By Heo Mane
It is time for Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to immediately dismiss Toshio Tamogami, the Air Self-Defense Force chief of staff who boldly denied in his essay last month that Japan was not an aggressor during World War II.
The essay aimed at glorifying Japan's colonial rule of Korea and other Asian countries from the beginning of the 20th century until August 1945. It caused strong indignation among many people who suffered from colonialism.
The presentation of the essay came at a terribly bad moment. Leaders in Northeast Asia have recently agreed to stop the bleeding from the global financial crisis, which is now spilling into the real economy.
It is, on the other hand, a disaster that leaders and intellectuals in Northeast Asia have long failed to lead integration in this part of the world
Thoughtful political leadership is badly needed, not only to push for regional integration but also to crystallize a regional identity.
This has been put into gear over the past half a century in efforts to make postwar Europe a coherent, peaceful, and mutually prosperous region in a consistent regional integration process.
However, optimism and pessimism and upturns and downturns have overlapped. Nevertheless, many leaders and intellectuals have been united to continue the regional integration movement, which has yielded the longest-ever peace in Asia, and an ever more peaceful Europe.
More positive factors are necessary for Northeast Asian integration than negative ones. First and foremost, countries there have Confucianism and Buddhism in common, although there are differences in both influences and practices of the two systems throughout Korea, Japan, and China.
Peoples in the three nations have shared a common culture in their daily lives and behavior. Sharing this common culture today, however, will not allow China to play a central role as it did in China-dominated times, while preventing Korea and Japan from pushing into cultural superiority. A common culture is likely to be a great engine to move toward regional integration.
Secondly, the emerging economies in the three countries have already developed solid economic structures which are capable of impacting the global economic, financial and stocks markets on the one hand, and politics and diplomacy on the other.
China in particular has emerged as the most dynamic player in trade and finance. The trade volume in Northeast Asia reached 14.5 percent of the world total in 2007, while East Asia occupied about 20 percent.
This indicates that Northeast Asia is approaching a stage of functional integration based on its economic and financial sectors. When thoughtful political leadership is applied to this stage, it should reach a stage of neo-functional integration.
Thirdly, with the stage maturing in the days ahead, Korea, China, and Japan will enter into a much closer network, which will not be easily separated. Economic and financial cooperation will be expanded to a more interdependent level of cooperation, overcoming the current global financial crisis.
Korea's proposal to create an Asian Monetary Fund worth $80 billion is a good case in point. Korea, Japan and China, with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have agreed to work more closely on financial matters and simultaneously create an independent market surveillance network. This is thoughtful political leadership capable of coping with the global financial crisis at a regional level.
With a mature and thoughtful political leadership, leaders in the region can more rapidly approach political cooperation aiming to seek political solutions to long-lasting territorial disputes. Coupled with these solutions, they can more readily reach an agreement to create peace and lasting security.
A regional security organization supported by the three nations will certainly help to hammer out an agreement. They are most likely, through this security channel, to make North Korea halt its nuclear development ambitions and return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Later, they can consider making the channel a Helsinki type agreement for security and cooperation in Northeast Asia.
Fourth, a mature and thoughtful political leadership must serve to rectify the perception of false history in the region, which has long plagued the peoples of the three states and retarded closer and stronger cooperation at the cultural and diplomatic level.
In this light, China must voluntarily backtrack on its controversial research program, the ``Northeastern Project,'' in which Chinese historians claimed that the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryeo belonged to China. And Japan must stop claiming that South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo are Japanese territory.
If the sacked Japanese air force chief had had the correct perception of the history of Japanese colonialism and its wartime atrocities, as well as the inhuman suffering of the Korean and Chinese people, he would not have come up with such an unfounded essay.
Last but not least, the perception of hegemony should be discarded. The increasing level of economic and financial integration will not let it work in any form. China and Japan need no longer think of hegemony, because both are in a closely connected network on multiple levels.
Korea is emerging to mitigate and obstruct the thinking of hegemony among the three at a time of necessity. Given this regional situation, the raging nationalism among the three peoples must be tamed and become thoughtful.
A continued strong perception of hegemony and nationalism yields evil rather than good. I assert that mature and thoughtful political leadership by the leaders of the three nations will certainly serve to promote the common good. This is the right way to Northeast Asian integration.
The writer is a professor emeritus at Pusan National University in Busan. He is also president of the Korea-EU Center.