When Japan’s Democratic party swept to power in 2009, it had high hopes of bringing warmth and stability to the nation’s long-strained relations with China.
Before his election, Yukio Hatoyama, the DPJ’s professorial first prime minister, published an essay condemning “US-led market fundamentalism” and said Japan should work toward political integration in an “East Asian Community” with China and other neighbours.
In a sign of the importance he put on Beijing’s goodwill, Mr Hatoyama braved the wrath of conservatives to cast aside standard protocol and arranged at exceptionally short notice an imperial audience for Xi Jinping, then China’s Communist party heir-apparent and now its leader.
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