Many Japanese Leaders Are Worried That Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Will Apologise At Pearl Harbor When He Visits Later This Month

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe walk in front of a cenotaph after they laid wreaths at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan May 27, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Business Insider/South China Morning Post: Japanese leaders are pressuring Shinzo Abe not to apologize for Pearl Harbor

Conservatives in Japan have reacted angrily to suggestions Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should use his visit to Pearl Harbour in late December to apologise for the attack that brought the US into the second world war.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday that Abe’s two-day visit to Hawaii from December 26 would be for “consoling the souls of the war dead, not for an apology,” but an editorial in the Asahi newspaper said the Japanese leader should use the occasion to “vow never to resort to the use of arms based on genuine remorse for rushing into a reckless war”.

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WNU Editor: The group that is pressuring Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to not apologize at Pearl Harbor also believe in this ....

.... the society has determined that China triggered the Sino-Japanese war in August 1937, there was no massacre of civilians in Nanking four months later and “comfort women” were willing and well-paid professional prostitutes. Equally, annexation of the Korean Peninsula was “inevitable” because the kingdom was unable to maintain its independence, while the Korean people flourished under benevolent Japanese rule.

When I lived and worked in Asia this Japanese position of denial on what they did (or did not do) during the Second World War just drove everyone else throughout the continent completely nuts (especially those in China, Korea, and the Philippines). This absurd position that many Japanese (even to this day) continue to hold onto has caused incredible damage to Japanese relations with everyone else in Asia. And even though the war ended 75 years ago .... the scars and bitterness do not only still remain .... but I predict will only intensify with time.