The author, 67, is former ambassador to Korea and France, and currently a special visiting professor at Aoyama Gakuin University and a committee member of the Asahi Shimbun Asia Network.

Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, visited Japan four times during the 1910s and '20s.

About the same time, Sun Wen, the father of the Chinese revolution, criticized the Japanese, saying that they were regarding the convenience of materialistic culture as the nucleus of civilization. He said that the core of Western culture Japan should adopt is not in technology but the idea of democracy. Moreover, he said, Japan should break through its colonialism by following the "rule by virtue" route, or by the spirit of Asia based on the democratic idea, without taking the course of "military rule" of imperialistic inroads into Asia.

The idea of democracy as referred to above was inherited in a slightly different form by Jawaharlal Nehru of India. In his work "The Discovery of India," Nehru said that if economic and social progress is to be rated as important, Japan has been more successful in its occupation of Manchuria and its governing of Korea than the British rule of India. But, the question is, Nehru asserted, to what extent have the people's rights been respected?

Lu Xun, one of the representative writers of modern China, also had his say from the standpoint of the common Chinese people. In his essay in Japanese, "Mr. Kongzi (Confucius) in Contemporary China," Lu said in part to the following effect:

Mr. Kongzi, indeed, devised ways of ruling a very difficult country. But, they are all for controlling the people, or the ideas in the interests of those in power, and none of them has been devised at all for the people's sake.

Today, China and India are the focus of global attention, as the French newspaper Le Monde carried an editorial entitled "Chindia," a portmanteau neologism that refers to China and India together in general. China and India, for sure, have been progressing remarkably, and their relationship is showing a notable improvement. However, that is just a result in the name of "economic success" of the two countries. The two countries are presently taking pride in the "results by the name of success," as Tagore described in the book referred to earlier.

However, what is the "spirit" that these two countries are sharing and realizing in specific forms that transcend their "economic success"?

If Tagore, Sun Wen and Nehru were alive today, I presume they would dare criticize their own countries, which, as nuclear-have nations, are moving toward expanding their military capability, wouldn't they?

What countries are realizing today the "spirit" of Asia they once advocated? And, what significance does such a spirit have today?

From the point of view of Japan, it could be, as some people say, a spirit of human coexistence with nature. Or, it could be to attach importance to the harmony in human relationships. Today, the spirit of coexistence between the natural environment and human activity is certainly becoming more and more important because the problem of global warming is becoming more serious and the question of a shortage of water resources is emerging as a matter of grave concern. In the world today where we can see no signs of ceasing terrorist activities and racial conflicts, it would not be too much to repeatedly emphasize the importance of the spirit of harmony. However, if a call is made to China and India for sharing such a value today, it would not be effective in actuality, putting aside reason, at least for the time being, because these countries are now suffering from serious social problems and internal splits.

Rather, the spirit the political leaders of Asia should have in common at present may be a "virtue" in the present-day sense, that is, ethics for the internal restraining of power. It looks as if the general public's awareness of the "virtue" of leaders, or the necessities for self-restraint, is getting thinner, while political leaders as well are losing genuine humbleness and "virtue." This is because the restraining of power institutionally has been excessively emphasized, apparently influenced by the Western concept of democracy. The spirit essential for Asia must be an idea that will make such an internal restraint take root within those in power. And, that is the very spirit of Asia which supplements institutional democracy.