Sushi and chopsticks

The past week has been quite momentous for Asia. First it was Japanese Prime Minister making a rare public apology for its country's World War II aggression on its neighbours. His remarks preceded a meeting set later with Chinese President Hu Jintao to defuse a diplomatic row over how Japan interprets its wartime history. While Japanese leaders have extended such apologies in the past, it is rare for a prime minister to address the issue in a public conference. The apology over Japan's war record was significant -- it was intended to calm a dispute that has sparked bitter anti-Japanese protests in China. The apology also comes as Japan tries to advance Tokyo's campaign for changes at the United Nations and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, an ambition some of its neighbours oppose. Relations between China and Japan have been tested in recent weeks by the issues of how Japanese textbooks treat aspects of Japan's wartime conduct as well as the nations' overlapping claims to a group of islands surrounded by oil and gas fields.
The other related development this week, though not much noticed, was China’s reassurance to its neighbours and the world at large its commitment to 'peaceful development'. This official pronouncement followed three weeks in which China's foreign policy seemed hostage to pervasive and violent anger against Japan. China has been eager to restore conviction to its claim that its rising economic influence and political clout will enrich and reassure its neighbours, not threaten them. China’s Hu struck a chord of reassurance at the Bo’ao meeting, portraying China's economic and political rise as a "path of peaceful development." "The purpose of China's foreign policy is to maintain world peace and promote common development," Hu said. Jia Qinglin, a member of the Communist Party's ruling inner circle, added: "China's development will be peaceful. We have no reason or chance to threaten others, and that is our abiding promise."
The climbdown by the two Asian majors from their respective high-adrenaline political grandstanding of the past weeks will surely bring a much-needed respite to the region. As we had said last week, it is time both the parties left the past behind and move ahead to bring prosperity and peace to their people and the region. The peaceful emergence of a successful China is in everyone's interest. So also is Japan’s move to acknowledge the wrongs of its wartime past.

This is an editorial published in Oman Tribune