Japan PM could chill China ties if bungles WW2 row

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - Outspoken Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso risks chilling ties with China and South Korea as the Asian neighbours grapple with the world financial crisis if he mishandles a domestic row over comments about World War Two.

Japan's opposition is hoping to use a furore over former air force general Toshio Tamogami's rejection of a landmark 1995 apology for wartime aggression by Tokyo to erode support for Aso ahead of an election that must be held by next September.

While Aso has said he backs the 1995 apology, a debate over wartime responsibility could be tricky for the prime minister, who has had links with an ultra-conservative lobby group and has made comments that appeared to whitewash Japan's often-brutal 1910-1945 colonisation of the Korean peninsula.

"Clearly, he is among the conservative elite who believe Japan fought a war of liberation and that colonialism in Korea was not such a bad thing," said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asia studies at Temple University's Japan campus. "His perspective on history is rather inconvenient at this moment."

Still, analysts expect Aso to steer a pragmatic course that limits friction with Beijing as well as Seoul to protect deep economic ties and avoid ruffling diplomatic feathers ahead of a planned December summit with Chinese and South Korea leaders.

"People realise relations with China are absolutely crucial and way too important to hold hostage to history," Kingston said.

"Aso would step on some real big toes if he took a strong nationalist stance."

Tamogami will testify in parliament on Tuesday after being fired last month over a published essay denying Japan was an aggressor in World War Two and rejecting the verdicts of an Allied military tribunal that convicted Japanese wartime leaders as war criminals. The trial ended 60 years ago on Wednesday.