso has said that he will not visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which is the memorial to Japan's war dead, unlike Koizumi as you mentioned earlier, who has made repeated visits to the shrine. Now for China that's got to be a good thing?
DRYSDALE: That's certainly a plus and that symbolism has already been put into effect by Aso last month when Aso was among the leading politicians in Japan who didn't visit Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. So that will be a plus in the atmosphere of the relationship should Aso become prime minister of Japan between China and Japan. But I think the more substantial and fundamental issue is that both countries have so much at stake in the relationship between them that prime minister Aso, should he become so will be keen to make sure that that is all protected.
