BEIJING (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s right wing leanings could doom a summit with Chinese leaders — or they could be the key to a rapprochement between the feuding Asian giants, analysts say.“Two years from now, we might look back on this and say ‘Look, he did a Nixon,”’ said Dutch Sinologist Willem van Kemenade, referring to former US President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to Beijing, which led seven years later to the opening of diplomatic relations.

Nixon, like Abe, was a conservative whose credentials let him take the politically risky step of engaging Beijing without drawing fire from anti-communists at home. “If any Japanese were to make a deal with China, it would be an ultraconservative like Abe,” said van Kemenade.

But the key to success will be whether Tokyo and Beijing have the political will to improve relations, a daunting challenge amid emotional disputes that range from their handling of wartime history to Tokyo’s campaign for a permanent UN Security Council seat and competing claims to offshore oil fields.

Zhu Feng, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Relations, doesn’t expect any breakthroughs. “I am not very optimistic about the outcome of this summit meeting,” Zhu said.

At stake are ties between two of the world’s biggest economies, which are linked by billions of dollars in trade and investment, plus common interests in such issues as North Korea’s nuclear programme. Abe is due to arrive in Beijing on Sunday to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the first summit between leaders of the two countries since 2001.

Japanese Foreign Ministry officials have tried to lower expectations, calling the meeting an occasion to build mutual understanding.

Abe is due to fly to South Korea on Monday to meet with President Roh Moo-hyun — the first time Roh has met with a Japanese leader in nearly a year. Abe says he wants the meetings with Chinese and South Korean leaders to produce a message demanding that North Korea abort its nuclear ambitions.

“It is important to discuss the situation and share our understanding with China and South Korea through talks with the leaders,” Abe said Friday. “I plan to deliver a message, with each leader, to demand North Korea to not conduct this outrage.”

Relations with China are at their lowest ebb in decades, mainly over visits by Japanese leaders to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japanese war dead, including convicted Second World War war criminals. “Beijing’s concern has actually been raised since Shinzo Abe was elected as the new prime minister,” Zhu said. “Japan’s trend is very worrying and Abe is a very firm conservative and very nationalistic.”

Hu has said the shrine visits are the main obstacle to better ties. Abe’s predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, enraged Beijing by visiting six times while in office, following through on campaign pledges. Abe made no such promises but has been ambiguous about whether he will visit the shrine. Analysts say that “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy might work at home, but it’s not clear whether China can accept it.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in announcing the summit last week that the two sides had “reached a consensus on overcoming political obstacles that affect bilateral relations” but gave no details.

Formal summits, once routine, haven’t happened since China stopped them five years ago to protest Koizumi’s shrine pilgrimages.

A Chinese president has not gone to Japan since Jiang Zemin’s visit in 1998. Jiang failed to get an official apology for Japan’s wartime occupation of China and spent the rest of his stay lecturing officials about history. Hu is likely to be more approachable than Jiang, who grew up under Japanese occupation, had “his personal memories of wartime and was very emotional” about the period, Zhu said.