Time for Asian leaders to step in

IF it is "better to jaw jaw than to war war", as Winston Churchill suggested, then perhaps we should be reassured by all the mutual jawboning going on between Japan and China. The trouble is that they are talking "at" rather than "to" each other and it is more of a slanging match than a dialogue.

This tirade-trading could result, if not in an outbreak of "war" between Asia's two most important political and economic powers, then certainly in an accidental confrontation, and that could lead to wider conflict. Asia, and indeed the world, have been happy to ignore verbal and - occasionally - physical incidents which have been growing in number between Japan and China. "They would never go to war; they depend too much upon each other" has been the convenient fiction.

Yet, even Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reminded journalists in Davos last week that World War I broke out despite the strong economic relationship between Britain and Germany at the time. Equally disturbing were comments made last week by the commander of US forces in the Pacific, Samuel Locklear, who said that "the calculation of risk can grow" when major powers have a disagreement but are not talking to each other.