Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said it is important for Japan and China to take a longer term perspective and work towards stabilising relations.
He made the point on Thursday during a dialogue session at an international conference in Tokyo where the issue of regional stability took centre stage.
Prime Minister Lee was the keynote speaker at the conference organised by Nikkei with the theme "The Future of Asia".
It was attended by politicians, business leaders and academics from the region.
Several questions raised during the dialogue session centred on the stability of Asia, with the rise of China and against the backdrop of an ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and China over the mineral-rich Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China sea.
Referring to Japan, PM Lee said: "As you cultivate ties with America and your security partnerships, it is also important to develop relations with China and with Korea, with other countries in the region.
"It's difficult to make dramatic moves now because your relations with China are currently on a rocky spot.
"But I think it's important to take a longer term perspective and work towards stabilising the relations and then over time, restoring them back to a normal and constructive path."
Mr Lee noted that every country in the region benefits from China's prosperity and progress.
But China, too, has to see it in its own interest to develop in a peaceful way, added Mr Lee.
He said: "I think their leaders understand this. If you watch what they say to themselves, they often remind themselves that it is necessary for China to be a benign power and not to repeat the mistakes of previous powers which have tried to succeed through force of arms."
Concerns were again raised over Japan's relations with its neighbours, which are fraught with historical baggage over what happened during World War Two.
The audience was captivated by the prime minister's stories of his own personal experience.
Mr Lee said: "Many years have passed. The strategic situation is completely different. The population who has grown up, it's a new generation, so it's not the same situation as before.
"In the case of Singapore, the first generation who lived through the war and the very, very difficult conditions when the Japanese invaded Singapore, they will never forget the experience.
"Every year on the anniversary of the fall of Singapore, February 15, old people go there to remember the relatives who died and they weep. So they will never forget it.
"My parents' generation never will forget it till the day they die because they lived through that and they know what it was.
"My generation didn't live through that but we know from our parents what it was like and their stories...if my father had been taken away, he would not have come back and I would not have been here today.
"My uncle - my mother's brother - was taken away, never came back. So these memories mean something.
"My children's generation, they don't have these memories, not even second-hand, maybe third-hand. So we've moved on and as a society we've moved on."
Mr Lee went on to say: "In the 1960s there was a period when we discovered the mass graves where the civilians had been massacred and buried in Singapore. There was an outcry.
"I remember the day because I saw them coming to dig up the graves, because it was next to my school.
"There was a big outcry. I think the Japanese government made an apology and donated some money and we built a memorial.
"So, between Singapore and Japan, the story is: the chapter is closed. Officially we have moved on and we've had very good relations between Singapore and Japan since then, in investments, trade, cooperation, many areas.
"I think, with other countries in Asia, you have not reached that point. Certainly, with China, you are nowhere near that point; with Korea, you have not reached that point.
"So, if you re-open old subjects - whether it's comfort women, whether it's aggression, whether there's an apology or no apology - well, it's your prerogative to do so.
"But you have to consider whether this will be helpful in the context of the relations with other Asian countries and whether it's the most important thing you want to do. But that's for Japan to decide."
On the back of renewed optimism in the Japanese economy, Mr Lee called on Japan to deepen its strategic engagement with Southeast Asia and the wider region.
He noted how Japan has been pre-occupied with domestic issues.
Citing Japan's free trade talks with ASEAN, Mr Lee said the investments and services chapters are still being negotiated, after 13 years.
In contrast, ASEAN concluded its FTA with China fairly quickly.
"Because you have not been able to develop an overall national Japanese perspective of what is in Japan's interest and make a decision in Japan's interest," said Mr Lee.
"The Chinese were able to do that and gain the goodwill from doing that, but in Japan it's much harder and the politics more complicated."
There was a note of confidence in Mr Lee's speech. He said countries are striving for prosperity and they're also working on creating new regional institutions to maintain a peaceful order, even as the strategic balance shifts.
So, the future is bright in Asia, said Mr Lee.
As part of his trip to Tokyo, Mr Lee also took the opportunity to meet business leaders as well as the Japanese Business Federation.
In the evening, Mr Lee attended a dinner hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for dignitaries attending the Nikkei Conference.
Speaking in Japanese at the dinner, Mr Abe pledged to lead the "re-birth" of his country so that it can once again be part of a dynamic Asia.
Mr Abe outlined some of his government's key principles, which include pursuing an open economy by joining multi-lateral economic partnerships.
On matters of the sea, he said Japan's position is that it should be governed by "laws and rules and not might".
Source: Channel News Asia
Editor's Note: A bit of background history on Mr Lee Kuan Yew for those of you who are interested in World War 2 History.
During the Japanese occupation, Lee Kuan Yew learnt Japanese and first worked as a clerk in his grandfather's friend's company—a textile importer called Shimoda. Lee then found work transcribing Allied wire reports for the Japanese where he listened to Allied radio stations and wrote down what they were reporting in the Hodobu office (報道部 – a Japanese propaganda department). Towards the end of the war, by listening to Allied radio stations, he realised the Japanese were going to lose, and fearing that a brutal war would break out in Singapore as the Japanese made their last stand, he made plans to purchase and move to a farm on the Cameron Highlands with his family. However, a liftboy in his office told him his file had been taken out by the security department, and he realised he was being followed by Japanese security personnel (which continued for three months), so he abandoned those plans as he knew that if he went ahead, he would be in trouble. Lee also ran his own businesses during the war to survive, among which, he manufactured stationery glue under his own brand called 'Stikfas'.
During the occupation, Lee was asked by a Japanese guard to join a group of segregated Chinese men. Sensing that something was amiss, he asked for permission to go back home to collect his clothes first, and the Japanese guard agreed. It turned out that those who were segregated were taken to the beach to be shot as part of the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore.
Source: Lee Kuan Yew The Man And His Ideas (1998). Singapore: Times Edition.