The photo posted on Akie Abe’s Facebook account on August 22, showing her paying her respects at the USS Arizona Memorial to the victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is worth far more than the proverbial thousand words. This was the first visit to the site by the wife of a Japanese prime minister, and no prime minister has ever visited the attack site. (There was speculation in 2009 that the emperor and empress would go to Pearl Harbor during an official visit to Hawaii, but palace officials reportedly vetoed the idea.)
At a time of some alliance uncertainty, amid rising security concerns over a nuclear-armed North Korea and an increasingly abrasive China, Mrs. Abe’s gesture is timely indeed. It comes just when America and its Pacific allies need to begin to heal the still festering wounds of a long ago conflict in order to meet the security challenges of a new century.
When asked about Mrs. Abe’s unannounced two-hour visit, which included the laying of flowers and a handshake with a Pearl Harbor survivor, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga claimed, according to the Japan Times, that Mrs. Abe “was acting in a private capacity before attending a forum on maritime environment in Hawaii.” He added that her visit had “no bearing on whether the prime minister will visit the memorial.” There had been speculation in the Nikkei economic newspaper in May that Prime Minister Abe might go to Pearl Harbor on the upcoming December 7 anniversary of the attack in order to reciprocate President Obama’s late-May visit to Hiroshima. Abe did visit the World War II Memorial on the National Mall last year but didn’t stop in Hawaii en route to Washington.
In general, Mrs. Abe does not hesitate to go where her husband, out of concern over a backlash from his right-wing supporters, apparently fears to tread. A former radio disc jockey, she is known for outspoken views, at times in conflict with those of her husband. This has earned her the popular nickname of “domestic opposition party.” However, it would seem just as implausible to assert that Mrs. Abe was not representing her husband in visiting a memorial as it would be to claim the American first lady were not doing so in analogous circumstances.
In fact, Mrs. Abe’s symbolic gesture comes only weeks after her husband reignited concerns over his revisionist views on World War II by appointing to his cabinet the virulently anti-Korean Tomomi Inada as defense minister. Inada, notoriously, has doubted the reality of the Nanking massacre, the Imperial Japanese Army’s forcing of tens of thousands of Korean women into sexual slavery, and other Japanese war atrocities. The appointment of the controversial Ms. Inada was seen as a setback to the recently improved defense cooperation between America’s two major East Asian allies, Japan and South Korea. Akie Abe, by contrast, is a Koreaphile, known as a big fan of certain South Korean pop culture “Hallyu” actors and a speaker of Korean.
Recent events have made Mrs. Abe’s gesture of reconciliation to her country’s main ally even more timely. Even as she posted the Facebook photo of her Pearl Harbor visit, China was reportedly lashing out at Japan. According to RT, “Beijing warned Tokyo of a harsh response if it ever crossed a ‘red line’ in deciding to sail with U.S. warships near disputed waters surrounding China’s artificially reclaimed islands under the pretext of the Freedom of Navigation principle.” The Chinese ambassador to Japan had delivered this belligerent message on the eve of the Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling last month on the South China Sea. Meanwhile, CNN reported that Pyongyang has threatened a nuclear strike that could turn South Korea into “a heap of ashes” if the United States and South Korea “show the slightest sign of aggression” during a scheduled annual joint military exercise.
Given continued Chinese belligerency and nuclear saber-rattling by North Korea, the adage of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin that “we must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately” seems to apply to the current situation for the United States and its Asian allies. Akie Abe, by her courageous gesture of going to Pearl Harbor to help heal an old wound, has emerged as a key peacemaker among three allies—Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul—who must stick together in the challenging times ahead.
Dennis P. Halpin is a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS (Johns Hopkins) and a consultant for the Poblete Analysis Group.
