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| Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe |
By Yong Kwon
Abe’s reference at Davos could draw Japan’s attention to some useful lessons from that era.
Responding to a question on the conceivability of a war between the two largest economies in Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made waves at Davos last week when he compared ongoing tensions between Japan and China to Anglo-German relations in the period leading up to the First World War. Although a sobering reminder that the world does not resemble the neo-liberal utopian dream of Thomas Friedman, this reply was a poorly timed statement that will serve only to put further distance between two countries whose relations are already frayed following Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine and Beijing’s unilateral declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone around the disputed islets in the East China Sea.
At the same time, there is more to the seemingly anachronistic analogy than first meets the eye. The war in 1914 played a critical role in informing the nascent Japanese Empire about its strategic limitations in the modern era. It was the lessons from the German defeat in particular that emboldened Japan to pursue territory in mainland China and sowed the seeds for the discord that has relentlessly stymied closer ties with China in recent years. Indeed, Abe drawing attention to the First World War can be seen as equal parts caution to Beijing and an admission that Japan still struggles from the same strategic limitations it faced a hundred years ago.
Read the full story at The Diplomat