Japan’s chance to strike a deal with China
Shinzo Abe’s appointment this week as Japanese prime minister has been welcomed in Asian capitals as the possible dawn of a new era of co-operation between Japan and China, the two economic giants and traditional rivals of east Asia.
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Mr Abe, the optimists point out, is only 52. He is the youngest Japanese prime minister since the second world war and the first to be born after it. Above all, he is a change from his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who is credited with reviving the Japanese economy but blamed for alienating China and South Korea by repeatedly visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo
