By Brendan John Worrell (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-12-11 14:56

Ten years ago I was living in a small town in rural Japan. A three-hour drive could get you to Hiroshima and a good seven-hour drive to Nagasaki. These two locations will forever remain etched into the global conscience and the reasons given for their infamy likewise can never fade.

In almost two years of my living there, the war was never discussed. Etiquette demanded that is was the "great unsaid". Around the town there were a few memorials but in the common people's mindset, such things were best left buried.

The fact that a large US military base, Iwakuni, was not too far away, and that American soldiers were still misbehaving with local women on Okinawa, gave the issue a sense of nagging pain, like a throbbing toothache that refused to go away.

It was around this time the then Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with the late Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. Hereafter no Chinese President has since returned. Of note when President Jiang made his visit he asked for a more concerted apology from Japan regarding its soldier's behavior during the Second World War.

It was a fair request because at the time there was still the nagging issue of Japanese revisionist textbooks being published that overlooked the many wrongs committed by Japan's Imperial Armed forces. It wasn't just Chinese and South Koreans who were indignant at this but also Australians, Canadians, Americans and many other nations who had soldiers and civilians abused, executed and or raped by Japanese soldiers.

Sadly Obuchi, who was credited with turning around the flailing Japanese economy, later suffered a stroke and died. The reins were passed on to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori for a year, then Junichiro Koizumi for five, Shinzo Abe just over a year and now the 71-year-old Yasuo Fukuda sits at the helm.

Good leaders in Japan seem to be few and far between. In the last 20 years they have had 14 prime ministers. In such a climate it is difficult to build lasting, trusting relationships on shifting sands. Next year is the 30th anniversary of the signing of the peace and friendship agreement between China and Japan but in these three decades relations have remained frosty.

As Prime Minister, Koizumi lasted the longest, and had the greatest opportunity to take Japan to a higher level but he squandered it fanning the flames of anti Japanese sentiment by insisting on visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. Globally he was deplored yet domestically he was very popular which is a sad indication that many Japanese are either unaware of the pain such visits create or alternatively, just don't care.

Thankfully certain recent developments are seeing an unprecedented thaw in relations.

One of the most intelligent, sensitive, bridge building actions the new Prime Minister Fukuda has done since taking office is to pledge that he will not visit Yasukuni.

Elections in Japan are not scheduled until September 2009 so there is time for some groundbreaking diplomacy. Yang Yi a rear admiral with the PLA University of National Defense called it, "a critical window of opportunity for developing (their) bilateral ties"

Appreciating this context on Tuesday last week it was announced that President Hu Jintao would visit Japan next year after he met with Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura in Beijing earlier in the week.

On Friday President Hu also met with Ichiro Ozawa, president of the Democratic Party of Japan who was in charge of a 450-member Japanese delegation and spoke of his desire to "boost bilateral relations to a new level".

Then in another first the previous week saw the Chinese missile destroyer Shenzhen drop anchor off Tokyo Bay, the first time a People's Liberation Army (PLA) ship has called at a Japanese port. Eiji Yoshikawa Japan's chief of naval operations commented that he hoped it would "open a new page in the history of Japan-China military exchanges".

Prime Minister Fukuda went on further optimistically commenting, "I believe spring has already come to Japan-China relations… I want the spring to continue as long as possible."

I like Fukuda for his vision, yet as I write, a new controversy is hitting the headlines regarding Japanese filmmaker Satoru Mizushima and his movie, The Truth of Nanking, which insists Nanking never really happened.

Though an infuriating distraction, Mizushima and the publicity he is attracting actually compels the rest of the world to remember that this week is the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre.

History cannot be changed though the future can be shaped.

Stepping in the right direction President Hu and his Japanese counterpart are boldly working towards a new horizon.

The opinion represents that of the columnist only