Last November marked the centenary of Japan's parliamentary system. Yet politics has become a bad word in the country after a series of scandals involving senior politicians.

After two days, I saw that it was not enough to read history in books: I had to accept that I was part of it, and identify with the pain and joy of all human beings. I felt much more at peace after that.

The nine million readers of the Japanese paper, Yomiuri, read in June of how another Welsh war veteran was building bridges with Japan.

The exchange took place in the wake of Japan's Recruit corruption scandal and as events in China built up towards the massacre in Tiananmen Square.

Another African leader, General Joseph Lagu, former Vice-President of the Sudan, also took part. As a guerrilla leader in the bush, he fought against the Arab North in Sudan's first civil war.

Japan was an insignificant island nation in the Far East until she won the wars against China (1894-5) and Russia (1904-5). Then she began to be counted as one of the major world powers.

Our baby was four months old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and we were no longer undesirable aliens but enemies. The next four years were to be spent in a succession of internment camps.

`If the Japanese win, it is because they have a society that functions,' said one European executive.

They had jointly convened an initial round table conference on world trade conflicts the previous year.