Standing Their Ground

At

first glance, the timing looked impeccably bad. With emotions between China and Japan still raw after weeks of anti-Japanese protests in major Chinese cities, 80 Japanese Diet members and the personal representatives of 86 others assembled at 8:00 a.m. last Friday to pay their respects at the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo. No ordinary center of Shinto worship, Yasukuni is where the souls of 2.5 million Japanese war dead are enshrined. Since 1978, when 14 of Japan's most notorious World War II war criminals were added to the books of veneration there, Japan's neighbors have considered the shrine not a national and religious monument, but a hateful celebration of Japan's warmongering past. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual trips to the shrine unfailingly provoke formal protests from China. Two weeks ago, Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan told Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura that one of the major stumbling blocks to improving relations were politicians' visits to Yasukuni.

But on this brisk and sunny spring morning, Diet member Yasukazu Hamada was undeterred. A young and conservative member of Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Hamada saw his pilgrimage to Yasukuni as a proper personal tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. No offense to China was intended, he says, but no special concessions were made to soothe China's sensibilities, either. Three such parliamentary prayer services had been held every year for decades, Hamada notes, and this one had been scheduled long before the anti-Japanese riots in China. He looks surprised when asked whether anyone discussed canceling the trip out of deference to the recent tension. "Hardly," says Hamada. "If we had canceled or postponed, that would have given the Chinese the impression that their demonstrations had some sort of meaning, that they had accomplished something."

Not every Japanese politician spoke so intransigently last week. In a statement during a summit of African and Asian leaders in Indonesia, Koizumi expressed "feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology" for the "tremendous damage and suffering" that Japan inflicted on Asian nations during its period of colonial rule and aggression—a clear attempt to mend fences with China. The next day, he and Chinese President Hu Jintao met for 55 minutes on the sidelines of the conference. Hu urged Japan to "seriously reflect" on its wartime history and back up a government apology with action. Koizumi called it a "frank and meaningful" exchange. Yet in some respects, Hamada's tough words are more representative of Japan's current political climate than Koizumi's conciliatory ones. After more than a half a century of emerging only fitfully from a pacifist, passive shell, Japan today is striding onto the world stage more boldly than it has done for two generations. And few leaders in Japan seem prepared to apologize for the new mood, however much they may regret the past. A new conservatism is taking hold among the nation's best and brightest young politicians, and Japan, once a diplomatic doormat, has become fueled with a resurgent nationalism.

A foreign-policy conservative himself, Koizumi has been crucial to the change in mood. Upon taking office in 2001, he embarked on a campaign to build Japan's political, diplomatic and military influence to a level that would match its economic might. In the first Gulf War, Japan sent only money to protect its oil interests. In 2003, however, Koizumi became one of the U.S.'s few staunch supporters in the campaign to oust Saddam Hussein, and put (admittedly noncombatant) boots on the ground in 2004 to support the Iraq reconstruction effort. More recently, Japan has (to the consternation of the U.S.) reached out to Iran to secure oil supplies and is seeking to expand its influence in Africa by doubling the amount of aid sent there over the next three years.

But nothing has added urgency to Koizumi's efforts as China's "peaceful rise" to economic and political power. After months of escalation, tensions climaxed two weeks ago when protests in China over Japanese schoolbook revisions that glossed over some of Japan's worst World War II atrocities metastasized into widespread anti-Japanese riots. Newspaper editorials and politicians in Japan began talking ominously about "the lowest point in Sino-Japanese relations in 30 years" and the rising likelihood of an "Asian cold war."

Last week, however, both sides acted to ease the tension. Beijing banned further protests and closed several anti-Japanese websites, while Koizumi offered his apology. But goodwill may be fleeting. Although Koizumi is credited as the architect of Japan's more confrontational foreign policy, he is backed by a growing neoconservative movement in the Diet—a bloc of Young Turk legislators who are both driving and riding the country's rekindled national pride. These are not Japan's traditional patriots, far-right citizens who wear headbands exhorting fealty to the Emperor and who for years have driven their ominous black trucks blaring military marches through the streets of Tokyo. Rather, this new political force consists of young, well-educated, eloquent and media-savvy lawmakers who insist that Japan must become a "normal country" with a fully functioning military and a willingness to take a hard line to protect its interests—a message that has become increasingly popular with a public frustrated by the prospect of a decline in Japan's global stature. Almost without exception, these neocons consider World War II to be ancient history, an event for which they bear no direct responsibility or guilt. "I think we have a balance between the antiwar education we received as children and the political realities the country faces today," says Hamada, a former deputy chief of defense.