The statement of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second World War was the focus of profound anticipation throughout Asia. The prime minister was in an extremely delicate position, seeking to balance the need to express contrition to Imperial Japan’s aggrieved neighbors against the robust demands to yield no ground from his nationalist domestic political base. These contradictory forces, not surprisingly, created a statement more memorable for its equivocation than for its eloquence. This was not a Willy Brandt kneeling at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial moment that would forever transform the narrative.
On the positive side, Abe did give assurances that such previous cabinet expressions of “deep remorse and apology” as the benchmark 1995 Murayama statement “will remain unshakable” in the future. The prime minister also expressed “profound grief” for the souls of those who perished at both home and abroad. Such words will be welcomed in Washington where the continued tensions over history between America’s two key allies in a region with a nuclear-armed North Korea and a rising and abrasive China is a cause for increasing concern. Above all, Washington wants its allies to cooperate as team players despite any past grievances.
