[Editorial] Circumventing neighbors

China recently canceled a top-level annual finance meeting with Japan and South Korea, which was to be held on the sidelines of an Asian Development Bank conference that opens in Delhi on Thursday for a four-day run. Finance ministers and central bank governors from the three countries have in past years held discussions before separate talks with their counterparts from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Japanese officials said last Friday they have been informed by China, the chair of the trilateral meeting, that it was called off because there were no issues to be discussed and coordinated by the three sides. But speculation has arisen that the cancellation may have been prompted by a recent string of moves by Japanese right-wing politicians to glorify Japan’s militarist past and deny its wartime atrocities.

It followed a request made by China early last month to postpone an annual trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea, which was scheduled to be held in Seoul in late May. Diplomatic observers noted at the time that new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang might have felt it irrelevant to sit with his Japanese counterpart when the two countries were embroiled in a tense territorial dispute.

Japan’s anachronistic moves have also made it difficult for South Korea to engage in talks with its former colonial ruler. Seoul canceled its foreign minister’s planned trip to Tokyo last week in response to some Japanese Cabinet members’ visits to a controversial war shrine. Its diplomatic protest was only met with another visit by a group of 168 Japanese lawmakers to the shrine in central Tokyo. Japan’s nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe further angered Seoul and Beijing with his remarks that could be interpreted as denying Japan’s pre-1945 history of aggression, including the colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

Abe’s government appears to be circumventing or even putting pressure on Japan’s two key neighbors by reaching out to other countries outside Northeast Asia.

After Beijing’s cancellation of the trilateral finance talks, Japanese media reported that Tokyo was planning to hold a separate meeting of finance ministers and central bankers with ASEAN members during the ADB conference to discuss a new framework for fiscal and monetary cooperation. The envisioned scheme might overshadow the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization accord, which was signed by the 10 Southeast Asian countries, South Korea, China and Japan in 2009 and took effect in 2010. Japanese officials have claimed the new formula is designed to strengthen Japan’s support for economic growth and fiscal health in regional states and thus would not damage the function of the CMIM aimed at preventing the recurrence of a financial crisis like the one that hit Asian countries in 1997. But the move will inevitably give the impression that Japan is trying to exclude South Korea and China in its attempt at restructuring regional economic order.

During the Golden Week holiday that continues through Monday, 12 of the 19 Japanese Cabinet members embarked on or plan to go on overseas trips. Reflecting the frozen ties with South Korea and China, the two countries are not included in any of their itineraries.

Abe this week made the first official visit by a Japanese prime minister to Moscow in a decade. He agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their talks on Monday to renew efforts to find a solution to a longstanding territorial row that has prevented the two sides from signing a peace treaty since the end of World War II. His visit to Russia is to be followed by trips to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, during which he is expected to seek to enhance energy and resources cooperation.

Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka after attending the ADB conference. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is on a weeklong trip to Mexico, Peru, Panama and the U.S.

To many observers, this flurry of overseas visits by Japanese leaders may not appear enough to consolidate and expand Japan’s external relations, which should be based on friendly ties with its immediate neighbors. Contrary to their hopes, their words and actions that turn a blind eye to Japan’s wartime atrocities will only lead their country to lose friends and be isolated in the international community. There is no case for Japan’s charming offensive toward the rest of the world when it disrupts trust and stability in its own region.

Before embarking on his trip early this week, Abe said Japan would open the door of dialogue to South Korea and China, though there are a set of problems among them. But his latest moves, which showed his insensibility and distorted perceptions, suggest the door may remain closed for a considerable period of time to come.