As Japan begins to take on an increasingly prominent role in Asia, politically, economically and culturally, the common sentiment is that it is still not living up to its full potential. Professor T J Pempel, director of the INstitute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a recent conference here: "Japan is like a six-cylinder Toyota running on three cylinders."
Among the many reasons given for Japan not running on the other three cylinders is that its domestic economic structure (which needs to be changed) and its post-war pacifist Constitution (which does not allow Japan to develop its military powers commensurate with its economic powerhouse status). In short, it is not a "normal" nation.
Most importantly, there is a huge obstacle in its way to "normalisation" - its tortured war-time past, especially with regards to relations with China, which remains unresolved. This, in turn, holds Japan back from becoming the power that it could be. The Chinese deal these "history cards" periodically for political reasons - to obtain concessions from Japan, either to influence its policy or stop right-wing sentiments from rising, said Dr Takashi Terada, a lecturer at the Japanese Studeis Department at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
And it serves to remind the world of Japan's devious past which does not merit trust in the Land of the Rising Sun. The visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where some 2.5 million Japanese who died in the war - including class-A criminals - were interred, is a card China plays every year. The name of the shrine literally means "peaceful country". But every visit by leading Japanese politicians to the shrine on August 15, the eve of Japan's defeat in the war, inevitably elicits a less-than-peaceful Chinese response.
The other notable thorns in Sino-Japanese relations include the Rape of Nanking, comfort women and various spontaneous incidents such as when Chinese actress Vicki Zhao paraded herself in clothes designed to look like the Japanese flag at a fashion show. Other cases of unhappiness include the case of leftover chemicals in North-east China that led to the deaths and injury of several Chinese people and, of course, the recent infamous Zhuhai orgy involving Japanese tourists and Chinese peostitutes.
While many have argued that the bad blood is a generational issue - the old are more hung up on historical legacy than the younger generations - it has been proven otherwise. Most of the Chinese who spoke out against the Japanese in the recent events belong to the younger generation. In fact, in the Zhuhai incident, the huge uproar was started by the Internet community where thousands of angry messages were posted daily, according to media reports.
The Chinese people's seeming inability to forget the past is due to the failure of the Japanese to apologise, said Dr Zheng Yongnian, a research fellow at the East Asia Institute at NUS. "The Japanese made a formal apology to the Koreans (for its colonisation from 1910 to 1945) but not to the Chinese" and that is something the Chinese cannot understand. This refusal to apologise is due to Japanese domestics politics, Dr Hiro Katsumata, a post doctoral fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies told TODAY.
One of the strongest supporters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is the right-wing War Veterans Association, which the LDP can ill afford to antagonise, Dr Katsumata said. A string of Japanese premiers since the 1990s have apologised verbally for the war, Dr Terad pointed out, although there never was a written aplogy like the one made to South Korea in 1998.
The reason for the different treatment was that China was not colonised and apologies have already been made from time to time but never seem to be accepted by the Chinese. The real reason for the difference goes deeper - it is the Chinese attitude that keeps the wounds open. "South Korea had showed a willingness to see new developments in the bilateral relationship and, thus, made it easier for reconciliation," said Dr Terada, but China continues to hanker for a "real" aplogy.
Comparatively, Japan's relations with South-east Asia do not seem to engender this kind of pain. The common reason given is that aid from the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), which has been dished out to developing countries for almost 50 years, played an important role in facilitating the reconciliation. Many South-east Asian countries have benefited tremendously from Japanese generosity through the ODA and foreign direct investments.
While official reasons have credited the latter to Japan's position as an economic powerhouse and humanitarian outlook, many see the ODA as Japan's compensation for its war-time atrocities. "Reconciliation (with South-east Asia) would have been much more difficult without the ODA," said Dr Katsumata. "The situation would have been very different."
Indeed, with its economic prosperity driven by Japanese economic presence, South-east Asia has less reason to play the history card. Furthermore, whether as an entity (Asean - Association of South-east Asian Nations) or an individual countries, South-east Asia is less threatening and more prone to Japanese influence than China is. The outlook for reconciliation between Japan and China looks bleak for now. Dr Funabashi is "inclined to think that it is mission impossible because of the enormity" of the issues.
Although Sino-Japanese relations are improving slowly but steadily because of the inevitability of promoting not just good bilateral relations but also for the greater East Asia community, it will still take some time for complete reconciliation to take place. The right-wing forces in Japan are still too strong, said Dr Katsumata. It may take 10 or 20 years for the passing of the older generation and further changes in leadership before that can happen.
"For the Chinese people, an apology would mean a lot", said Dr Zheng. "They have been waiting for a long, long time for this. Without it, every incident will remind the Chinese of the past."