Diplomacy can ease Japan's disaster pain

Japan issued its annual blue book on diplomacy on schedule - on April 1 - even though the country is still struggling to emerge from the devastating effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the threat of nuclear radiation they created.

The blue book shows the importance Japan attaches to diplomacy in its post-quake reconstruction. Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has pledged in the preface that he "would be devoted to diplomacy 'in order to overcome the difficult time and attain resurgence'" from what he calls "the greatest national crisis in the postwar period".

Although Matsumoto stops short of giving specifics, some political and opinion leaders from Japan and China took stock of the impact of the quake-tsunami-radiation (or triple disaster) on China-Japan relations at a meeting in Beijing on the same day that Japan issued its annual foreign policy statement. They met at the preparatory meeting for the 7th Beijing-Tokyo Forum, scheduled for late August. The forum is a platform for public diplomacy, organized by China Daily and Genron NPO, a Japanese nonprofit think tank.