With the world economy’s center of gravity shifting from the West to the East, led by China’s rising economic and corresponding political power, the year 2010 may witness a series of epoch-making events in Asia.
A grand rapprochement between Japan and China could be one such happening. The idea has recently been floated through the media by anonymous diplomatic sources in Tokyo and Beijing, attracting attention among experts worldwide.
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported from Tokyo on January 6 that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had delivered to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) the script of a spectacular reconciliation this year between the two countries. The report said that China had proposed that Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio begin the process by going to Nanjing, where a mass killing of Chinese civilians by the Japanese Imperial Army took place in December 1937 and subsequently.