Yoichi Shimatsu is a free lance journalist based in Tokyo and former editor of the Japan Times Weekly.

TOKYO -- Japan's conservative politicians have been streaming to China's embassy here to pay their respects on the death of Deng Xiaoping. The tribute goes beyond recognition of his role in fostering economic reform. It includes that rare kind of admiration reserved for a man who outfoxed his foes at every turn.

The broader reaction to Deng's passing is quite subdued, in contrast to the public grief which greeted the deaths of Mao Zedong and Premier Chou En-lai. Mao and Chou were -- and are -- seen in Japan as heroes in the classic mold, both imbued with greatness and tragically flawed, who restored self-esteem to Asia and brought equality to its relationship with the West. Despite his reputation for innovation, Deng was basically viewed as a transitional figure, who continued, implemented and extended the economic and diplomatic policies crafted in the late-1960s and early 1970s, the era of normalization of relations between China, the United States and Japan.

Though Deng's widening of economic freedoms has received the lion's share of media attention, for Japan the changes in geopolitical relations he presided over will likely be more significant, specifically the revival of Asian-style economic diplomacy. Western analysts tend to speak of force, with terms such as regional power or superpower, engagement or containment. But the Asian experience offers a different model. which sees trade as a way to stabilize relationships and maintain the peace.

This tension between Asian and Western styles of trading may also play a role in the possible struggle between China's new class of managers against the privileged children of the party elite, who have benefited from the economic free for all. If the managers gain the upper hand and can fine-tune the tributary system, Deng's reforms may benefit more than 1 billion Chinese and lead to long-range benefits across Asia and the Pacific. If not, there could be chaos, possibly catastrophe.