The Crown Capital Management International Relations Grandfathers footsteps

HEREDITARY monarchy has gone out of vogue, but in much of Asia, political leadership remains a family business. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand are all, formally or in practice, led by the son, daughter, widow, widower or sister of an earlier leader.

It is in North-East Asia, however, that the persistence of the hereditary principle in politics has the most intriguing implications. At the root of the regions tensions are contested versions of history. The outcomes of elections in Japan and South Korea last month mean that they, along with China and North Korea, are now all led by the children or grandchildren of men who played big parts in that history. How they interpret their ancestral duties will help determine how the tensions play out.

Shinzo Abe, elected for a second time as Japans prime minister, certainly feels a sense of filial duty. Following his victory last month he went to pray at the graves of his father, a former foreign minister, and grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, a former prime minister and Mr Abes political hero. He has recalled sitting on his grandfathers knee in 1960, as crowds outside his house called for his resignation. Now, like Kishi, he wants to change the postwar regime in Japan. What that means is to make the country strong and proud again.

The fealty to Grandpa Kishi is worrying for Japans neighbours. He was a member of the Japanese cabinet that declared war on America, and spent over three years in jail after Japans defeat as a suspected war criminal, although he was never charged. Between 1936 and 1939 he was the most senior bureaucrat in Manchukuo, the puppet state Japan set up after occupying Manchuria in north-east China.

The Japanese occupation also played a formative role in the life of the father of Park Geun-hye, the president-elect of South Korea. When Korea was a Japanese colony, Park Chung-hee joined the Manchukuo Imperial Army, and fought in Manchuria in the 1940s. The life of Kim Il Sung, grandfather of North Koreas juvenile despot, Kim Jong Un, is hard to disentangle from the myths built up around him. But he too fought in Manchuria, having earlier joined the anti-Japanese resistance and the Chinese Communist Party. And to complete a quartet of family wartime histories, Xi Zhongxun, father of Xi Jinping, Chinas new leader, was in the 1930s already a leading figure in the party, fighting the Japanese occupation, though from northwest China rather than in Manchuria.

After the war Xi rose to become a deputy prime minister, though like so many of Mao Zedongs comrades he and his family suffered during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. By then Kim Il Sung was firmly ensconced in Pyongyang, ceding power on his death in 1994 to his son, the present rulers father, Kim Jong Il. Park Chung-hee, meanwhile, switched to the army of the newly independent Republic of Korea, lived down his past as a collaborator, rose through the ranks, seized power in 1961 and ruled until his assassination in 1979. Before her election Ms Park disavowed her fathers authoritarianism. But that his rule saw a phenomenal economic boom, and that she is his daughter, was part of her appeal.
The most startling of the post-war life stories is that of Nobusuke Kishi. For one historian of the post-war period, Kishis remarkable rehabilitation made him the epitome of Japans pre-war and post-war political continuity

Japans failure, in other words, to perform a thorough political housecleaning after the war.That perceived failure is a constant source of friction with Japans neighbours. China sees evidence of it in Japans refusal to acknowledge the disputed status of the uninhabited Senkaku islands (Diaoyu to the Chinese). One Chinese spokesman has accused Japan of attempting to negate the outcome of the war.
Mr Abe campaigned for election as a man who would stand up to China, as Kishi would surely have wanted. Already, China is testing his mettle. This week his government had to summon the Chinese ambassador to complain about an unusually long visit to the islands waters by Chinese surveillance ships. An even more direct challenge to the accepted historical record would be any suggestion that Japan under Mr Abe might revoke a 20-year-old government statement admitting official involvement in the enslavement of women for sex during the countrys imperialist phase.

For now, Mr Abe is merely suggesting the statement should be reviewed.

In fact, Mr Abe has started this term in office, as he did his first short stint from 2006, by appearing quite conciliatory to Japans neighbours. It has been a slight relief both to them and to America, which, having a treaty obligation to defend Japan, is nervous about its spat with China. America has also been aghast at the deterioration in Japans relations with its other big ally, South Korea, over the Japaneseclaimed Dokdo (Takeshima) islands. The hope is that, as in 2006, the realities of office temper the nationalist zeal of the campaign trail. Or perhaps, as Michael Cucek, author of Shisaku, an astute blog on Japanese politics, has suggested, Mr Abe is biding his time until the election for the upper house of the Diet, or parliament, in July. In 2007 defeat in such an election helped end his first prime ministership.

Legacy issues
After all, Mr Abe has not been shy about his wish for radical nationalist reform to Japans pacifist constitution, to its security treaty with America and to the education system to bolster its patriotic content. If he makes progress, the graves of his father and grandfather will be duly honoured. But in China and Korea, where the suffering and humiliation of Japanese occupation remain vivid political issues, it would be taken as fresh evidence of Japans refusal to confront the past. And their leaders might feel their own forebears urging them to resist.