South Korea is open to a summit with Tokyo but demands Japan first take sincere steps on historical issues to create the right conditions for talks to produce substantial results, a spokesman for South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy on Thursday called on Japan and South Korea to mend their soured relations over a territorial dispute and different perceptions of history. “I think that the two countries really should and will take a lead in this process, and the United States, being a close ally of both of them, is happy to help in any way that we can,” Kennedy said in an interview aired by NHK.

First, there was the abrupt resignation of a president accused by governing party politicians of allowing an overly liberal tone to news coverage. Then, his newly appointed successor immediately drew public ire when he seemed to proclaim that he would loyally toe the line of the current conservative government.

On Sunday, January 19, the small city of Nago in northern Okinawa re-elected their mayor. Americans especially will wonder why a local election in a far-off place should matter. Because by voting for Mayor Susumu Inamine people voted against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the United States military. Local fishermen and farmers voted yes to their traditional way of life, no to American helicopters polluting the pristine waters of Oura Bay.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said China’s continued economic growth will require building trust, not tensions, with other countries, according to an interview broadcast on Sunday. A steady Chinese military buildup over the last 20 years is a serious concern for countries in the region, Abe said in a CNN interview from Davos, Switzerland, where tensions between Tokyo and Beijing were on display at the World Economic Forum last week.

It wasn't a reassuring moment. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, compared recent tensions between China and Japan to the rivalry between the British and German empires at the start of the 20th century.

Will Japan assert its own vision for East Asia, or will it continue simply to react to China? That will be the biggest question in 2014 for Tokyo as tensions with Beijing continue to mount. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to beef up military spending and enhance its longer-term security is a game-changer for the region, and while there is a chance the move will strengthen bilateral relations between Japan and the United States, it is unclear how this will impact Tokyo’s relations with Beijing.

Diplomats from China and Japan are invoking the evil Lord Voldemort from the bestselling "Harry Potter" series in their feud over the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo. China says the shrine, which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited recently, glorifies Japan's militaristic past.