Getting the economy back on track would be Kan’s top most priority. Kan views ties with the US as the core of Japan’s foreign policy, though he also greatly values the relationship with China.

To gain the trust of Seoul and Beijing, the DPJ government plans to present a bill in the Diet for granting the right of franchise to foreign nationals registered as permanent residents, a majority of whom are South Korean and Chinese.

The appropriate option for the Hatoyama government would be to take incremental steps aimed at building greater confidence and trust amongst Asian nations across a number of policy fronts rather than indulge in advancing grand ideas which appear at the moment unachievable.

On the invitation of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso paid an official visit to China on April 29-30. This was Aso’s first official visit to China since he took office in September 2008. Aso’s visit is significant in more than one way. Being the first between leaders of the two countries in 2009, it was important as it came after a number of exchanges of high level visits in 2008. Aso’s visit was expected to advance China-Japan strategic relations further.

Sino-Japanese relations were in the doldrums for the past decade because of the repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine by former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. One consequence was a complete freeze in mutual visits at the highest political levels between 2001 and 2006. Even exchanges at other levels were affected. The ice was broken in 2006 when Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe visited China, and the ice began to thaw when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan in 2007.

Wen Jiabao's three-day visit to Japan starting on April 11, 2007 was the first visit by a Chinese Premier in seven years. It has been hailed as an 'ice-melting' visit, distinguishing it from the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's 'ice-breaking' visit to China in October 2006. Though the visit did not bring about any fundamental change in Sino-Japanese relations, it did strike a new chord by enabling the relationship to be viewed from a strategic and long-term perspective. For the first time, a visit did not focus squarely on the history issue.

It is no exaggeration to state that Sino-Japanese relations are currently going through a phase of renewal and revival. Reflecting current sentiments that seek to build an optimistic future, Wen Jiabao became the first Chinese leader to visit Japan since 2000. Wen's visit follows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's surprise visit to China in October 2006, which was unfortunately overshadowed by the North Korean nuclear test.

China and Japan issued a joint communiqué in Beijing on October 8 during the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's first foreign visit, vowing to promote strategic relations between the two countries in the coming years. Both Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Abe hailed the visit as a positive turning point in Sino-Japanese relations. Abe's visit to China is politically important since it is the first meeting between the leaders of the two countries in the past five years.

On August 15, 2006, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement strongly protesting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's latest visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. Koizumi’s six consecutive visits since he took office in April 2001 have chilled Sino-Japanese relations, making the issue a major stumbling block in the smooth development of relations. The souring of Sino-Japanese relations over the last few years has been a result of the complex enmeshing of two broad issues: history and power shift.