5

Not quite.

Just a decade ago, economists and political theorists assumed Japan would become the central hub of "the Asian Century." But that assumed that Japan and its neighbors could finally address the issues still festering from World War II.

Japan has failed to emerge as Asia's main power, in no small part because it has yet to transcend the "history question." Unlike his predecessor, Abe did not raise hackles in China or Korea by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the graves of several Japanese war criminals. But Japanese textbooks still do not adequately teach new generations such wartime horrors as the 1937 Nanking Massacre, the occupation of Korea or the forced recruitment of women to "service" Imperial soldiers.

Last Monday, the U.S. House passed a symbolic resolution urging the Japanese government to officially apologize for conscripting those "comfort women." The resolution barely merited notice in U.S. newspapers, but it dominated the front pages in Japan, where even some members of Abe's own party think Japan has already done too much apologizing. That doesn't bode well for a stable Asia.

4.Japan will help the United States solve the North Korean nuclear problem.

Abe's weakness makes this tough.

The old game plan ran as follows: Washington and Pyongyang finally negotiate a deal that trades North Korea's nuclear weapons and technology for diplomatic recognition and a pledge not to wage war, then Tokyo writes the large check that helps isolated, bedraggled North Korea leap into the 21st century.

But Abe and the Bush administration no longer see eye to eye here. While Washington recognizes that the Iraq debacle heightens the need to cut a deal with Kim Jong Il, many Japanese leaders think Washington is eager to abandon Tokyo's quest for a fuller accounting of the civilians abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.

Pyongyang says it has returned all those it kidnapped and made a detailed accounting of its bizarre espionage campaign. Washington isn't clear what sort of "full accounting" Tokyo expects. But Abe first gained notoriety for his hard-line stance on the abduction question, and his electoral crash last weekend may convince him that he has to push harder, even to the point of incurring White House wrath.

5. Japan's government, like its corporate powerhouses, has a long-term strategy.

Guess again.

Honda and Toyota actively think about how they'll survive the next century, but Japan itself hasn't figured out where it wants to go. Does it seek to endure as a quasi-socialist system that demands collectivism and obedience, or become more of a free-market society that rewards individual initiative? Does it want to remain reliant on Washington, or reemerge as a powerful independent actor? Does it want to open itself to the world, allowing immigration and investment, or be left to its splendid isolation?

Nearly half of the nation tells pollsters that it wants to shrink government and empower entrepreneurship; nearly half seeks to expand the welfare state. The rest don't know or don't care. "We've missed so many opportunities," a rising young leader of the LDP told me. "Right now, I'm afraid the best we can hope for is to simply survive."

mzeeman@aol.com

Michael Zielenziger, a visiting scholar

at Berkeley, is the author of "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own

Lost Generation."