China's power prevents Japan from invading Asia again: Lee
SINGAPORE (Kyodo) Japan is unlikely to again go down the militarist path and invade its Asian neighbors as it did before and during World War II because China's growing economic prowess has created a new balance of power, according to Singapore's elder statesman.
"I do not see a return to a situation the Japanese were in during the 1930s and 1940s. That Asia will not come back," Lee Kuan Yew, 81, told a dinner organized by the Foreign Correspondents' Association on Monday.
"We have an Asia now that is completely different with China . . . economically growing 8 to 9 percent. So I don't see a repetition of the old behavior, but an evolution into a new balance."
In response to a question, Lee said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, the dispatch of ground troops to Iraq and preparations for a more significant role for the Self-Defense Forces reflect a "gradual evolution" that could turn out to be positive.
"I see this as a development that the U.S. would be happy with and will fit in with the balance that eventually must be established between the U.S. and Japan on the one, and China on the other," he said.
He said the United States needs Japan to continue as a partner.
"A U.S. without Japan would be at a great disadvantage in Asia," he said.
Lee was Singapore's first prime minister, holding the reins for more than three decades until 1991. In the 1990s, he quipped that allowing Japan to rearm would be like giving liquor chocolates to an alcoholic.
In his memoirs, published in 1998, Lee says 50,000 to 100,000 mainly Chinese people in Singapore were massacred by the Japanese military during the 1942-1945 occupation.
On an East Asian economic community, Lee said: "If we want an economic community, I think it is possible, but it will take many years. But to be an East Asian union, that is different. To have one currency, that will take many decades."
The Japan Times: Dec. 22, 2004
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