Japan has never had a prime minister like Junichiro Koizumi: so defiant of the bureaucratic and political old guard; so decisive on national security; so prominent on the world stage; so close to the US president and so popular that he lasted more than five years and probably could have stayed on another five had he been so inclined. It is no wonder that pundits in Japan and abroad looked somewhat sceptically as his political protégé, 52-year-old Shinzo Abe, took power in September. But in his first month in office, Mr Abe has demonstrated a similar kind of panache to Mr Koizumi's, mixed with a strategic realpolitik that Henry Kissinger might applaud.

Mr Abe's first move was to pull a surprise "Nixon goes to China" visit to Beijing to meet President Hu Jintao. Mr Hu had said he would not meet Mr Koizumi until he promised not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial to Japan's war dead, that includes 14 Class A war criminals from the second world war. Mr Koizumi visited the shrine anyway and passed on the summit with Mr Hu. Recognising the futility of his own approach and worried about the danger of anti-Japanese protests turning against the Chinese government, Mr Hu wisely chose not to demand the same condition of Mr Abe. Mr Abe, in turn, wisely chose not to promise that he would go to the shrine as Mr Koizumi had. With ambiguity re-established, Mr Abe was able to meet Mr Hu and reorient the Sino-Japanese dialogue towards more important challenges, such as cooperating to roll back North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes.