EAST Asia’s old war wounds have yet to heal. In early September China will hold a huge military parade in Beijing to commemorate the second world war’s end in 1945 and remember the estimated 15m Chinese who died during the Japanese invasion and occupation of China from 1937-45. This is the first time that China has observed the war’s anniversary with a military show. The symbolism will not be lost on its East Asian neighbours, and may unsettle them. The Communist Party believes that China’s resisting Japanese aggression, and all the bravery and suffering that attended it, deserves greater recognition. It also believes that the sacrifice should give China a greater say in how Asia is run in future. Part of that claim rests on painting Japan as a dangerous power even now. It is an absurd notion. Japan’s soldiers have not fired a shot in anger since 1945. The country’s population is ageing, shrinking and largely pacifist.

China and Japan today are the world’s second- and third-biggest economies. Their post-war development has been startling. Japan’s period of hothouse growth ran from the 1960s to the 1980s, after which growth slowed markedly with the bursting of a huge bubble in financial assets. Growth in China did not get going until market reforms in the late 1970s. Even China’s sizzling pace of growth never matched Japan’s earlier period. But it has touched every part of the globe. In dollar terms, China’s economy overtook Japan’s two years ago, though average household income remains much lower in China than Japan.

Politically East Asia remains a fissured region. The Taiwan Strait and the border between North and South Korea continue to be potential flashpoints. And then there is China’s dispute over the Japan-controlled Senkaku (or Diaoyu) islands. For future peace, China’s behaviour will count for much.